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PlayStation acquires Haven, the new studio led by Jade Raymond

Moses85

Member
peyton manning wtf GIF by Gatorade
 

Leyasu

Banned
Is this studio fully staffed or are they like the initiative where they are using an external support studio for the leg work?
 

Sega Orphan

Banned
Speculation is fine. I was talking about making assumptions.
Much of a muchness.
With so long between game being announced and it being released, as well as the slow trickle of information over years of development, speculation and assumptions are all you have if you want to talk about the game.
 
Only reason why she gets attention is due to being decent looking woman. You rarely see that in gaming as it's almost all men doing the promoting. When all dolled up in her earlier pics, she looks good. Have her less dolled up showing that Joker smile and she's not has hot as her professional photographed pics.

If Raymond was a fat pig, nobody would care about her. She's just be another gaming exec. Just like all the other high level employees that worked with her at UBI, how often do you hear about them? Hardly ever as they are just another group of dudes in gaming.
Some of you really hate women huh
 

Cyborg

Member
You think the cause of the bias is her gender or cause she is joining Sony.

I think it's both personally, find one silly and one disturbing.

I think it's probably a good pick up from Sony, cheap way to get talent and to get your foot in the door. In the last 2 months, the Microsoft and Sony studios have hired net ~120 people (Mojang and ND massively over representing for both companies). Not including ABK and Bungie yet.
Definitely, her gender makes it even worse. She is talented and stating she isn't people clearly don't know what she has done in the past. And on top of that, there are more (talented) people working at the new studio it's not only her.
 
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reksveks

Member
Is this studio fully staffed or are they like the initiative where they are using an external support studio for the leg work?
Currently linkedin says 71 people and 11 opening on their site.

Only they know what size they need for their project.
 
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We have no idea about the game but I bet it comes out before some other already announced games.

Now Assassin's Creed and Watchdogs are viewed as amazing games.

You all have shares of SCE ?

AC II was actually amazing at the time of release.. but that was the tail end of ubisoft making good games. They went downhill a few years after that.
 
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I think some need to put down the fleshlight stop watching porn and go and speak to women in the real world.
Exactly. Imagine looking at current day Jade and thinking she's "past her expiration date". Most women her age don't look that good. And even if she wasn't good looking (which is subjective) she still has the same right at a career as her male peers (which btw, plenty of them look one pound away of having a heart attack)
 
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oldergamer

Member
She didn't create ass creed. As far as i recall she was a producer. This new studio was also exclusive to playstation long before sony purchased them.

This flies in the face of "organic growth" and all the arguments made dancing around it. Sony is purchasing studios in response to ms purchasing studios. Despite the downplaying that occured early on. Its a s simple as that and not really an issue.
 

DJ12

Member
She didn't create ass creed. As far as i recall she was a producer. This new studio was also exclusive to playstation long before sony purchased them.

This flies in the face of "organic growth" and all the arguments made dancing around it. Sony is purchasing studios in response to ms purchasing studios. Despite the downplaying that occured early on. Its a s simple as that and not really an issue.
Rofl.

It is the definition of organic growth.

Sony supported the studio from inception and have now brought it into the fold.

But keep telling yourself everything is a response to MS buying up publishers if that's the cope that works for you.
 
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Exactly. Imagine looking at current day Jade and thinking she's "past her expiration date". Most women her age don't look that good. And even if she wasn't good looking (which is subjective) she still has the same right at a career as her male peers (which btw, plenty of them look one pound away of having a heart attack)
If she were a man, nobody would give a shit about her, I think that's the point being discussed.
 
She didn't create ass creed. As far as i recall she was a producer. This new studio was also exclusive to playstation long before sony purchased them.

This flies in the face of "organic growth" and all the arguments made dancing around it. Sony is purchasing studios in response to ms purchasing studios. Despite the downplaying that occured early on. Its a s simple as that and not really an issue.

No shit. People think Sony will just sit there while Microsoft buy up entire publishers? This was always gonna happen and its just the start. Atleast on sony's end, nobody loses out as games were ps exclusive anyway. Not multiplat like Bethesda and Activision. Though to be fair to Microsoft, they have decided to keep cod as it is but Bethesda ip is a huge loss.
 
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Topher

Gold Member
Much of a muchness.
With so long between game being announced and it being released, as well as the slow trickle of information over years of development, speculation and assumptions are all you have if you want to talk about the game.

Ok? You asked if you were correct in assuming. I answered.

Come On Reaction GIF by MOODMAN
 
The lead director of Ass Creed is Patrice Desilets. Nobody knows who he is, nobody gives a shit. That's kinda my point.
Your point would make a lot more sense if this industry wasn't over 90% male dominated in positions of power...the only reason you hear about people like Jade is, you're right...because she's a woman. Because there aren't many in her position.

For Sony studios i think she's the first woman in charge isn't she?

So unwillingly, you're right but not how you think you are. People do talk about her because she's a woman. Otherwise no one would give a shit. She'd just be another guy ahead of another studio, lmao. You also wouldn't doubt the person's ability to do the job.
 
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Your point would make a lot more sense if this industry wasn't over 90% male dominated in positions of power...the only reason you hear about people like Jade is, you're right...because she's a woman. Because there aren't many in her position.

For Sony studios i think she's the first woman in charge isn't she?

So unwillingly, you're right but not how you think you are. People do talk about her because she's a woman. Otherwise no one would give a shit. She'd just be another guy ahead of another studio, lmao. You also wouldn't doubt the person's ability to do the job.
I personally don't doubt her competence. Just pointing out that she's a big name because of her gender and looks. It is what it is, and it's not necessarily a bad thing.
 

Pedro Motta

Member
Your point would make a lot more sense if this industry wasn't over 90% male dominated in positions of power...the only reason you hear about people like Jade is, you're right...because she's a woman. Because there aren't many in her position.

For Sony studios i think she's the first woman in charge isn't she?

So unwillingly, you're right but not how you think you are. People do talk about her because she's a woman. Otherwise no one would give a shit. She'd just be another guy ahead of another studio, lmao. You also wouldn't doubt the person's ability to do the job.
Siobhan Reddy - Media Molecule
Shannon Studstill, and now Yumi Yang - Santa Monica Studios.
 
She was hot-ish 20 years ago. That's basically it. Her games were okay but didn't exactly set the world on fire.
You are right . It's absolutely not like Assassin Creed II has pretty much became the reference model for open world game in the last 15 years, and nobody care about Watch Dogs also ...
It's impressive how far people can go to diminish a person's career
 

VN1X

Banned
Only reason why she gets attention is due to being decent looking woman. You rarely see that in gaming as it's almost all men doing the promoting. When all dolled up in her earlier pics, she looks good. Have her less dolled up showing that Joker smile and she's not has hot as her professional photographed pics.

If Raymond was a fat pig, nobody would care about her. She's just be another gaming exec. Just like all the other high level employees that worked with her at UBI, how often do you hear about them? Hardly ever as they are just another group of dudes in gaming.
The only reason Ukraine gets attention is because the news told you so and now you are, evidently, proudly espousing your virtue online.

Funny how these things work!
 

oldergamer

Member
Rofl.

It us the definition of organic growth.

Sony supported the studio from inception and have now brought it into the fold.

But keep telling yourself everything is a response to MS buying up publishers if that's the cope that works for you.
This is not organic growth! This was an independent studio. It wasn't started with sony money from what ive heard. Keep trying to deflect sony purchasing studios isnt in response to ms, it makes you look like a shill for not seeing the obvious.
 
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This is not organic growth! This was an independent studio. It wasn't started with sony money from what ive heard. Keep trying to deflect sony purchasing studios isnt in response to ms, it makes you look like a shill for not seeing the obvious.

They announced the partnership a month after it was established. Pretty obvious it was backed by Sony from the very start
 

DJ12

Member
This is not organic growth! This was an independent studio. It wasn't started with sony money from what ive heard. Keep trying to deflect sony purchasing studios isnt in response to ms, it makes you look like a shill for not seeing the obvious.
Deluded.

Their only announced game is a ps exclusive that Mark Cerny is helping with.

It was a second party studio like insomniac used to be, now it's first party.

Go try and spin your narrative elsewhere.
 
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yurinka

Member
It’s an experienced team. My worry is that they haven’t made a great game so far.
According to an interview the main Haven team comes mainly from 3 groups: people who worked in the original (plus many of them in sequels) AC, people who worked in Watchdogs 1 & 2, people who worked on Rainbow Six Siege. And people who followed her from Motive and Google that in many cases are people of these 3 groups. On top of that they also hired senior staff from places like Insomniac or Rockstar.

Maybe you don't personally like these games, but they were very successful. Games are made for different types of players with different tastes, maybe these ones weren't for you.

For Sony even if they are a new studio, they are an experienced team who worked in several very successful AAA games in many cases together. A bit like Kojipro but the Haven worked on AAA games whose sales more than doubled the ones of the MGS games.

She wasn't the director of these games. Further proves my point tbh.
Every company more or less works in a different way. In the case of Ubisoft there is no director role. There is the producer in charge of the game development team and the product manager in charge of the game marketing (not only ads campaigns, provide also market insights, what players like and dislike from similar reference games and direct competition, market trends, market positioning etc) and communications teams. The creative director manages the creative vision / game design & art part of the game development team.

These 3 are overviewed and their steps are greenlighted by the editorial team, who sets an editorial creative vision / best practices / define the types of games the compay wants, etc and are the ones who say if this or that pitch gets greenlighted or if that game achieved their milestone or not.

Decisions, plans and directions are agreed by them to ensure that the whole (giant) team is on the same page and that they have to cut/remove/redo the less amount of work possible, because in huge teams costs are high.

Once everything is defined the producer makes sure the gamedev team (designers, coders, artists...) keep developing on time the game achieving their milestones, solves possible issues or blockers that may appear in the dev team, typically between departments, makes sure everyone in the team always has tasks to do and is productive and saves the project when things go wrong like trying to get extra budget for extra hirings or delays, trying to redirect the project instead of cancelling etc.

The creative director overviews the art and design to make sure they follow the defined creative vision and the product manager works in everything related to the marketing side: from choosing an appealing name, to providing reference documents for the devs (that they are free to ignore) of what worked or not in term of sales, media reviews, user reviews, engament, surveys, playtest sessions etc for similar games or previous entries of this series, make and execute the marketing & communications plan with his/her team etc.

Maybe it's the case with Kojima as a rare exception, but in very rare cases AAA games are handled by a single person.

Jade excelled in her producer roles including big risky projects that ended being super successful. From The Sims Online, which was back then something very different and innovative for a series, that was super successful from the creation of massive new IPs like Assassin's Creed, Watchdogs, The Child of Light or The Division, or to overhaul and modernize series like Rainbow Six or Splinter Cell.

You may not like the AC games or Watchdogs, but they sell way over a dozen million copies per game and The Division was the best selling new IP in Europe (as I remember Destiny has the worldwide record).

In addition to this she is very valued regarding creating and growing talented, productive and very successful teams. First for games she producer, later for Ubisoft Toronto, the studio she created, very quickly grew and leaded, not only was a huge team who worked in many very successful games, they also worked on 5 games at the same time.

She also founded and quickly grew with many talented and experienced veterans Motive and the Google in-house development teams, but as we know EA changed their mind moving their focus to MP and lootboxes killing the Amy Henning Star Wars game and runing Batttlefront 2 (but managed to do Star Wars Squadrons and now the Dead Space remake) and killed the Google development teams because Stadia was a failure (but saved the team and project moving it to Haven).

Sony saw the Haven team she grew, know what they did before and what they are doing at Haven. They liked it to the point they agreeded a 2nd party game when they were starting and a year later decided to buy them before even they released the first game. And it isn't because she is hot, it's because in her role she has an impressive career that few people in the industry has and that her teams achieved very successful stuff even in difficult situations or projects like having to make The Sims Online when back then online games were something different and new and the series was super successful, redirecting a failed Prince of Persia sequel to turn it into a super successful new IP (AC), redirecting a failed Driver sequel to turn it into a very successful new IP (Watchdogs) etc.
 
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Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
This is not organic growth! This was an independent studio. It wasn't started with sony money from what ive heard. Keep trying to deflect sony purchasing studios isnt in response to ms, it makes you look like a shill for not seeing the obvious.
Whose money do you think was keeping the lights on in Haven Studios and bearing all the expenses since the studio was first established?
 

kyussman

Member
I remember when Sony used to only buy proven studios that had delivered great games for them......but that was before Microsoft started their spending spree....so I guess Sony aren't quite so fussy these days,lol.
 
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