Unknown?
Member
They aren't Sony owned though
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Deviation Games Has Shut Down - Ex CoD Devs, Were Creating New IP for PlayStation
- Thread starter Thick Thighs Save Lives
- Start date
Bumblebeetuna
Member
Could the game be almost done? Layoffs and firings are not uncommon once a project is nearly done.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
And we at Deviation Games will start working on the game after we've wasted all our time and money at summer camps and pubbing.
Working 9-5 isn't in our blood. That's not being a Deviator.
Draxon Gamer
Banned
Have they done anything before?
Baki
Member
Studio is only 3 years old, there's been no teasers and reveals, makes me think that it's unlikely that the layoffs are due to the project being complete and close to shipping.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
TBH both of those sound more to my tastes than the action shooter, so it's not a big loss in that regard.
Yep, astute conclusion. Interesting it does also seem to signal they're scaling back on the amount of live-service games. Maybe instead of 10-12 they are looking to start with 3-5 and make sure they're really good and have the financial support behind them to expand and adjust depending on how they do in the market.
TBH the issue with RedFall seems like it was on the way to being one sort of game, but then when MS stepped in forced the game to become something else and only with a two-year timeline to change it to whatever taste they were looking for to satiate "Xbox, PC and Game Pass".
There's probably an earlier build of RedFall with very different gameplay compared to what we got, that will leak some day in the future.
Baki
Member
I don't think they are scaling back their live service funding, I think they still plan to launch 10-12 live-service games, but they're not going launch 12 for the sake of launching 12. They'll launch 12 games that reach their internal bar of quality.
This is an interesting time for PS Studios. We haven't seen the true impact of Hermen's leadership yet. The games they've launched (GOW, GT7, Horizon) were either established IP, with established teams, or games that were greenlit by Shu (Returnal, Destruction All-Stars etc...). We'll only be able to judge Hermen's capability based on PS Studios launching successful new IP or delivering stellar games from new teams. Hermen has big shoes to fill. Shu & Layden hit it out of the park in the PS4 generation by launching 5 20M selling games (TLOU, Uncharted, GoW, Horizon, Spiderman) & 2 10M sellers (Ghost of Tsushima, GT: Sport) and 3 5M+ sellers (Death Stranding, Days Gone, Detroit).
El Pistolero
Banned
The project is either dead, or will take much longer to produce...
Explains the silence surrounding it...
Most probably cancelled, unless the studio heads decide to pivot...but then again, would Sony re-invest still?
I feel for the developers...Hope they all land on their feet.
Explains the silence surrounding it...
Most probably cancelled, unless the studio heads decide to pivot...but then again, would Sony re-invest still?
I feel for the developers...Hope they all land on their feet.
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feynoob
Member
Redfall issue existed before MS purchase and Bethesda was chasing the co-op trend.
Also why people are bringing these stuff?
It's normal for studios to have situations like these. They aren't owned by big companies, and the risk of big projects results in situations like this.
We only hear about successful companies with their big first launch, but not those companies who dispand after 2-4 years due to situations like these.
Baki
Member
Yep. Dead or needs to go back to the drawing board.
Yep. Its very common.
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{insert code here}
Member
I bet these were all the... [“does this look right? "... *hands over screen with inaccurate ChatGPT prompt*] people.
Even for you, this is ludicrous. Lmao
MS is being raked over the coals for being hands-off, and you’re here pushing a silly theory that they pivoted the game 3 years after development started and one year to planned release.
Lol @ ‘two year timeline’. The game was targeted at a 2022 release date as near as E3 2021. At least try to make these things pass basic plausibility tests.
reinking
Gold Member
Glad you shed some light on who the real victims are. I hope MS can recover from the Deviation Games layoffs.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
for deviation did.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
they just got fired.
Maxwell Jacob Friedman
leads to fear. Fear leads to xbox.
They saw a shitty game and pulled funding, News at 11
Maxwell Jacob Friedman
leads to fear. Fear leads to xbox.
More like they saw a shitty game and cut funding, instead of realeasing a broken, 30fps whilst lying to influencers mess
ReBurn
Gold Member
That's kind of creepy
ProtoByte
Member
It really doesn't seem like setting up a new studio making AAA games is a viable thing anymore. Not to say it never works out, but I can't count the number of "ex-[insert prolific studio] devs" studios that have started over the last 5 years with absolutely 0 output and nothing close to being delivered in the near future.
octiny
Banned
So much horse shit in this post.
You're becoming TheLastWord, just without the continuous dots.
Fucking embarrassing.
GHound
Member
What's a little misinformation to get the narrative spinning? lol
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
I tried Googling this but couldn't find anything. I see they're only hiring for the two games you listed (multiplayer action, dark narrative) right now. As of April 2022 and June 2022 they were hiring for a "multiplayer shooter".
Seems like it could be cancelled or it's near completion? What's your source for it being cancelled?
TransTrender
Gold Member
Yup.90 layoffs already? Studio hasnt even made one game yet.
By the way check out their website. What a load of pretentious junk. They also seem to care more about hanging out and partying than making games.
They do sell product. Deviation Games soccer jerseys.
Deviation Games – Let's build a community together.
www.deviationgames.com
Literally this.
I got the info from a Fandom Wiki because the main page was too slow.
They have a great front desk tho.
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Starting a studio and building a AAA game from scratch takes longer than 5 years.
Mibu no ookami
Member
I had mentioned that Blundell leaving was a really bad sign and people kind of shrugged that off at the time.
They've also largely had a hiring freeze. I noticed a week or two ago they had removed all job listings from their site. This at a time where they should be ramping up. They'd also been hiring a bunch of people who had little to no experience, meaning they were having difficulty recruiting.
This could be a reset, but most likely the game was canceled by Sony and they had no choice but to basically cut 70 percent of the staff.
People are blaming Sony, but the reality is, no one has seen the game, but they have. Sony has to be REALLY smart about the resources they are putting into games right now, especially if they want to acquire more studios. Sony Bend and Media Molecule are likely on the chopping block as well. You've got to keep operating costs down and if you want to prioritize games that are going to be 80s and 90s, you have to look at games that are going to be 60s and 70s as early as possible and cut ties.
This is what Microsoft SHOULD have done with Redfall, but they got to a point where they'd put too much money into it not to recoup something from it.
They've also largely had a hiring freeze. I noticed a week or two ago they had removed all job listings from their site. This at a time where they should be ramping up. They'd also been hiring a bunch of people who had little to no experience, meaning they were having difficulty recruiting.
This could be a reset, but most likely the game was canceled by Sony and they had no choice but to basically cut 70 percent of the staff.
People are blaming Sony, but the reality is, no one has seen the game, but they have. Sony has to be REALLY smart about the resources they are putting into games right now, especially if they want to acquire more studios. Sony Bend and Media Molecule are likely on the chopping block as well. You've got to keep operating costs down and if you want to prioritize games that are going to be 80s and 90s, you have to look at games that are going to be 60s and 70s as early as possible and cut ties.
This is what Microsoft SHOULD have done with Redfall, but they got to a point where they'd put too much money into it not to recoup something from it.
Mibu no ookami
Member
We don't know what deviation was working on really, but the plan was put into place pre-bungie. It's very likely that Sony saw what they had and it wasn't nearly as good as what Bungie or others are doing and so rather than cannibalize sales over duplication, they said cancel the game or reset it with a different theme.
Really you don't want to put out more than 2 or 3 fps max. 4 would be a huge stretch and that gets a little more dicey if you have a 3rd person shooter like SOCOM as well.
When Sony announced they were buying Firewalk but not Deviation Games (who probably would have been easier to buy) the writing was on the walls for Deviation Games.
Mibu no ookami
Member
They probably called on all teams to submit content for the PlayStation showcase and teams that couldn't or the content was lackluster were given the boot. Hence why this is all happening at the same time and so close to the rumored week of May 25th.
Building a CoD competitor would likely cost 400 million to a billion dollars... if this game had nothing to show for it after 3 years... that's a bridge too far.
Topher
Gold Member
Pretty much what I think as well.
StealthGoblin
Banned
If Final Strike’s game and this game are one and the same then it’s been cancelled.
Mibu no ookami
Member
Sean Decker was hired as VP of live services a week ago too. A position they posted 7 months ago.
Sony's definitely not happy with how things are going with GaaS at the moment, but are getting serious about them.
Sony's definitely not happy with how things are going with GaaS at the moment, but are getting serious about them.
ProtoByte
Member
It was really convenient for Blundell to jump ship not long after they got their kushty deal with Sony.They Saw Sony money and stopped giving a shit likely. Well there is the.
Even Haven Studios had enough to get Sony to purchase them. Imagine losing to Jade Raymond in timely deliverables.
True. But that 5 years was a conservative number, and while it's one thing to take longer than 5 years to get up running and release a game, there really doesn't seem to be an end in sight for almost any of the projects some of these studios pitched.
Mibu no ookami
Member
There are other considerations you have to make there.
Jade Raymond and Haven gave them the ability to incorporate in Canada and start recruiting Canadian talent. They need to have offices in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. It's been a big miss for Sony not to have offices there.
With Deviation Games, it was one of many California-based studios.
ProtoByte
Member
At the very least, it indicates that they're not so craven for live service stuff as to force a project through when it's not working - and yes, I do think it's cancelled. Between this, Blundell's leaving, and Deviation being the only one of the 3 studios Sony partnered with for this live service initiative not to get purchased, they must've really shit the bed.
Isn't FireSprite's MP shooter also cancelled? By rumor, at least?
Honestly, that should be Sony's philosophy irrespective of MP, SP or whatever. It is a good sign that they don't throw that to the wind just because they have 0.001% chance of "being the next such and such" in the live service space.
ProtoByte
Member
There's that, and I also think Haven is setting up virtual workspace infrastructure that'll be useful to Sony live service wise.
But if their game itself was in similarly poor shape, there would be nothing stopping Sony from downsizing the studio to a technical support team. Might have to wait a week or two but so far, we've not heard about layoffs at Haven.
StealthGoblin
Banned
Deviation had a Canada studio as well.
Maybe they expanded too quickly and the quality didn’t keep up.
Yeah I think people forget this is a business where investors are trying to make billion dollar returns. The internal quality control is ramping up - the standard of games has to be high to hit these numbers. I think it's going to result in better games in 5 years but it's going to be tough for people that don't have the best of the best in leadership positions.
abacab driver
Banned
Worst take on GAF I've seen all year so far.
You deserve an award for this beauty.
demigod
Member
You tried to console war and failed miserably.Completely clueless that you simply don't get it...
It’s best to kill it early than being Redfalled.
Yah def looks like Sony pulled out, can’t have had faith in how it was shaping up, so without funding deviation let everyone go.
Sony do do cycles of spring cleaning periodically. Followed by or whilst expanding. Between this and pixel opus it looks like we’re in a cleaning house cycle.
Sony do do cycles of spring cleaning periodically. Followed by or whilst expanding. Between this and pixel opus it looks like we’re in a cleaning house cycle.
Ronin_7
Member
I think at least 2/3 were already canned.
Safe bets that should ship:
Naughty Dog
Firewalk
Haven
Those are the safe bets so at least 3 should ship (not including Bungie).
Unsure or likely will get canned:
London Studio
Media Molecule
Those 2 Studios might be dead by 2028.
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
Mibu no ookami
Member
It was a satellite office and they already had Haven.
StealthGoblin
Banned
I believe the general plan was to have that be a co-development studio like Insomniac have (they are across two sites).
This game did seem like it was going to be Sony’s big attempt at making a big budget shooter again from the ground up with lots of modes etc. To the surprise of no-one, making a COD competitor is hard.
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Black_Stride
do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Why do people believe in Haven Studios so much?
Mibu no ookami
Member
Because Sony made the decision to acquire them.
SlicedBread3
Member
I don't know. If games needing to score 80s and 90s is the concern then they might think twice about just shutting down MM.
LittleBigPlanet: 95
LittleBigPlanet 2: 91
Tearaway: 87
Dreams: 89
Not to mention LBP is probably the closest they've ever gotten to a GAAS success.
Mibu no ookami
Member
I think while Media Molecule gets rave reviews, they haven't put out a financially successful game in a long time.
Dreams and LBP have GaaS written all over it, but it seems like the studio is struggling to creation a monetization model. I firmly believe that is why the founder of the company is out. We'll see what their future holds as a result.
Varteras
Gold Member
The thing with them is that they have quite a legacy already. Not only in creating games with high critical praise with every project they've done, but they have also been awarded a number of times. Including a BAFTA fellowship with their current studio director. Which Sacred Symbols pointed out is a big deal. They speculated that may be one of the reasons why Media Molecule wasn't just shut down after Dreams was an obvious commercial failure after an entire generation in development.
But a number of the leads on that project, including three of the four studio founders themselves, are all gone now. Coincidentally, or not, AFTER Dreams released. So that may have been the price to pay for that disaster.
Their next game is said to be a live service multiplayer game. Which fits into Sony's strategy. Unless Media Molecule fails to hit milestones in development, Sony is probably giving them more rope. Their history of creating great games probably gives Sony confidence that whatever they create will be very good. Not to mention they are probably under a lot of pressure to deliver this time after being indulged for basically a decade with no money to show for it.
To be honest, this may be the best thing to happen to them. Personally, I got the impression that the guys running that place were being a bit pretentious. A little too wrapped up in the idea of being artists and not enough on creating something that a lot of people would actually enjoy. But that's just me.