The GameShadow Blog

Fans waiting on the release of the online title Stargate Worlds may be left disappointed.

Brad Wright, an executive producer on the Stargate TV series has cast doubt on whether the game will be released at all, saying he doesn’t know if it will happen.

Stargate Worlds was being developed by Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment and published by Firesky, with both companies created specifically to undertake the project.

Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment has had financial problems though and has been seeking additional funding to continue operations.

1Up is running a rumour mill which indicates with surprising certainty that not only is Rockstar working on the follow up to Remedy’s Max Payne games, but also another unannounced project independent of the GTA series.

Remedy originally released Max Payne in 2001, and its sequel two years later - both were startlingly good. Now, though, with Remedy boldly struggling on with Alan Wake, the development duties have been shifted to publisher Rockstar’s Toronto studio - so far responsible for a slew of ports and the rather good ‘The Warriors’ in 2005. Keep an eye on this one, they’re probably well into development already, so expect a Christmas 2009 release.

The other news is that Rockstar North is at work on a PS3 exclusive title, independent of the inevitable GTA IV semi sequels. It’s early days, and the project may never see the light of day, but still, it’s exciting - not to mention a major one up for Sony.

Worst part of my job - another (two!) bite the dust. It’s not so bad this time (neither studios ever produced a well received game), but it still grates.

First up is Flagship, developer of Hellgate London, and formed from ex Blizzard North (ie Diablo) developers. Following major internal shit storms a month ago and poor reception for Hellgate, the developer announced its closure a few weeks ago. “It is with deep regret that I must announce that Flagship Studios has laid off most employees,”said studio Lead Bill Roper.

I’m terribly torn on this one. On the one hand, it’s always rubbish to see a developer close its doors, but on the other, it seems to me too many devs lack the business nouse to maintain profitability. It doesn’t take a lot to produce a cheap innovative game (see Braid or Darwinia), and it doesn’t take a lot to make a profit from a cheap game. The problems arise when you make a vaguely interesting game on a large budget, then bugger it up and make no money. Essentially being Diablo III Online, Hellgate didn’t even qualify as vaguely interesting.

The other thing that sours me is the way the company silenced its staff as soon as they started to speak out about their woes. Granted it’s in the best interest of the firm, but a lie is a lie, and forcing programmers to lie on their blogs about the status of the company pretty much switches me off.

Still, the team that was working on Mythos seems to have partially reformed as Runic Games, while Namco appears to be setting itself up to take over operation of Hellgate.

Next up is Midway Austin. The studio was a short lived independent called Inevitable Entertainment, before it was purchased by Midway four years ago, and has done pretty much nothing of real value in that time. The Hobbit and both Area 51 games are the greatest claims to fame, in addition to the high profile sacking of (ex-Looking Glass man) Randy Pitchford last year after he publicly criticised the Area 51 sequel.

“While this was a very difficult decision, we feel it was the right thing to do for the future of Midway,” said Midway CEO, Matt Booty. The full internal email is here.

You know what? Screw it. By all accounts, Midway Austin developed some awful games. Dissension in the ranks occurred last year, and it was quashed. Every week we get awful, cynical games like The Hobbit, Spiderman, X-Men, and every week some clueless marketing man waxes lyrical about how great the games are going to be.

Sod it. Most games are rubbish, and this is what happens when you produce rubbish games.

Update - Activision has now announced 100 redundancies at Radical, as a result of the cancellation of Scarface 2. The Crash Bandicoot and Prototype teams are assumed largely untouched.

Biggest development upheaval in recent memory. Sierra, once the leading player in interactive entertainment, has gone through its most recent upheaval, and not come out unscathed.

Ever since the merger between Activision and Vivendi, Sierra (as a subsidiary of Vivendi) has had a future in doubt. Activision’s main motivation for the purchase was Blizzard, and the company was never coy about the ruthless approach it may take to the rest of Vivendi’s assets.

The cuts have finally happened. Here’s the fallout.

- Vivendi UK is to suffer significant staff cuts

- The only Sierra games to stay in place are Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Ice Age, Prototype, and one unannounced project

- No news is bad news on the futures of World in Conflict: Soviet Assault, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, and Wet

- Ghostbusters won’t live on as an Activision project, but work so far is being tendered to the highest bidder, so consider the game’s future up in the air (the same may apply to WiC and Wet)

- No mention of Tim Schaffer’s much anticipated Brutal Legend means Activision is dropping the title, but Schaffer himself has assured the industry development will not be halted

- The Bourne licence has been sold back to the Ludlum estate

- Major ’staff realignment’ is happening at Radical (Prototype) and High Moon (Bourne): expect redundancies

- Massive Entertainment (World in Conflict) and Swordfish (50 Cent) are most likely up for sale

That’s some big fallout right there.

…but I still remember just the way you taste.

Yes, I’ve been AWOL for the last month travelling around Central Asia, leaving the ever capable Paul to keep you up to date, but it’s back to business as usual now.

Seems I’ve missed a lot - the entirety of E3, for instance (check out the best of it here). Still, sounds as if the entire thing was a bit of a write off this year (images from E3 back in the day, and in 2008). All the same, there’s been a series of major reveals… Star Trek Online, FFXIII, confirmation of Bungie’s Halo game, Medal of Honor: Afghanistan, GTA IV for Windows… and plenty of quotable comments from the likes of Ken Levine and David Cage at Develop, Brighton, that I’ll drop into later. Plus QuakeCon and a heap of Doom 4 (it’s more Doom than Doom 3) and Quake Live details.

Meanwhile, the long dreaded cuts have kicked off at Vivendi, following Activision’s full acquisition of the publisher. Staff, studios and games are all coming under a very large knife, check the post for more.

The other major piece of news that’s caught my eye has been talk at Valve of the company’s acquisition. Big stuff afoot? I’ll keep you posted.

Following very vague indications from Take 2 that Ken Levine - Bioshock’s big daddy - would be ‘involved’ in development of the sequel at 2K Marin, Variety is reporting that Levine is deep in the midst of contractual negotiations with overlords at Take 2.

With Bioshock such a huge success, Levine certainly seems due for some recognition, and Take 2’s chairman and CEO are said to be fully aware of his value to the company, but cagey about bending over too far.

If Levein were to walk from his commitment to the firm, he certainly wouldn’t be the first to do so in his position. Having sold Irrational Studios to Take 2 shortly before the release of Bioshock - reputedly in order to keep the game on track financially - Levine is at risk of losing a great deal of creative control, which means he will be looking to either claw that back, or move on and start afresh.

Personally, I’m really excited by the idea of a Levine driven X-Com game - mooted to be 2K Boston’s secret project - so here’s hoping he sticks it out and gets his fair dues.

Guy Somber is a programmer (debatably the Lead Programmer) on Hellgate: London, the début MMO from Flagship Studios. Flagship was set up by most of the big names behind the Diablo series, with Hellgate billed as the spiritual successor to those games. Following a deluge of negative press, Somber has - inadvisably, but honestly - spoken about about the state of the team.

“Work is depressing right now. Never mind the fact that Hellgate isn’t as popular as anybody had hoped. Never mind the fact that there exists a term “Flagshipped,” meaning where a company basically overpromises and then screws you. The reason is that people are leaving. In droves, they’re leaving.”

There’s a whole load more depressing stuff about what’s going wrong over on Somber’s blog. Basically, Hellgate shipped with a whole load of problems, and not enough of anything else to make them worthwhile bearing.

It’s pretty rare for devs to speak up so honestly - usually they are under NDAs, or at risk of being fired for actually saying what they think about a project, so it’s brave of Guy to do so here. It also explains the hasty retraction by both Guy and Comms Manager Ivan Sulic as soon as the post hit interweb notoriety.

“When I wrote that blog post I was frustrated and just a little bit overwhelmed, but it was nothing that a mug of hot chocolate, a few hours of gaming, and a good night’s sleep didn’t cure,” said Somber, with a pistol held to his temple.

Seriously, though, of course people get tired, and frustrated, and a poor release is bound to get you down. I suspect, however, that the truth is somewhere in between - I don’t think a bad day and lack of sleep is enough to render a fantastic job miserable.

It makes you wonder, too, how many other devs are cracking out material they’re unhappy with, but have had their freedom of speech compromised by the need to hold onto their jobs.

Been tooing and froing all week, this one.

The story began Fri 6th June when reports started drifting in from apparently ex-LucasArts employees that at least 100 staff had been laid off by the developer / publisher, and that these guys and girls had held a broad variety of roles, ranging from QA to very senior producers.

This news followed on from the shock a few months ago that Jim Ward, former LucasArts President, would be leaving for ‘personal reasons’, and popular rumour that it was in fact a move away from internal development at the company that prompted his pressurised resignation.

LucasArts later confirmed that large numbers of employees had been let go, with many jobs going to outsourcers overseas, which would seem to correspond to previous rumours.

The next development was a Shacknews story reporting that further lay offs were due, and that the entireinternal development staff was to be dissolved. Now, it’s not uncommon for a large number of staff to move on after a large project is completed - QA and low level staff in particular are often only required for certain stages of a project, and a high turnover is not necessarily cause for the disgruntled reactions we’ve been seeing in recent days. However, the fact that high level personnel are also being ousted does raise concerns.

LucasArts, however, denied this, stating the company’s balance between internal and external development could be expected to continue. Vague, then, but not entirely non-committal.

Finally, a little pleasant collateral damage from the situation is the revealing of LucasArts’ next few projects by a particularly pissed of ex-employee.

- KOTOR III: It’s a Bioware developed MMO

- Battlefront 3: More Battlefront, presumably

- The Official Indiana Jones Game: not made of Lego, and tying into the recent film launch

- More Lego Indiana Jones

- A Lightsabre game for Wii

The Force Unleashed is, apparently, complete, while Fracture is billed internally as ‘an absolute piece of garbage’.

The Danish founders of the Hitman, Freedom Fighters and Kane & Lynch producing studio, IO Interactive, have split from the company to form a new venture: Reto Moto.

IO Interactive was purchased by Eidos some time ago, and the studio founders are now starting from scratch. The new studio will focus on multplayer titles, presumably inspired by Kane & Lynch’s revolutionary multiplayer mode (which was unfortunately marred by the game’s otherwise uninspiring combat).

No further details have been released regarding the studio’s projects.

It’s been a while.

Yes, the news that’s been hanging around the interweb for months now has officially surfaced: Interplay is building up a development team, and looking to begin a Fallout MMO.

The beleaguered publisher was delisted from the NASDAQ and pretty much closed down in 2004. Its famous internal studio Black Isle was packed up, members going on to work at studios like Obsidian and Troika. The publisher, however, retained its name and intellectual property, inluding Fallout, Earthworm Jim, MDK and Descent / Freespace.

In 2007, the Fallout property was flogged to Bethesda (who are now working on Fallout 3) for just under $6 million. Importantly, though, Interplay retained the rights to develop an MMO based on the Fallout universe.

With cash in pocket, the publisher is now recruiting for its new internal development team, and looking for financing for its two pronged development plan - the Fallout MMO and the reinvigoration of other, smaller IPs.

There’s a long road ahead for Interplay. Its strength as a publisher was always the pull of its development teams, so with Black Isle, Volition, Bioware and Shiny all either dissolved or otherwise engaged, starting from scratch could be a tall order.

Still, a new team and fantastic IP can’t be a bad start.

Take Two has announced its Q1 financials, and with it a bevy of info regarding the Bioshlock sequel. Specifically that yes, it’s in development at the 2K Marin studio established for that purpose last year, and yes, Ken Levine (the game’s Big Daddy) will have some involvement.

The story goes that a large part of the original Bioshock team make up the core of the new studio. Now, call me cynical, but this all seems a little too perfect to me. Let’s be honest, the team at Irrational (Levine’s System Shock 2 producing studio, now known as 2K Boston) must be pretty gosh darned talented, but it’s Levine’s creative vision that saw Bioshock emerge in the state it did. His writing, his world design, his vision. So the fact that the cleaner and the IT guy from Boston are now at 2K Marin is hardly cause for joy.

What’s more, 2K obviously understands how ‘core’ Bioshock is - it’s aimed at and consumed by us, a well informed and cynical lot. Therefore, trying to launch a Bioshock sequel without Levine’s branding on it would be difficult. So what do you do? Get him to look over the odd level design, and claim he’s involved at an executive level.

Bioshock 2 is rumoured to be a prequel, but I can’t help but feel that it’ll capitalise on the less interesting parts of the first one - the shooting and the basic enemies - because they’re easy to tackle, and all the other things that made the game such an interesting prospect will probably fall by the wayside.

It’ll be a telling time for 2K.

One of the writers/designers on the original Fallout series,  Scott Campbell, has set up a new indie studio called WhiteMoon Dreams, along with Jay Koottrappallil who apparently came from Looking Glass, but doesn’t appear to be on Moby Games.

The company will focus on the traditional core gaming bracket, and is already in contract with a Japanese publisher for its first title.

Develop has posted its list of the ten most exciting studios to be established during 2007.

These are the ten developers who may not have huge softographies to their names, or a massive staff, but nonetheless are odds on to do exciting stuff in 2008 and beyond.

“In no particular order, the chosen studios are David Jaffe’s new outfit EatSleepPlay; Codemasters’ new Guildford team; Dare to be Digital BAFTA winners Voodoo Boogy; Canadian outfit Smoking Gun, founded by former Company of Heroes developers; Japan’s Platinum Games (originally called Seeds), which was co-founded by Capcom veterans Atsushi Inaba, Shinji Mikami, and Hideki Kamiya; former SCi creative director Patrick O’Luanaigh’s nDreams; Irish studio Dark Water; Recoil Games, formed by Fathammer and Remedy founder Samuli Syvahuoko; UK student upstart studio Lo-Jen, which has regional development agency support; and American outfit Big Rooster, recently spun out of Human Head.”

Of particular interest to me are:

O’Luanaigh’s nDreams - developing narrative-lead casual games

Recoil Games - Remedy’s kept a low profile in recent years, why is Samuli Syvahuoko jumping ship?

Platinum Games - the Okami devs break off from Capcom to do something new

You can find a full profile of all the studios here.

Take 2, via its publishing label 2K, has set up a new development studio near San Francisco with the intention of producing a sequel to Irrational Games’ Bioshock.

Irrational was swallowed up by publisher Take 2 during development of Bioshock, and is now known as “2K Boston“, with an undisclosed number of its staff relocating to the new studio. Whether this includes visionary and project lead Ken Levine has not been revealed.

Rumours that the decision is the result of creative differences at 2K Boston have not been confirmed.

2k Boston is said to be working on a new intellectual property based on Epic’s Unreal Engine.

Montreal seems to be the vogue place to open studios these days.

With the opening of the Eidos Montreal development studio comes the official announcement of Deus Ex 3. Details are understandably scarce, but the studio is looking to take on up to 100 staff by the end of the year.

There’s a teaser trailer with frankly the worst voice over imaginable. Seriously, watch it, and try not to giggle. Then remember that Deus Ex is one of those few series famed - rightly or wrongly - for its intelligence, and weep bitter tears of resentment.