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Microsoft Admits Its Handling of Lionhead Studios Was a ‘Misstep’

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman

In a new six-part documentary series Microsoft has said that its handling of Lionhead Studios, which was shut down in 2016, was a “mistake” that helped shape the way Microsoft now works with its acquired developers.

The sixth episode of Power On: The Story of Xbox features a short segment dedicated to Lionhead. “One of the biggest missteps that we learned from in the past was Lionhead,” said Shannon Loftis, who was General Manager of Global Games Publishing when Lionhead was shuttered. “We had already published Fable 1, and it was a hit... People wanted more, and so we bought Lionhead. Those were good years.

“But after Fable 2, Kinect came along and the Fable-Kinect marriage just never really took,” she explained. “And then Fable: The Journey was a passion project for a lot of people, but I think it deviated pretty significantly from the pillars of what made Fable 1 and 2 so popular.”

“We acquired Lionhead in 2006, and shut it down in 2016,” said Sarah Bond, Head of Game Creator Experiences and Ecosystem at Xbox. “A couple of years later we reflected back on that experience. What did we learn, and how do we not repeat our same mistakes?”

So what did Microsoft learn? “You acquire a studio for what they’re great at now, and your job is to help them accelerate how they do what they do, not them accelerate what you do,” said Phil Spencer, Head of Xbox.

It’s clear, at least among those interviewed for the documentary, that Microsoft realises that they messed up with the British studio. “I wish Lionhead were still a viable studio,” said Loftis.
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Bungie, Rare, Lionhead etc. welcome to the graveyard
The Undertaker Sport GIF by WWE
 
I think a big problem was Don Mattrick. He seemed to have been obsessed with Kinect and pushing Kinect everywhere. In development, if management pushes for a certain direction, and then changes their mind, it can take years to get the team back on track. Then when the team doesn't produce as well as expected, the blame goes to the developers and not management.

Ryse: Son of Rome suffered from this as well. What idiot thought it would be a good idea to make that a kinect game.

Also, Molyneux not being able to keep his ambitions realistic were also a big problem. Promoting his Project Milo and its if/else statements as a the dawn of AI. What the heck man. Are you a developer or the head of fake advertisement?

At least the new MS can admit their mistakes and seems to be treating the development teams with the respect and space they need.
 
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jakinov

Member
How about the downfall of Rare? These studio acquisitions never seem to work out. How many studios have fallen at the hands of EA? I fear for Bethesda.
Well the thing about RAre is that they made really good games whent he standards were different and when Rare itself was composed of signficantly differnt people. All the key people left for whatever reasons, and many of them have said mostly positive things about Microsoft after they left. There's a bunch of interviews where people talk about what went wrong blaming rare's own managemnt in some cases. The most negative thing I recall about Microsoft was that they though they owned Donkey Kong.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Its good MS is aware and admits the mistakes.

This. It's better to have an open mind about it unlike EA, where they just silently take the studios out back and send them to the farm upstate with all the other studios.
 
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skit_data

Member
Seems to me that over focusing on Kinect was the problem. Probably the reason for many problems during end of X360 up to X1X.
 
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AgatonSax

Member
I have never understood why studios get closed. They are a valuable brand in distinction from management. I’d always be interested to check out a new Lionhead game.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I loved Fable 3. It was fucking awesome, I dont care what anyone says. It was shocking to me that they never made a Fable 4. I dont care for them blaming Kinect. Kinect didnt kill any other sequels over at MS studios. Move didn kill any Sony studios. I think the studio was just mismanaged. Fable 4 shouldve been greenlit immediately after shipping Fable 3. There wouldve been no Milo. No Fable Kinect. No nothing. Just give people what they want. A fucking sequel to a great fucking game.
 

Kacho

Gold Member
Closing down studios is a bonehead move.

Studios are made of 100s of peaople, While not easy I think its better to identify the people causing the problems and terminate them.
The problem with Lionhead is that most of the key talent had already left because they weren’t happy with the direction of the studio. I don’t blame Microsoft for shutting it down, even though it was mostly their fault it went to shit.
 

Goalus

Member
don-mattrick-xbox-one.jpg


This guy was the problem.
Another problem that - imho - played an equally large role was Ballmer being close to getting fired (which he probably knew) at that time. Upper management can't make well thought out decisions if the CEO is as nervous and anxious as Ballmer was at that time.
 
They could easily revive the Lionhead brand if they wanted to, presumably they still own it. If I was running it I would - give each studio a philosophy and let them go and be creative. So you know what you’re getting - they already kind of do that with 343, The Coalition, Turn10 etc, but this would take it to the next level.

Bringing back things like Populous and Black and White with current technology would get me interested for sure too.

Microsoft own a staggering amount of popular but dormant IP.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I think a big problem was Don Mattrick. He seemed to have been obsessed with Kinect and pushing Kinect everywhere. In development, if management pushes for a certain direction, and then changes their mind, it can take years to get the team back on track. Then when the team doesn't produce as well as expected, the blame goes to the developers and not management.

Ryse: Son of Rome suffered from this as well. What idiot thought it would be a good idea to make that a kinect game.

Also, Molyneux not being able to keep his ambitions realistic were also a big problem. Promoting his Project Milo and its if/else statements as a the dawn of AI. What the heck man. Are you a developer or the head of fake advertisement?

At least the new MS can admit their mistakes and seems to be treating the development teams with the respect and space they need.
That's the key problem gaming has as a whole.

The companies are so hit driven, most game studios probably dont even release one game per year unless it's a big publisher with tons of franchises to pick from (especially annualized games), they got to focus on big splash games and whats trending. Those couple years of big batches of Kinect and Move games were gross. And by that time where MS and Sony tried pushing it for years, Wii motion gaming was fizzling out.

Lucky for them MTX is the new revenue stream lately that keeps the money coming in.

My company releases probably 50+ new products per year. Many of them tank. Who cares if only 35 of them sell well because we still got the existing 600 products that hum along. I bet we got more long term strategy than they do even though youd think a game maker releasing maybe 1 game per year would be doing its hardest to make that one product a success as an all of nothing product line.
 
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KyoZz

Tag, you're it.
“You acquire a studio for what they’re great at now, and your job is to help them accelerate how they do what they do, not them accelerate what you do,”
Like... seriously? It took you all those years to realize that? LET THE FUCKIN STUDIO DO WHAT HE IS GOOD FOR FFS.
Hire me, because all of that is just common sense and if nobody's between 2005/2016 has been able to understand something THAT simple, you had big problems.
Yeah I'm still salty about the closure of Lionhead.

Don Mattrick really ruined some incredible IP's and studios but thanks God Spencer is there now and he is doing a lot of good things.
 
Nah he's not wrong. Rare is a shadow of what they once were. And now have been trying to replace people for Everwild since it's first reveal. That game literally wasn't even a game yet and they restarted the project all together. Lost 2 leads.
Yes, he is wrong. Sea of Thieves is the most successful game Rare has ever made. It may not be one that appeals to you, but that doesn't make the fact of its success any less true.

What you say doesn't make much sense. A lot of games get restarted before they are even games. That's what early development is. Would you rather they'd spent years in production first before deciding to try again? A lot of pre-production is feeling out new ideas, and unfortunately going back to the drawing board if they don't work out. Games don't just pop out fully formed - particularly not new IP. The only problem with Everwild was that it was announced prematurely.

Remember when Rare's big ambitious pirate RPG went through development hell in the 90s and became some obscure Bird and Bear platformer? Do you have the same criticisms of Rare during that time?
 
I think a big problem was Don Mattrick. He seemed to have been obsessed with Kinect and pushing Kinect everywhere. In development, if management pushes for a certain direction, and then changes their mind, it can take years to get the team back on track. Then when the team doesn't produce as well as expected, the blame goes to the developers and not management.

Ryse: Son of Rome suffered from this as well. What idiot thought it would be a good idea to make that a kinect game.

Also, Molyneux not being able to keep his ambitions realistic were also a big problem. Promoting his Project Milo and its if/else statements as a the dawn of AI. What the heck man. Are you a developer or the head of fake advertisement?

At least the new MS can admit their mistakes and seems to be treating the development teams with the respect and space they need.
“When Mattrick moved from Electronic Arts to Microsoft in 2007, the Xbox business had yet to turn a profit. That same year, hardware defects caused up to 24% of all Xbox 360 consoles to fail, causing a $1.15 billion write-off to extend warranties and reimburse disgruntled owners. Mattrick wrote and executed a three-year plan to turn the business around. "There was just a lot of change, and Don was a real stabilizing force," says Dennis Durkin, COO and CFO for Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business.

Without Mattrick there wouldn't be Kinect, the company's motion-sensor controller for the Xbox 360. Mattrick assembled the Kinect team, recruited outside talent like creative director Kudo Tsunoda, and set crucial goals like reducing costs to reach an affordable consumer price point.

Now Kinect is one of Microsoft's most successful hardware devices, both critically and financially. Microsoft has sold more than 10 million units since last November's launch and is largely credited with driving console sales up 29% during the first four months of 2011 compared with the same period last year.”

Don literally saved Xbox. He just couldn’t do it twice. He just took big risks with xbox one.

He basically wanted “NFT” like games you can trade and sell.
A voice controlled console.
HDMI in & out.
All great ideas.
 

Concern

Member
Its good that they can admit where they fucked up. Honestly thought the xbox one was going to be a chance for them to restart focusing on games rather than the kinect. But they instead doubled down on it.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Don literally saved Xbox. He just couldn’t do it twice. He just took big risks with xbox one.

He basically wanted “NFT” like games you can trade and sell.
A voice controlled console.
HDMI in & out.
All great ideas.
HDMI in was awesome.

Watching a hockey or baseball game in a window while gaming was an amazing feature. Too bad they got rid of it.
 
Rare?
Steve Harvey Reaction GIF

Not sure how making an original ip and having it one of the most successful games of xbox history and probably all time equates to a failure?

Or would people prefer they simply sit around and pump out remasters/directors cuts of old games?
 

Papacheeks

Banned
What does that have to do with the state of the game and Rare right now?
It took a good year or two to be content complete. And did not get reviewed super well.
Also go look at where they are project wise. They made one game and released it in 2018. What was their last game before that?
Also everwild isn’t even a game yet and restarted.
 
Go look how it launched. Most successful doesn’t equate to best game they’ve made.
I was there at launch, it was still fun. A little bare-boned, sure, but I got to play a game of 'Gunpowder Barrel' with a rando where you roll up on a sloop with 3 guys with gunpowder barrels, and tell them you're taking 90% of their loot. If they disagree you'll blow your barrels, sink them, and take 100% of their loot.

Good times.
 

ManaByte

Member
It took a good year or two to be content complete. And did not get reviewed super well.
Also go look at where they are project wise. They made one game and released it in 2018. What was their last game before that?
Also everwild isn’t even a game yet and restarted.

It's basically a MMO it's never going to be "content complete".

Pulling out three-year old reviews of an on-going MMO that changes almost every month is disingenuous.

The game has 25 million players and hits #1 on the Steam charts every time it's on sale. Trying to pretend it, and Rare, isn't a success is absolute delusion.
 
How about the downfall of Rare? These studio acquisitions never seem to work out. How many studios have fallen at the hands of EA? I fear for Bethesda.
I can see it now. Bethesda is going to have trouble making release windows, and will take forever to make games, and microsoft will shut it down.
 

Papacheeks

Banned
It's basically a MMO it's never going to be "content complete".

Pulling out three-year old reviews of an on-going MMO that changes almost every month is disingenuous.

The game has 25 million players and hits #1 on the Steam charts every time it's on sale. Trying to pretend it, and Rare, isn't a success is absolute delusion.

never said it wasnt a “financial success”. But in terms of the legacy and library it pales.
And as a developer their output in terms of different IP. They have not put out anything but SOT.
 
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