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‘A f***ing gut stab’: Arkane boss criticises Microsoft execs for studio closures

StereoVsn

Gold Member
What kind of "cuts" are more "devastating" to a studio than being "closed"?

Come On Reaction GIF by MOODMAN
“In the days of the Roman Empire, developers would go through decimation, with every 10th losing their head. They are lucky to live in these enlightened times when they only lost their jobs.

Phil and Satya are very compassionate people with not a single executed developer on their Public record”.

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Thanati

Member
Halo Infinite is good. I think they needed to give up on their engine though, and it sounds like they have. The main thing they failed on was the GAAS portion, and we've seen even the best studios in the world fail at that - like Naughty Dog and Rocksteady. And 343 mans one of MS's most valuable IP. There's lots of differences.
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consoul

Member
Career limiting move, but also shows balls and personal integrity. We need more straight shooters like this.

Culture doesn't change by itself; it takes courage to speak up when your industry doesn't align to your values.
 

Redneckerz

Those long posts don't cover that red neck boy
It's the "I am owed" mentality vs the "I will produce" mentality.
That doesn't say anything about his capabilities at caring for his team.

And yea, seems to me that you as a studio may have some confidence in those who own you that they don't just drop you because they are Matt Booty.
Anyone making yet ANOTHER dud immersive sim today knows the risk. The genre doesn't produce. The mountain has been tapped for all its gold.
One bad game should ruin a studio?

Arkane Austin never made 1$ of profit and was arguably the worst studio in all of gaming.
sally kohn troll GIF by The Opposite of Hate
 
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N30RYU

Member
Like a lot of ppl was saying... ms was missmanaging their studios for 10 years now... not being able to produce high quality and aclaimed games... they opted to buy studios to get thwir IPs... but just now they just have more studios to missmanaging and end up clossing just like they did years ago with Lionhead. Just more rocks to the sack puling them to drown in that gamepass unsistainable model were you need games (doesn't matter if good or bad) to keep ppl subbed.
 

Felessan

Member
If I'm in his position,I'm getting the fuck out of there as soon as I can anyway. Microsoft just sent a message to all their studious and developers and the message is "even if you put out well received games that sell decently we might close you"

Why the fuck would I still want to work for such a company?
It was already a shell of a studio after it's senior creative staff left. Probably was given time to finish ports before disolving.
 

Edgelord79

Gold Member
Should have stopped after the first paragraph.

While not necessarily wrong, let’s not forget Redfall. It was exceptionally terrible.
 

Boss Mog

Member
That logic doesn't work because you see crappy ass games like this that sells tones of copy.
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Is it because game is good? NOPE it because it has mass appeal and thats it.

By your logic only mainstream games with zero creativity need to exist in order to make money.....Fuck creativity right?
This is a bad faith argument. MW3 got crappy scores because Activision put out what was basically a small DLC for MW2 and decided to call it MW3 and charge full price for it. From a technical standpoint, the game is fine, Redfall on the other hand is technically atrocious, like it was made by amateurs.
 
‘….friendly reminder that video games are an entertainment/cultural industry, and your business as a corporation is to take care of your artists/entertainers and help them create value for you.”

Obviously I get why he’s annoyed, but this seems a bit dumb. Surely it also means that if you evidently don’t create value for them by making a game people couldn’t give a shit about - you can’t complain when they fuck you off into a bin?

This does seem part of the general realignment from what is best for deified ‘artists and creators’ to what is best for the sub-human species known as ‘consumers’.

This bit is hilariously condescending and was presumably said with his eyes closed hovering above the ground we mortals walk on:

‘please be tactful and discerning about all this, and respect affected folks’ voice and leave it room to be heard, it’s their story to tell, their feelings to express.’
 
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Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
He's got every right to be upset and feel what he's feeling. Hopefully Phil & Matt and others can shield him from any blowback from his comments that may come from other Microsoft execs.
Shield him? I expect Phil and Matt B to be the first ones plotting his exit 😂.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
That doesn't say anything about his capabilities at caring for his team.

And yea, seems to me that you as a studio may have some confidence in those who own you that they don't just drop you because they are Matt Booty.

One bad game should ruin a studio?
Microsoft closed them because they had reasonable expectations of what the next 5 - 7 years of Arkane Austin would produce.

They weren't interested.
 
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ShaiKhulud1989

Gold Member
Microsoft closed them because they had reasonable expectations of what the next 5 - 7 years of Arkane Austin would produce.

They weren't interested.
In talent-driven industry Microsoft is awfully careless with, you know, managing talent. It's not always about business process or bottom line. The Initiative supedev idea just fell through, Prey devs are gone, the only first-party dev (with recent 90+ meta game) in Asia closed on a whim. Hell, even Sony kept Media Molecule afloat after the round of massive lay-offs, because you need core talent to sell hardware and some ideas are taking their time to hatch. Helldivers 2 took Arrowhead and Sony 7 years and so strong that it still alive after a massive blunders on Sony's part.

If you don't intend to sell hardware, then, well...
 

Mister Wolf

Gold Member
He need to focus on making Blade good so he isn't next. Especially since he has never produced a third person action-adventure game.
 

BlackTron

Member
At the end of the day studios have to make games that sell. Arkane for the most part makes good critically acclaimed games. The problem is not enough people buy them. I mean, what is Microsoft supposed to do, keep giving a studio a budget to make games who historically dont make a profit? It makes zero sense. Bakaba is next on the chopping block if Blade doesn't sell.

If MS really wants to make decisions based on sales then they should keep those games off Gamepass
 

Redneckerz

Those long posts don't cover that red neck boy
Microsoft closed them because they had reasonable expectations of what the next 5 - 7 years of Arkane Austin would produce.
And that's because of one bad game. Very reasonable, indeed.

But all of your responses don't play out on your original comment, so i guess that's that.
They weren't interested.
Neither were they for Tango Gameworks, a studio that didn't had a bad game on record.

In talent-driven industry Microsoft is awfully careless with, you know, managing talent. It's not always about business process or bottom line. The Initiative supedev idea just fell through, Prey devs are gone, the only first-party dev (with recent 90+ meta game) in Asia closed on a whim. Hell, even Sony kept Media Molecule afloat after the round of massive lay-offs, because you need core talent to sell hardware and some ideas are taking their time to hatch. Helldivers 2 took Arrowhead and Sony 7 years and so strong that it still alive after a massive blunders on Sony's part.

If you don't intend to sell hardware, then, well...

Maybe they actually have difficulty assessing talent.
The mass-Industry fallout on their decisions means they are tone deaf. As are posters who call any of these studios the worst or other funny syllables.

Yesterday was just a bum for the industry in general.
 

Redneckerz

Those long posts don't cover that red neck boy
"Bad game" is any game the market doesn't want to support.
And shouldn't be an incentive to just close a studio based on that one game.
It's like a boat that sinks. Just because people think the boat looks nice, doesn't make it a good boat. A boat that sinks sucks.
Based on this logic Microsoft shouldn't make and bad moments or they should be taken over. But here we are.
 

howitis3

Member
That doesn't say anything about his capabilities at caring for his team.

And yea, seems to me that you as a studio may have some confidence in those who own you that they don't just drop you because they are Matt Booty.

One bad game should ruin a studio?


sally kohn troll GIF by The Opposite of Hate
they made two games prey and redfall. both were failures. the other arkane games you know of weren't made by them
 

Bogroll

Likes moldy games
While I feel a bit sorry for people losing there jobs. There's a part of me that that thinks stop moaning about it and get on with your life and on to the next chapter. It's a God eat God world.
I say that as someone who got made redundant when I had just taken out a mortgage and had my first 9 month old child and the country was in a deep recession. I was quite excited and looked forward to the challenge as I'm the type of person that would have never left, so I needed that kick up the arse.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
Feel free to source that it generated no profit when it sold 1.3 million.

Prey is one of my favourite games of the last decade but 1.3 million likely isn't enough for this game and besides its about 7 years old by now. Their next game, Redfall, we all know about that one. Thats 2 games, both commercial flops and the latter is an absolute dumpster fire.
 

Redneckerz

Those long posts don't cover that red neck boy
Prey is one of my favourite games of the last decade but 1.3 million likely isn't enough for this game and besides its about 7 years old by now. Their next game, Redfall, we all know about that one. Thats 2 games, both commercial flops and the latter is an absolute dumpster fire.
1.3 million is a commercial flop?

I know that Redfall's initial launch was blasphemy, but later patches elevated it from trash to okay. Not enough to save the world obviously, but that doesn't matter.
 
Read that. Now look at their output and games(s) being worked on since 2017, now ask yourself..

Is this really the Arkane you 'know'?

No, no it's not. And it was never going to be.
thanks for this. according to wikipedia, arcane austin was 6 years between prey & friggin' redfall? man, i had no idea...
 

Sinfulgore

Member
1.3 million is a commercial flop?

I know that Redfall's initial launch was blasphemy, but later patches elevated it from trash to okay. Not enough to save the world obviously, but that doesn't matter.
For a game like Prey, absolutely. Prey went through a lot of development struggles and in order for it to be profitable Bethesda would need to make all the money back that was spent on the other Prey game they were publishing that got canceled. Also, it's important to remember that sales numbers don't tell you what price the game was purchased at. 1.3 million copies sold of a game during launch month is great but 1.3mil copies sold over the span of several years isn't good.
 

Umbral

Member
So I guess chances of a Prey 2 are much slimmer now?
Colantonio and others left a while ago.
Is he wrong? His entire studio was just gutted, of course he's upset.
I believe others have corrected you, but Bakaba is at Arkane Lyon, not Arkane Austin.
Nothing wrong with what Hoeg said there. It's not like Bakaba is having an open discussion with MS executives in good faith, he's openly calling them out for a business decision. It's a silly move to make and inevitably taints your working relationship. Johan Pilestedt's the Arrowhead CEO and Helldivers 2 creative director made a similar move, but they're an independent studio that was directly being impacted by Sony. Akrane Lyon have no reason to shit on MS yet.
This might indicate that Bakaba’s Northstar is not corporate ladder climbing and politics. Rare, but people like that exist.
He looks like the terrible art from there games.
No accounting for taste.
Arkane Austin earned that closure. WTF is he talking about. He made a game so bad that Tango got fired just for standing near them. Guy needs to take some ownership and apologize to Tango and their fans.
Bakaba and his team did not make Redfall. He is at Arkane Lyon.
It's no loss imho, and it is my opinion that they've never made a decent game yet.

If you think their games are top tier then great but everyone that I've played has been absolute pig wank. Redfall was the straw that broke the camels back.
Prey is better than all of your favorite games combined. Play better games, please.
 
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