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[Ozriel]

Many of you must work in truly miserable places. Because most half-decent places try to at least make some effort at work-life balance programs and away days.
People getting triggered at Deviation staff doing a tug-of-war should better not visit the careers page of Nintendo of America, Sony Santa Monica, Insomniac and pretty much every other successful studio.

None of this negatively impacts the ability of any team or studio to deliver quality products.

Weird how some of you can claim that the studio was terribly ran and did nothing for years and yet the founder(s) and a decent chunk of the studio still got hired by Sony.

 

[Zathalus]

This anger that some people here have at companies that offer perks like recreational activities, nice offices, free lunches, and other benefits is completely bizzare. Companies want to attract top tier talent and advertising activities and perks on the website is one way of doing it. A company that can't offer basic shit like that is not worth working for.

This company failed for a myriad of reasons and I can almost guarantee you none of them were due to tug of war or free lunches.

 

[Hudo]

Bungie deserves it more...

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Many of you must work in truly miserable places. Because most half-decent places try to at least make some effort at work-life balance programs and away days.
People getting triggered at Deviation staff doing a tug-of-war should better not visit the careers page of Nintendo of America, Sony Santa Monica, Insomniac and pretty much every other successful studio.

None of this negatively impacts the ability of any team or studio to deliver quality products.

The front page of their site is partying and selling soccer jerseys. Most jobs and companies are work first, having fun and goofing in company activity days second. As odd as it seems, they even have a company store up and running selling Deviation tshirts and baseball caps for $15.

It sure didnt help Deviation. They didn't even release one game.

Less bowling, more programming and business acumen.

This anger that some people here have at companies that offer perks like recreational activities, nice offices, free lunches, and other benefits is completely bizzare. Companies want to attract top tier talent and advertising activities and perks on the website is one way of doing it. A company that can't offer basic shit like that is not worth working for.

This company failed for a myriad of reasons and I can almost guarantee you none of them were due to tug of war or free lunches.

The vast majority of companies and industries in the world dont do this to attract talent. And they do fine. If a company needs to promote fun days and free swag as their main focus on their home page to get talent to notice, they are attracting the wrong kind of people. Most people just want a decent job, decent pay, and it's not too far from home where you can hopefully avoid commuting across town in gridlock. If anyone puts activity days and free perks as the drivers of their career choice, they might as well work on a golf course or amusement park.

 

[Ozriel]

The front page of their site is partying and selling soccer jerseys. Most jobs and companies are work first, having fun and goofing in company activity days second. As odd as it seems, they even have a company store up and running selling Deviation tshirts and baseball caps for $15.

It sure didnt help Deviation. They didn't even release one game.

Less bowling, more programming and business acumen.

They were a new studio that hadn’t made a game yet, looking to lure quality talent. You think they could have made a sales pitch on high salaries, instead?

Selling stuff helped to raise money. The studio needed money. That’s all there is to this.

The vast majority of companies and industries in the world dont do this to attract talent. And they do fine. If a company needs to promote fun days and free swag as their main focus on their home page to get talent to notice, they are attracting the wrong kind of people. Most people just want a decent job, decent pay, and it's not too far from home where you can hopefully avoid commuting across town in gridlock. If anyone puts activity days and free perks as the drivers of their career choice, they might as well work on a golf course or amusement park.

you say this like there isn’t a screening process to ensure the recruits that they take are talented enough to make games.

 

[Varteras]

They were a new studio that hadn’t made a game yet, looking to lure quality talent. You think they could have made a sales pitch on high salaries, instead?

Selling stuff helped to raise money. The studio needed money. That’s all there is to this.



you say this like there isn’t a screening process to ensure the recruits that they take are talented enough to make games.

They were being bankrolled by Sony and had enough cash to open a second location. You think they did that by selling t-shirts?

Also, they clearly didn't attract good enough talent because they got canceled and closed before they released a game. Years after they announced the partnership.

 

[Vlodril]

The front page of their site is partying and selling soccer jerseys. Most jobs and companies are work first, having fun and goofing in company activity days second. As odd as it seems, they even have a company store up and running selling Deviation tshirts and baseball caps for $15.

It sure didnt help Deviation. They didn't even release one game.

Less bowling, more programming and business acumen.


The vast majority of companies and industries in the world dont do this to attract talent. And they do fine. If a company needs to promote fun days and free swag as their main focus on their home page to get talent to notice, they are attracting the wrong kind of people. Most people just want a decent job, decent pay, and it's not too far from home where you can hopefully avoid commuting across town in gridlock. If anyone puts activity days and free perks as the drivers of their career choice, they might as well work on a golf course or amusement park.

I don't get nice things. No one else should have them either. Great mindset there.

 

[Varteras]

I don't get nice things. No one else should have them either. Great mindset there.

His point is that their website raises questions about where their focus was at. It pretty much looks like a brochure for college campus activities.

 

[Perrott]

His point is that their website raises questions about where their focus was at. It pretty much looks like a brochure for college campus activities.

... it's just a website that just wanted to convey the "hey, we're like a family" culture of the studio. We shouldn't really be looking this deep into it as if it somehow was a reflection of the quality of work that the team poured into their game. Hell, official websites aren't even meant for gamers to look at them, but to attract developer talent.

Also, Deviation was a studio run by the creative leaders behind Call of Duty: Black Ops, yes, dudes that were used to delivering the biggest console shooters on the market in just 2-3 years development cycles - and y'all really think these are the kind of people that'd slack off and have fun at Sony's expense for years instead of just trying to get shit done with their new IP?

 

[Varteras]

... it's just a website that just wanted to convey the "hey, we're like a family" culture of the studio. We shouldn't really be looking this deep into it as if it somehow was a reflection of the quality of work that the team poured into their game. Hell, official websites aren't even meant for gamers to look at them, but to attract developer talent.

Also, Deviation was a studio run by the creative leaders behind Call of Duty: Black Ops, yes, dudes that were used to delivering the biggest console shooters on the market in just 2-3 years development cycles - and y'all really think these are the kind of people that'd slack off and have fun at Sony's expense for years instead of just trying to get shit done with their new IP?

Blundell, one of the founders, left the company 15 months after it formed. About 6 months later, the game was canceled and Deviation laid off a majority of its staff.

Both Deviation and Haven formed in 2021. Both immediately partnered with Sony. Both were making live service games.

One of them had a founder leave, got their game canceled, and their studio closed. The other was bought by Sony and is still making their game.

I'm surprised with the stories we've had about mismanagement from long established companies that you think being former CoD developers somehow makes them immune to that.

 

[Perrott]

Blundell, one of the founders, left the company 15 months after it formed. About 6 months later, the game was canceled and Deviation laid off a majority of its staff.

Both Deviation and Haven formed in 2021. Both immediately partnered with Sony. Both were making live service games.

One of them had a founder leave, got their game canceled, and their studio closed. The other was bought by Sony and is still making their game.

I'm surprised with the stories we've had about mismanagement from long established companies that you think being former CoD developers somehow makes them immune to that.

Okay, we're now talking about mismanagement. That's an entirely different thing than claiming that Deviation weren't working hard enough based on a handful of pictures on their website.

I also don't see what the point is in you pointing out Blundell's exit from the studio as a result of "mismanagement", when he was one of the higher-ups calling the shots there and seems to have left only to join SIE, so I guess Sony must have been happy with his managerial style and the way he was making the game come together. So for all we know, their game's demise may have been a result of concerns from the publishing side of things on the long-term financial viability of the project derived from Bungie's evaluation of the live-service porfolio - just as in the case of TLOU Online, which reportedly as a great game - rather than on Deviation's work actually being subpar in quality.

Either way, we don't know, so we shouldn't be jumping into any conclusions, one way or the other, especially based on the contents of a website.

 

[Ozriel]

They were being bankrolled by Sony and had enough cash to open a second location. You think they did that by selling t-shirts?

They were certainly not being bankrolled by Sony when the studio was set up, and funding from Sony would pretty much cover cost of making the game, including salaries. Salaries of employees they had to hire themselves.

You think they did that by selling t-shirts?

When you’re cost cutting and saving as much money as you can, even the little things matter. You think it was only the 900 devs Sony fired weeks ago that stood between them and a return to high profit margins?

Also, they clearly didn't attract good enough talent because they got canceled and closed before they released a game. Years after they announced the partnership.

A game being canceled isn’t directly linked to talent being poor. Are the devs at Naughty Dog any less talented because their Factions game got canceled? Were the devs at Evolution Studios and Studio Liverpool crap?

 

[SSfox]

Close Japan studio to invest in trash like this and Bungie, Call it even tho I didn't expect consequence to shown this soon.

 

[Ozriel]

Blundell, one of the founders, left the company 15 months after it formed. About 6 months later, the game was canceled and Deviation laid off a majority of its staff.

Both Deviation and Haven formed in 2021. Both immediately partnered with Sony. Both were making live service games.

One of them had a founder leave, got their game canceled, and their studio closed. The other was bought by Sony and is still making their game.

Deviation games was formed in 2020. They partnered with Sony in 2021.
The founder who left in 2022 was employed by Sony and apparently has poached a number of employees from the studio. Hard for you to argue incompetence when the guy is there working at Sony. And when Blundell had significant power and oversight at Deviation games.

Ironically, the article where they announced the partnership is filled with platitudes of Hermen Hulst gushing about the studio and the culture, and promises of long term financial security for the studio and their projects.

Deviation Games: "PlayStation has a culture where it's fearless to create"

Regular readers to GamesIndustry.biz will know this already, but there's a trend in games of AAA development veterans s…

www.gamesindustry.biz

 

[Banjo64]

Some bad decisions/investments from Sony. Poor judgement. They should be seeing end product before getting in to bed with studios like these. Get rid of Fairgame$ next and get someone who recognises game in charge.

 

[Varteras]

Okay, we're now talking about mismanagement. That's an entirely different thing than claiming that Deviation weren't working hard enough based on a handful of pictures on their website.

I also don't see what the point is in you pointing out Blundell's exit from the studio as a result of "mismanagement", when he was one of the higher-ups calling the shots there and seems to have only left to join SIE, so I guess Sony must have been happy with his managerial style and the way he was making the game come together. So for all we know, their game's demise may have been a result of concerns from the publishing side of things on the long-term financial viability of the project derived from Bungie's evaluation of the live-service porfolio - just as in the case of TLOU Online, which reportedly as a great game - rather than on Deviation's work actually being subpar in quality.

Either way, we don't know, so we shouldn't be jumping into any conclusions, one way or the other, especially based on the contents of a website.

We have the results of Deviation failing to impress Sony right in front of us. A founder doesn't leave a company they just formed 15 months earlier, with a partnership from a major player in the industry, because things were going super well.

Again, Haven was pretty much in the same situation as Deviation. One got bought. The other got rejected. Why? Why was Haven good enough and Deviation wasn't? That's the question here. Was there mismanagement that led to one being bought and the other being killed?

That is where the conversation about that website comes in. It calls into question their priorities.

They were certainly not being bankrolled by Sony when the studio was set up, and funding from Sony would pretty much cover cost of making the game, including salaries. Salaries of employees they had to hire themselves.



When you’re cost cutting and saving as much money as you can, even the little things matter. You think it was only the 900 devs Sony fired weeks ago that stood between them and a return to high profit margins?




A game being canceled isn’t directly linked to talent being poor. Are the devs at Naughty Dog any less talented because their Factions game got canceled? Were the devs at Evolution Studios and Studio Liverpool crap?

Dude, they didn't fund a second studio in Montreal before they even made one game by selling t-shirts.

The results are that Haven was bought and Deviation had their game canceled. If Deviation had something good to offer, they'd likely still be around.

Deviation games was formed in 2020. They partnered with Sony in 2021.
The founder who left in 2022 was employed by Sony and apparently has poached a number of employees from the studio. Hard for you to argue incompetence when the guy is there working at Sony. And when Blundell had significant power and oversight at Deviation games.

Ironically, the article where they announced the partnership is filled with platitudes of Hermen Hulst gushing about the studio and the culture, and promises of long term financial security for the studio and their projects.

Deviation Games: "PlayStation has a culture where it's fearless to create"

Regular readers to GamesIndustry.biz will know this already, but there's a trend in games of AAA development veterans s…

www.gamesindustry.biz

The studio was announced in June 2021. Do you have a source that it formed in 2020? Because I don't recall that ever being said. Even still, that calls into question even more why Deviation's game got canned while Haven got bought.

 

[Ozriel]

We have the results of Deviation failing to impress Sony right in front of us. A founder doesn't leave a company they just formed 15 months earlier, with a partnership from a major player in the industry, because things were going super well.

Again, Haven was pretty much in the same situation as Deviation. One got bought. The other got rejected. Why? Why was Haven good enough and Deviation wasn't? That's the question here. Was there mismanagement that led to one being bought and the other being killed?

Naughty Dog’s ‘most ambitious AAA game’ got canceled after years of work and undoubtedly tens of millions of dollars invested.
Does that make them incompetent?

Games can fall apart for multitude of reasons. Many of which don’t have anything to do with staff away days.

Dude, they didn't fund a second studio in Montreal before they even made one game by selling t-shirts.

Nobody’s saying that. It’s a way to raise extra cash. It’s as simple as that.

The studio was announced in June 2021. Do you have a source that it formed in 2020? Because I don't recall that ever being said. Even still, that calls into question even more why Deviation's game got canned while Haven got bought.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

Deviation games was formed in 2020. They partnered with Sony in 2021.
The founder who left in 2022 was employed by Sony and apparently has poached a number of employees from the studio. Hard for you to argue incompetence when the guy is there working at Sony. And when Blundell had significant power and oversight at Deviation games.

Ironically, the article where they announced the partnership is filled with platitudes of Hermen Hulst gushing about the studio and the culture, and promises of long term financial security for the studio and their projects.

Deviation Games: "PlayStation has a culture where it's fearless to create"

Regular readers to GamesIndustry.biz will know this already, but there's a trend in games of AAA development veterans s…

www.gamesindustry.biz

They parternship was announced in 2021. They were already partnered with them long before that.

 

[Bartski]

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

The funny part is that when it always happens people say how their team was brilliant and amazing and everybody who worked there was a genius or something

 

[Varteras]

Naughty Dog’s ‘most ambitious AAA game’ got canceled after years of work and undoubtedly tens of millions of dollars invested.
Does that make them incompetent?

Games can fall apart for multitude of reasons. Many of which don’t have anything to do with staff away days.



Nobody’s saying that. It’s a way to raise extra cash. It’s as simple as that.

Cool. So then Deviation had even more time to work on their project and couldn't convince Sony to keep their game running while Haven was bought.

As far as Naughty Dog goes, maybe it was incompetence? Who knows? See that's the thing here. You don't know jack shit about what went on behind the scenes. I don't know jack shit about what went on behind the scenes. None of us do right now.

What we DO know is that Deviation's game got canceled 6 months or so after Blundell left while two other partner studios working on live service games got bought. A lot of us are going to look at that and assume shit went South.

Then when we look at their website and see nothing but a brochure for a camp, we're gonna wonder if they didn't have their priorities straight enough. Because, again, we have enough stories of mismanagement from well known companies to not be surprised if that was the case.

I mean really at this point this conversation is nothing more than one person telling the other they don't know something and the other retorting that they don't either. So really, we're free to speculate. Any insistence that one is more right than the other is just someone being a dickhead.

 

[Woopah]

always a good sign when the founder leaves before you ship a game and youre doing shit like this ^

Employees having fun and also working on games is completely possible. It doesn't tell us anything about their ability as a studio.

Many of you must work in truly miserable places. Because most half-decent places try to at least make some effort at work-life balance programs and away days.
People getting triggered at Deviation staff doing a tug-of-war should better not visit the careers page of Nintendo of America, Sony Santa Monica, Insomniac and pretty much every other successful studio.

None of this negatively impacts the ability of any team or studio to deliver quality products.

Weird how some of you can claim that the studio was terribly ran and did nothing for years and yet the founder(s) and a decent chunk of the studio still got hired by Sony.

Exactly!

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

We all played golf and left early last week, is the idea of company outings and remote work so foreign to people on GAF that seeing people with them triggers something?

What is foreign to some people (to me definitely is) is that when you see the whole industry in turmoil you go outdoors or spend half day tweeting about random stuff as if nothing happened. If your salary is cut by half, you don't buy designer clothes. It's all about priorities.

This isn't fair.

It's a broad generalization, I am referring to a particular mindset. The below tweet is a clear indication. They were counting on financial stability "for years" and that doesn't exist in the entertainment industry, let alone videogames, where a failure may sink the whole studio.

IMO there has been a dangerous mix of acquisition/cooperation euphoria, new-age work ethics, remote work due to pandemic, etc. Some devs seem in their own bubble, oblivious to what is actually going on in the real world.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Many of you must work in truly miserable places. Because most half-decent places try to at least make some effort at work-life balance programs and away days.
People getting triggered at Deviation staff doing a tug-of-war should better not visit the careers page of Nintendo of America, Sony Santa Monica, Insomniac and pretty much every other successful studio.

None of this negatively impacts the ability of any team or studio to deliver quality products.

Weird how some of you can claim that the studio was terribly ran and did nothing for years and yet the founder(s) and a decent chunk of the studio still got hired by Sony.

The key phrase here is “successful studio”. If you are working for a big operation who is funded by a big corp and making money then that’s different. These guys were on the verge of bankruptcy. Perhaps your time would be better spent trying to hit your deadlines rather than playing grab ass in the park. And the results speak for themselves. They teambuilt themselves a branded coffin and all dove in together.

 

[Ozriel]

The key phrase here is “successful studio”. If you are working for a big operation who is funded by a big corp and making money then that’s different. These guys were on the verge of bankruptcy. Perhaps your time would be better spent trying to hit your deadlines rather than playing grab ass in the park. And the results speak for themselves. They teambuilt themselves a branded coffin and all dove in together.

There’s zero indication that their work hours were any less than any other studio working for Sony, their homepage affirms the job is hard work and they’ve clearly pitched a decent work environment with good work-life balance as a recruitment tool.
They were working on an AAA game with campaign and MP. they had just 100 employees when the deal was signed in 2021. It’s clear that they needed to staff up.

You can have failed or disappointing games made by hard working staff, with tons of talent. See how bad Battlefield 2042 turned out despite DICE being very talented devs with tons of experience.

 

[Dane]

Both sides have reasons, you don't need a miserable place of work, but you shouldn't keep spending money on activities stuff that can be expensive to maintain if you don't have the capital in the first place, you need to create a good place to work, that's the core. The Deviation website was really going into the "how do you do felllow kids" territory as if they were swimming money.

Back in 2022 when Blundell left there was a report that the studio became a revolving door, Sony hired him and other people from the studio, months later 70% of the staff was laid off as Sony pulled the funding and cancelled the project. What happened inside is not detailed yet, but it seems that Blundell was the key force for the whole studio and they probably expected to be acquired like Haven was.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Bungie deserves it more...

let's see how successful the final shape is first.

 

[adamsapple]

PlayStation-backed Deviation Games closes

New AAA game developer Deviation Games is closing, the studio announced.It was formed in 2020 by Jason Blundell and Dav…

www.gamesindustry.biz

"It is with a heavy heart that we announce the closure of Deviation Games," chief HR and operations officer Kriste Stull announced on LinkedIn. "I want to express my deepest gratitude to our entire team. Thank you for all your hard work, dedication, and contributions to Deviation; I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have worked with each and every one of you.

In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz in 2021, Dave Anthony spoke enthusiastically about their PlayStation partnership. "It's absolutely mind-blowing. For us, we have never been in a situation like this before, where we've got everything we could possibly ask for. From day one of the studio we have complete financial security for years and years to come.

 

[Frwrd]

Jim Ryan must have a hand in this. I can already see his laugh.

 

[PleazureDome]

Lets make this a learning experience with a 'Word of the Day'. I hope we can all use this word at least once today to enrich our lives.

still·born
/ˈstilˌbôrn/

adjective

1. (of an infant) born dead.
   "a stillborn baby"
   
   
2. (of a proposal or plan) having failed to develop or succeed; unrealized.
   "the proposed wealth tax was stillborn"

 

[StereoVsn]

His point is that their website raises questions about where their focus was at. It pretty much looks like a brochure for college campus activities.

That website was probably setup by the web admin and an intern in couple of days. You all are overthinking this shit too much.

I work for a large multinational corporation. It’s not a tech company, but we still have subsidized lunches (not free), group activities and … a company store selling company apparel, mugs and other stuff.

This shit isn’t that uncommon. Like others said startups have to be nimble to hire good people especially

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

Many of you must work in truly miserable places. Because most half-decent places try to at least make some effort at work-life balance programs and away days.
People getting triggered at Deviation staff doing a tug-of-war should better not visit the careers page of Nintendo of America, Sony Santa Monica, Insomniac and pretty much every other successful studio.

None of this negatively impacts the ability of any team or studio to deliver quality products.

Weird how some of you can claim that the studio was terribly ran and did nothing for years and yet the founder(s) and a decent chunk of the studio still got hired by Sony.

We've somehow been gaslighted into believing work has to be miserable with no perks with long extra hours included every month to be a successful company run by some great CEOs and Gaf doesn't even realize it. Sucks tbh.

 

[ProtoByte]

Some bad decisions/investments from Sony. Poor judgement. They should be seeing end product before getting in to bed with studios like these. Get rid of Fairgame$ next and get someone who recognises game in charge.

The game industrybis a high risk market. Can't be surprised when not everything works out.

 

[Tomeru]

So which is it? Are they done or not?

 

[Porcile]

It's crazy how hard it seems to make games these days. On top of good financial management to keep the studio afloat it's like you need a team of 100+ technical and artistic geniuses just to ship a product in a decent state.

 

[Varteras]

That website was probably setup by the web admin and an intern in couple of days. You all are overthinking this shit too much.

I work for a large multinational corporation. It’s not a tech company, but we still have subsidized lunches (not free), group activities and … a company store selling company apparel, mugs and other stuff.

This shit isn’t that uncommon. Like others said startups have to be nimble to hire good people especially

Hey! HEY! Don't you take that tone with me.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

They were being bankrolled by Sony and had enough cash to open a second location. You think they did that by selling t-shirts?

Also, they clearly didn't attract good enough talent because they got canceled and closed before they released a game. Years after they announced the partnership.

Games can be canceled for more reasons than they're just not good.

It's entirely possible that Sony looked at their portfolio of games and said we have too many of these games in the pipeline and this one isn't far enough along to keep paying for it.

The reality is we don't have the details here.

We do know that one of their co-founders left very early. We also know that Sony didn't buy this studio despite buying Firesprite. We don't know why that is either.

These things are often more nuanced than we would like to believe.

But I'd suggest everyone ask themselves how many FPS you think Sony wants to publish.

 

[kiphalfton]

I don't know if associate producer or senior outsource specialist is a low level job.

I see you were impressed by the words "senior" and "specialist".

 

[Varteras]

Games can be canceled for more reasons than they're just not good.

It's entirely possible that Sony looked at their portfolio of games and said we have too many of these games in the pipeline and this one isn't far enough along to keep paying for it.

The reality is we don't have the details here.

We do know that one of their co-founders left very early. We also know that Sony didn't buy this studio despite buying Firesprite. We don't know why that is either.

These things are often more nuanced than we would like to believe.

But I'd suggest everyone ask themselves how many FPS you think Sony wants to publish.

It's certainly true that there could be any number of reasons. I just feel that when you break it all down for what we do know and compare it to similar situations, then look at the myriad stories of mismanagement, it's not hard to draw the conclusion that it was indeed that.

The website was just the cherry on top. Even if it meant absolutely nothing, it's still like, "Well, if it was mismanagement, maybe that website was pretty accurate In showing what their priorities were"?

And it really has nothing to do with companies giving their employees fun perks. I don't really think anyone is against that. Banging the drum of indoctrinated slavery is really missing what people are saying. Not you, but others.

Blundell leaving his newly founded studio well before their game was ready was a huge red flag and it was called out as such back when it happened. Though that could also have happened for any number of reasons, we've more than enough examples throughout the years to confidently say that's frequently an indication things weren't well at the company. That the game was seemingly canceled half a year later while other partners were bought kinda reinforces that feeling.

When it comes to the type of game and whether Sony wanted that many, well, they bought or partnered with several studios making FPS games at the time the purchase or partnership happened. They would have been aware for years what was being made. I doubt that if Deviation had something compelling that Sony would have canned their project.

But that's still a point worth bringing up that maybe the simple answer is that Sony didn't want to have Destiny, Marathon, Concord, and Deviation's title competing against each other while also trying to tackle the other FPS titles in the market. Though I do wonder what exactly it was, seeing as how they were hiring for people with experience in action/rpg games.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

It's crazy how hard it seems to make games these days. On top of good financial management to keep the studio afloat it's like you need a team of 100+ technical and artistic geniuses just to ship a product in a decent state.

Depends on what the company guns for. A company going after high production expensive game development over 5 years will cost a ton a money. And dont forget marketing costs on top of it. These studios (whether in house or an indie) are trying to go big. Kind of like instead of starting out as a mom and pop restaurant, someone aims to have 20 of them right off the bat. Or instead of being a real estate agent starting small, they amp up to be a 40 agent brokerage with a nice office.

A studio can make good money too making indie games. But since the stakes are likely lower, some studios will snub their nose as too low brow.

Balatro came out weeks ago for $15 US. It's sold over 500,000 copies in less than a month, released on PC, Mac and all consoles and looks like a game that could had been made when Windows 95 was released. Its a good game, surely profitable, had zero marketing from what I saw. It was primarily made by one guy. Googling it, there's lots of people who helped make it, but the core game seemed to be made by one dude.

Who knows how many copies this game will sell by the time it fizzles out, but pretty sure it'll be more successful and profitable than a lot of high budget games and movies. And it's a deck building poker game. The guy probably made the game in his basement. You dont need a studio or office lease to make a game like this.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

It's certainly true that there could be any number of reasons. I just feel that when you break it all down for what we do know and compare it to similar situations, then look at the myriad stories of mismanagement, it's not hard to draw the conclusion that it was indeed that.

The website was just the cherry on top. Even if it meant absolutely nothing, it's still like, "Well, if it was mismanagement, maybe that website was pretty accurate In showing what their priorities were"?

And it really has nothing to do with companies giving their employees fun perks. I don't really think anyone is against that. Banging the drum of indoctrinated slavery is really missing what people are saying. Not you, but others.

Blundell leaving his newly founded studio well before their game was ready was a huge red flag and it was called out as such back when it happened. Though that could also have happened for any number of reasons, we've more than enough examples throughout the years to confidently say that's frequently an indication things weren't well at the company. That the game was seemingly canceled half a year later while other partners were bought kinda reinforces that feeling.

When it comes to the type of game and whether Sony wanted that many, well, they bought or partnered with several studios making FPS games at the time the purchase or partnership happened. They would have been aware for years what was being made. I doubt that if Deviation had something compelling that Sony would have canned their project.

But that's still a point worth bringing up that maybe the simple answer is that Sony didn't want to have Destiny, Marathon, Concord, and Deviation's title competing against each other while also trying to tackle the other FPS titles in the market. Though I do wonder what exactly it was, seeing as how they were hiring for people with experience in action/rpg games.

Myriad stories of mismanagement? This is news to me. One co-founder leaving a company isn't enough to assume a game was in itself not on a path to publication.

Speaking of cherries, it sounds like you're cherry-picking here.

Sony has canceled a number of games, games that we've been told by observers were fun, including TLOU Factions.

Clearly, things have changed in terms of what Sony is willing to and unwilling to bankroll, despite originally greenlighting.

It should also be noted that this was greenlit BEFORE Sony bought Bungie. It was also before Sony bought Firewalk.

There is so much new data Sony would have after the greenlighting of the Deviation game. New data can and should change your strategy. None of that means however that this game was unpublishable. It's just as likely to theorize that it simply needed another 2-3 years of development, maybe after a change in direction that might have caused Blundell to leave. It's totally possible Sony was okay with that change of direction initially, but under review perhaps by Totoki, the idea of funding that new direction for another 3 years or so wasn't desirable given the rest of the portfolio.

 

[Varteras]

Myriad stories of mismanagement? This is news to me. One co-founder leaving a company isn't enough to assume a game was in itself not on a path to publication.

Speaking of cherries, it sounds like you're cherry-picking here.

Sony has canceled a number of games, games that we've been told by observers were fun, including TLOU Factions.

Clearly, things have changed in terms of what Sony is willing to and unwilling to bankroll, despite originally greenlighting.

It should also be noted that this was greenlit BEFORE Sony bought Bungie. It was also before Sony bought Firewalk.

There is so much new data Sony would have after the greenlighting of the Deviation game. New data can and should change your strategy. None of that means however that this game was unpublishable. It's just as likely to theorize that it simply needed another 2-3 years of development, maybe after a change in direction that might have caused Blundell to leave. It's totally possible Sony was okay with that change of direction initially, but under review perhaps by Totoki, the idea of funding that new direction for another 3 years or so wasn't desirable given the rest of the portfolio.

Uh huh.

Well.You don't know. I don't know. So I'll continue to speculate.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Uh huh.

Well.You don't know. I don't know. So I'll continue to speculate.

It was my point that we don't know.

When you speculate, you should speculate based on facts rather than simply to reach the conclusion you already wanted to reach.

There are no facts that would tell us this game was canceled for one specific reason or another.

 

[thismeinteil]

Cool. So then Deviation had even more time to work on their project and couldn't convince Sony to keep their game running while Haven was bought.

As far as Naughty Dog goes, maybe it was incompetence? Who knows? See that's the thing here. You don't know jack shit about what went on behind the scenes. I don't know jack shit about what went on behind the scenes. None of us do right now.

What we DO know is that Deviation's game got canceled 6 months or so after Blundell left while two other partner studios working on live service games got bought. A lot of us are going to look at that and assume shit went South.

Then when we look at their website and see nothing but a brochure for a camp, we're gonna wonder if they didn't have their priorities straight enough. Because, again, we have enough stories of mismanagement from well known companies to not be surprised if that was the case.

I mean really at this point this conversation is nothing more than one person telling the other they don't know something and the other retorting that they don't either. So really, we're free to speculate. Any insistence that one is more right than the other is just someone being a dickhead.

My guess is Blundell saw the way things were headed with this "team" and jumped ship.

And never have I seen a video game company's main page look like it could stand in for a campground or youth group. If that was on their Staff/Devs page, no one would have an issue. But, the MAIN page? Maybe they should have worried about making ONE game, first, then have some fun after its release.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

My guess is Blundell saw the way things were headed with this "team" and jumped ship.

Didn't Blundell jump ship directly into a team within PlayStation though? It sounds like a number of Deviation employees left to work on something at PlayStation.

 

[nosoynadie22]

 

[midnightAI]

Another studio to use Decimal?

 

[feynoob]

so same fate then

 

[Oddvintagechap]

sounds like sony funded it, and slowly took the talent

 

[ergem]

sounds like sony funded it, and slowly took the talent

Wise move. Instant first party dev team instead of a 3rd party contracted to make a game.