Hero-of-Time Posted May 4, 2012 Posted May 4, 2012 I've just read this article over on Eurogamer and it gives a great insight into how the developers were brought to their knees by various publishers. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-04-free-radical-vs-the-monsters
Deathjam Posted May 5, 2012 Posted May 5, 2012 There was alot to read but it was worth it just to see this video.
flameboy Posted May 5, 2012 Posted May 5, 2012 I feel really sorry for Free Radical...I've been semi interested in them in recent times having picked up Haze cheap during the GAME fire sales, so was nice that this article popped up out of nowhere.
The fish Posted May 5, 2012 Posted May 5, 2012 That article made me feel sad and, quite frankly, angry. The loss of Free Radical was a hit at the time for me - I still rank Timesplitters 2 as one of the best games ever made, and Second Sight was probably the best action game nobody bought. Future Perfect was, well, far from perfect, but was certainly a commendable effort with a decent helping of laughs, melons, explosions and monkeys. I cannot tell you how much I hope that one day they'll pull the old crew back into what is now Crytek UK and make Timeplitters 4. I will love Ubisoft forever and a day if they do that.
Ramar Posted May 7, 2012 Posted May 7, 2012 It's horrible to read how they were treated by publishers, but at the same time it's not anything new or surprising. Which I guess is the most upsetting part. It's no surprise that a lot of UK developers are keeping themselves small, low budget and to handheld markets such as iOS.
James McGeachie Posted May 8, 2012 Posted May 8, 2012 End result of unrestrained capitalism. Big companies want to continue to make massive profits at any cost! The thought process behind "how do we sell as many games as possible while keeping our costs low?" is far different from "how do we make this the best game possible". As the games industry gets bigger, the costs go up and the bar continues to be set higher and higher, so do the demands of management that a game sells enough to still make mega-profits. It's kind of inevitable sadly. If you don't have a big marketing push and a marketable product, you don't have a huge mainstream success, unless you have a franchise that already sells itself on its reputation alone. I have no doubts that the decisions that made the Mass Effect series change were based on EA's demands in order to increase sales to the mainstream. At least they didn't need to tell them to make default Shepard look like Vin Diesel as he already looked like a generic action star. They did make sure that the game's combat was emphasized though and then in the third game I'm sure they wanted marketing to put the focus on earth so the game "identified" more with "normal" people. Also, probably introduced James Vega to get another military boy in there they could use for advertising and gave Shepard an omni-blade simply so they could have him pool "cool" poses with it in marketing. Basically, Free Radical's story is hardly isolated. Some people are just far more submissive to publisher demands for the sake of retaining their support.
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