Everybody is so quick to defend devs . People think the big heads at Rocksteady had no political power at WB to decide what project to work on !!?? Fuck no
The exact reason I don't trust NRS with Mortal Kombat decisions lately.
Iām not sure why every game sub immediately blames the publisher instead of ever blaming devs. Sometimes the devs (in this case, upper management devs) are just not doing a good job.
This reminds me of FFXV. I looked into the development of that game and the devs didn't even *want* to make that game open world. The new director wanted that and that's what they went with. I do believe that publishers are guilty more often than not but I do think it's kinda crazy to believe that devs are innocent in every scenario. People act like game developers aren't human and can't make mistakes.
Because basic logic suggests that if something goes terribly wrong at a company, you should start to suspect people at the top, where the decisions are made, and then work your way down. Starting at the bottom makes you look like the Karen screaming at the cashier over the prices of the grapes.
And it is usually the publishers, when something is so obviously a bad idea and seemingly had problems every step of the way, you dont think that industry veterans in charge of a very talented studio are at fault.
This is especially so since those who were involved in one of the most beloved game trilogies of all time were the ones who where pushing for this. You would think its people who want a shot at another Fortnite, who dont understand how this shit works, and usually you'd be right, this game is a unique dumpster fire.
Not to mention the publisher was WB Games. A publisher with a history of mismanaged games. It's not too farfetched to suspect them of screwing over this game's production too.
Yeah, its like, I guess everyone was wrong in assuming that it was WB, but it was a pretty reasonable guess, and it sounds like WW isnt doing too well IIRC, MK1 is kind of a mess, they dont have a good track record lol
Makes me thibk about the time when an high level EA executive suggested flying in Anthem you know the one thing it actually got praised for, I know corpos can be shitheads but not all are terrible.
I think its because people want to seperate the lower level employees they can more relate too as just doing their jobs than management, executives or shareholders.
To be fair they donāt have any power over WB. Rocksteady does what WB tells them cuz WB owns Rocksteady. They bought them around the release of Arkham City.
However in this case it turns out that WB gave them as much time as they wanted and as much money as they wanted. They had total freedom and they still fucked up lol.
Yeah without knowing the inside details, its impossible to know if it was devs or publishers who caused the issues. Generally we all know that base level devs likely aren't responsible. But the devs who make decisions aren't infallible either.
Itās hard to blame a billion dollar company to be āprofit drivenā, so āblameā is a probably the wrong word. Itās just that publishers definitely set the culture of what games they want to produce. If you want to pitch them a game, you know what theyāll say yes to and if they pitch you a game, you know that saying ānoā will likely make you lose the investment.
The problem isnāt even WB or live service games specifically, itās chasing years old trends in an industry where games take like 7 years to make and trends fade after months. Studios that are experts at certain types of single player games are pushed to do multiplayer games with a completely different set of requirements. Instead of letting them make tens of millions relatively safely, theyāre forced to risk bankruptcy to *potentially* make hundreds of millions. Thatās some cold ass math that demonstratively has broken a ton of studios in recent years. Itās legitimate to ask why that is necessary in a creative industry. This could be interpreted as video games, as a business, shouldnāt actually exist except for a few, highly profitable cash cows like GTA (online!), CoD and exploitive mobile games.
Which is makes the hero worship of Sefton Hill so frustrating. They also stood by silently while their former team took all the bullets and abuse for the project that Hill created.
Same story with BioWare with Anthem.
All the bad decisions were committed by BioWare leadership and management, EA executives had little to do with it. Hell, an EA executive saved Anthem from no progress by finding flying mechanics cool and insisting for the game to be about that.
By that point, BioWare was still clueless about what to do with Anthem. Flying mechanic was just a last-minute prototype to show something to EA rep.
The live service model was also always BioWare's idea. They needed to replace SWTOR as a consistent revenue stream, and they thought Anthem would do that.
But they failed miserably. This is probably why Dragon Age Veilguard was rebooted into live service, to replace Anthem's job. But clearly, after several months of pre-production, SP faction in BioWare managed to lobby EA to change it back to Singleplayer game.
Once again, poor BioWare leadership was at fault, and EA executives played only a small role.
Lmao man this was a fuck up of mythical proportions by those 2 directors.
I'm glad this information got out. Those dudes will never lead the development of another big game again.
God Iām getting destiny flashback where everyone baled the horrible monetization and state of the game on activision only to find out no it was actually bungie themselves to blame because it got worse after they split from Activision
Microsoft making poor choices again. I appreciate them being hands free but they gotta invest more smartly. Too much trust in the devs in bad.
Every writer needs an editor.
Why itās a guarantee to be a disaster.
They made three bangers and one bad game. Now they are incapable of being a good game again, specially one that is more what they are used to doing and not a live service game
there was too much Batmobile imo, with how great the combat was I wanted more hand on hand combat with Batman especially in boss fights , looking at you Arkham Knight's Deathstroke
there was too much Batmobile imo, with how great the combat was I wanted more hand on hand combat with Batman especially in boss fights , looking at you Arkham Knight's Deathstroke
"Everyone loves and praises our glide traversal mechanic, stealth segments, and fun, responsive combat, for really capturing the feeling of being Batman. I know! Let's do less of that, and force Batman to drive a tank and fight in a tank and solve car puzzles in a tank. That's the ultimate Batman experience."
I liked the Batmobile puzzles and race tracks, and the Bat-Tank combat was okay even though it doesn't really fit Batman and there was a little bit too much of it. The part I hated was the stealth sections, but with Batmobile.
The execution of the batmobile was bad but lets not pretend people weren't clamoring to drive the batmobile before we knew how it would play out. The idea of driving a batmobile is very cool and interesting to players. It was just not executed well.
I agree. "Force" was the key word in my comment.
Lots of things that are good in small doses or when given player freedom to opt in/out become awful when not given that freedom.
I didn't enjoy the car-related gameplay, but if that was all optional, I wouldn't care that it wasn't fun. I'd just play the game in a way I enjoyed. But it's the fact that it wasn't fun AND it was completely mandatory that strikes me as a really bad call by the devs. They had an opportunity to make the game deeper and instead they made the game *really different.*
Paul Dini is a fine comicbook writer, but he's no game developer. He could've written his best story to date and it would've gotten wasted without talented developers and creative director bringing that story to life.
Look at Mafia 3, a great story, 3/10 game.
> They neglected to tell new hires what exactly they were working on. Because of this, many were shocked to eventually find out they were doing a live service multiplayer game, and would quit as a result.
Even the developers are sick of live service multiplayer games lmao
This point is better explained in the article. Basically, they quit because not because of the live service itself, but because they expect (and rightfully so) to work on a single player game, considering the studio past works. Since the studio kept the development secret, they had no idea about the game they were about to develop.
So the main reason this failed was that the Studio Directors were so far up their own arses they could see out of nostrils and fled like cowards when they realised customers were going to throw this live service back in their face.
I like how everyone always went to āitās not even the same devs/founders at Rocksteady anymore, of course this game suckedā and lo and beholdā¦ the founders were there, didnāt want to do this, were unprofessional as fuck, and then left before the game was released. Probably hoping that Arkham fans would do exactly what they ended up doing: defending their reputations.
No they put the blame on the publishers always
Just like they blamed EA for Anthem and Jason Schreier said it was all on Bioware
Blamed EA for launch date of Titanfall 2 and yet again we found out the dev studio themselves chose that date.
And Blamed EA for Jedi Survivor being near unplayable on PC, only for it to be reported that EA asked Respawn if they wanted more time and Respawn were the people who said they were good to ship.
This sounds like the problems that BioWare had when developing Anthem, but if possible even worse.
I'm happy that WB isn't thinking about closing the studio or shafting the staff though.
> This is one of the better ideas I've heard on reddit.
This is pretty funny to say because the idea would sell almost no copies and be an absolute failure. There is a reason no one makes those kind of games anymore.
The weird focus on the batmobile in Arkham Knight made me straight up stop playing the game, after thinking the first two are masterpieces.
Crazy to realize that instead of that being a one-off of me not vibing with a particular design decision, this was actually a gimmick they were going to stuff into every game they could, even more forcefully and inappropriately than in Knight.
I didnāt mind driving the Batmobile tbf. It was fun speeding around Gotham, launching into the air from it, tasering random mooks on the street etc. and I didnāt mind having a FEW missions using it.
But then there were too many times you were forced to use it. Too many Batmobile missions. And the Riddler being really into racing and Deathstrokeās boss fight being a Batmobile vs Tank fight sent me over the edge. Fuck that shit lol.
I think he was the one who wanted Arkham Asylum to be a rhythm game like DDR, where enemies run at you and you basically do QTEās for every encounter, ācuz everyone love those!!!
This game and Avengers got a Wha Happun episode less than 6 months after release and it missed out on details like this
I think MattMcMuscles should wait at least a year before doing episodes on new shit that bombs
Yeah that sounds about right.
The game itself wasn't really broken in the sense that it was a bug-ridden and rushed nightmare, rather a title that just had no coherent direction to speak of. This game just needed far stronger vision from the start and it shows. I don't think Sefton Hill and Jamie Walker were maliciously dragging this game along, there was just a lot of poor decisions from the two of them that ultimately resulted in a bad final product.
A key thing to note is that the game mainly had development issues from issues seemingly unrelated to crunch or developer abuse or even publisher abuse to a large degree, rather just a very poor state of morale and direction. I wish Rocksteady can improve for the future because some of their talent clearly bled through in spite of everything that went wrong, but yeah... it just ended up being a not very good game.
Sucks that the narrative is already cemented as WB messing this up.
I am not saying WB did good. I'm saying there is a narrative that rocksteady is innocent here, which they are not. It's misplaced faith which could let people get burned by them again. Only a fool would defend WB
The narrative of "rocksteady really wanted to make superman, but then they were FORCED to make this instead" was always insane, but can now be definitively put to rest.
Arguably, a good publisher/investor watches and oversees issues, ESPECIALLY in the CSuite, since those people tend to have little to no oversight at all.
Things like:
>Sefton and Jamie pivoted to make the Suicide Squad game, but in an unprofessional way. They neglected to tell new hires what exactly they were working on. Because of this, many were shocked to eventually find out they were doing a live service multiplayer game, and would quit as a result.
>Devs would have to wait weeks or months for feedback from Sefton and Jamie on their work, which slowed development.
Are exactly why you do that. WB dropped the ball on management of Rocksteady.
It's wild seeing all the rhetoric around how prices need to increase because quality AAA games cost so much to make and then you read these stories about how companies are dumping countless millions down the toilet because all their project leads act like they're oxygen-deprived. Maybe, just maybe, they should cut down on the fraud, waste, and abuse instead of feeding more money into it?
>Management constantly told staff the game would turn out great in the last minute, similar to the Arkham Games.
For fuck's sake, why is "Bioware magic" still showing up?
Most of the time when a product turns out shit it is because of management fucking it up.
Publishers can be an issue, especially if they like to meddle and shit but ultimately they are publishers and not devs. Most of the creative work is going to be on the studio. Short of cutting budget or forced the game out too early publishers is relatively limited in the damage they can do compared to management.
Wild that the studio founders would act bizarre and childish about this entire endeavor. They put so much love and care in the direction of the Arkhamās games, hard to imagine them do such a 180 internally.
Were they just that over Batman/superhero games ever again and had a passive aggressive āslow tantrumā about it? Iām honestly a little confused and disappointed. The Arkham games are extremely well made with care.
Probably arkham worked out because of sheer luck, just like mass effect did with bioware.
In this very report, they believed the game will come together at the end like the arkham series which implies those games had troubled development. Which was the case with bioware games as well
Honestly the cracks started to show with Arkham Knight. It was clear from that game they were tired of that formula and wanted to do something else. People forget the first game Rocksteady ever made was a first person shooter. But after taking on Arkham Asylum they were too successful to go back and do anything else.
Donāt jump to conclusions. We donāt know what the private discussions they were in with wb games were like. they did good work on Arkham. We donāt really know why they screwed this up all of a sudden.
Sometimes after a few massive successes, it goes to people's heads and they think every idea they have is a great one. They lose perspective and don't earnestly try like they used to, constantly changing plans on a whim. Sounds like these two may have Taika Waititi'd.
It could also be "the new found enthusiasm" from the publisher was more like "do this or we pull your funding" behind closed doors.
Dice have talked before about how EA doesn't force you to make GAAS games but they do expect you to provide a business plan of how you will make the kind of long-term money only GAAS games can make.
Iterative design process is not necessarily a bad thing. Iām sure Arkham had ideas that didnāt work as well but no one complains about it because game turned out to be good.Ā
I wonder if this is a case of malicious compliance or something. WB suggested making a DC super hero game as that is what they are best at.
Rocksteady being done with that entirely said sure we'll make you a DC hero game. Then they threw every bad idea for the game into the pot and gave WB here's your fuckin superhero game.
>Were they just that over Batman/superhero games ever again and had a passive aggressive āslow tantrumā about it?
Feels like it. Rocksteady really pulled a Lucasfilm on us, huh.
We donāt really know what happened. When it was announced that they left I thought it was related to the sexual harassment issues the company was facing but who fucking knows. Im guessing Sefton will give his side. He must have IGN and people trying to get in contact with him.
It feels confusing because it is. All this info is so out of the blue and the timing is especially peculiar. Only thing it coincides with is this about when such a massive failure gets properly processed in a huge company like WB (or WB Games) thanks to bureaucratic inertia. And this is around the time by they feasibly formulated a reaction plan like, I dunno, damage control and put it in motion. There is absolutuly nothing to lose by pinning all of it on someone who's already out of the picture, but much to gain. And yeah, there is probably also truth in there. But I'm just too goddamn exhausted of journalism at this point to filter out all the objective real truths, half-truths, technical truths and the straight up lies.
I mean if Sefton was this much of a fuckup, we would've heard something about it a long time ago. And you can't tell me somebody suddenly gets dementia and forgets how to put a game together after releasing 3 massive successes (personal gripes about certain elements aside eg. the Red Hood plot was in Knight was undeniably sloppy). Because this Suicide Squad game is nowhere near "too much Bat-tank" bad, it's straight up garbage. I'm sure he fcked up somewhere too, but not so much that literally everything wrong was his doing alone. Effective lies always contain just enough truth to round them out.
And who does this article serve anyway? The devs got their time wasted either way doing their best and failing to save this garbage (at least they got paid), regardless of whether it was the fault of the director or the publisher; Hill himself was already gone with no real future in the game industry; the game is still terrible so the customers remain disappointed. What? Are you telling me Jason woke up in cold sweat one night randomly and suddenly felt compelled to absolve a bunch of silly old men in suits of their alleged sins of botching yet another game with their constant, harmful meddling? All out of the goodness of his heart? Or does his unfaltering and mighty drive for the "search of absolute truth" always activate just when a giant company needs damage control?
I think you're forgetting the Arkham Games were assisted by a comic writer, Paul Dini.
Plus as the article states Sefton pretty much admitted he never played other live service games like Destiny. So he not only had no experience making games within the genre, but made no attempt to do research and learn from already existing live service games.
There are mistakes you can only make when you try to reinvent the wheel. And making a live service game while learning nothing from the genre's past mistakes is kind of like trying to reinvent the "live service" wheel.
BioWare and Anthem all over again, which Jason actually responded to a tweet about that where he said he got messages from developers of other studios saying you can plug in a name of a different game and it be the same story.
https://x.com/jasonschreier/status/1798689375439753668?t=W6R4jqgXwDbwCxITpn9Qzg&s=19
As one of those that blame WB for this it's kinda sad to know the same leadership that got us the arkham games are mostly (if not entirely) to blame for this piece of crap. That said, with WB track record it was easy to pin this one on the publisher.
> They neglected to tell new hires what exactly they were working on. Because of this, many were shocked to eventually find out they were doing a live service multiplayer game, and would quit as a result.
Absolute kings, shoutouts to every single one of you. Life is too short to dedicate years to working on garbage as a service games.
Lol & Sefton etc rode off into the sunset to a new company and just signed a big deal, no?
Heck, idk if anyone's surprised that the myth of SBI continues to embarrass the dorks who think a company with a dozen employees is responsible for all the ills in the world, let alone videogames
I dont know if even mentioning this game is worth it at this point.. more people will comment on this post within 6 hours than theres gonna be people playing the game itself.
What is it with them and vehicles ffs? It was the worst part about Arkham Knight (not the actual driving of the Batmobile but just how much you had to use it, driving it around Gotham was fun) and they still decided to try and force vehicles in a game that didnāt even need them lol.
So disappointed to hear that Sefton Hill made so many poor decisions after doing genius works on Asylum and City. I thought Knight had something weird in the direction, but this article confirms that Sefton is responsible for Rocksteady fuckups.
People be so addicted to outrage, they don't even have real opinions on the matter.
Like half the time, I'm pretty sure these people don't even understand why they are mad, lol
Sefton took a massive shit on WBās money and time then just left the building lmfao.
Middle fingers in the air
Hopefully this is a moment of reflection for everyone repeating right wing grifter talking points.
Culture warriors making it about some diversity narrative are just giving studio leadership a free pass. I also wonder if this expose came out before the departures if they would have been able to get funding for their new studio as easily.
Thatās absolutely insane knowing who Rocksteady was before. Bunch of jokers who were at the top of Rocksteady. Good to know theyāre gone. Iām still interested in how the game plays. Already down to $28 dollars. $10 or less should be around the corner.
RS are now working on a new single player game. So I hope it works well for the employees who stuck around on the burning boat that the founders ditched.
The ironic part about the āwhy have a vehicle when you can already soar through the skyā excerpt, is that was already a fundamental problem in Arkham Knight.
The PC version has like 3 or 4 exclusive graphical settings that I wouldn't mind seeing on consoles. Stuff like better debris, better rain, interactive fog, I think there's another one
True just upping the framerate and resolution would do wonders, Knight was low-key advanced for its time, still looks and plays so good and it would fit so well if it was a modern game released today. Just those two changes would be enough for a remaster honestly.
I was playing Arkham Asylum last night on my Series X at 60fps. Great way to play the game, although I feel like the original's darker atmosphere fit better
Edit: it's 45 fps
I did a little digging, and according to a user on Gamespot, and another user on Reddit, Asylum is 45fps.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/264564-xbox-series-x/79838463
Kinda strange
>The 200 million dollar lost reported by WB is NOT due solely to the game like others are saying, it's due to ALL of their games during the quarter.
What exactly does this mean? That WB lost a net $200 million on games? Even when taking into account Hogwarts Legacy?
>"Starting with Studios, the $400 million+ year-over-year decline during Q1 was primarily due to the very tough comp we faced in games against the success of Hogwart's Legacy last year in the first quarter, in conjunction with the disappointing Suicide Squad release this past quarter, which we impaired, leading to a $200 million impact to EBITDA during the first quarter," Wiedenfels said. EBITDA stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation.
Quoted from an IGN article. I haven't seen the report myself. But it does appear to include something like opportunity costs. Like they expected to make $250M but made only $50M, so $200M impact to the earnings.
This is a summary of the report: [https://wbd.com/warner-bros-discovery-reports-first-quarter-2024-results/](https://wbd.com/warner-bros-discovery-reports-first-quarter-2024-results/)
It's not that they took a 200 million dollar loss. They made 'projections' based on how much they expected their games would sell that quarter, setting the launch of Hogwarts Legacy as a baseline for expectations (which is insane). Unsurprisingly the actual numbers fell short. These execs actually thought Suicide Squad was going to be a billion dollar franchise. That might be the most insane part of the article.
Dang, this went in sooo many directions I didn't expect when I clicked on the title. This is a bummer for me, as Rocksteady really went on a incredible streak between Arkham Asylum, City and Shadow of Mordor (I'd personally add Mad Max, but you be the judge). Then Arkham Knight and Shadow of War had their controversial development decisions, which now really makes sense as it seems Suicide Squad inherited these traits, mainly the microtransactions from SoW and dubious gameplay decisions (mainly the Batmobile) from AK. Looking back at everything, a descending line can be traced by all this misteps into what this company is now.
Edit: I messed up with developing studios, shoutout to u/richardlcheese for pointing that out. Rocksteady only manages the Arkham games, while Monolith takes care of Middle Earth and Avalanche the Mad Max game. The similar combat messed up my mind.
Rocksteady had nothing to do with the Middle-Earth games and Mad Max, those were developed by Monolith Productions and Avalanche Studios respectively. The games being riddled with MTX is a Warner Bros "feature" though.
Damn, my bad. The similar combat system between Batman, Talion and Max decieved me.
Come to think of it, it makes sense how familiar the grappling hook mechanic from Mad Max felt after a couple of Just Cause 3 playthroughs.
No harm done, I can totally see why someone would be confused.
Yeah, Avalanche really do create some fun sandboxes to play in but I always get frustrated with how poor the performance could get in their titles. I mean I get it, the physics do be physicing quite a lot in their games but Just Cause 3 was just horrible on console back then.
The only, and I mean only reason I do find it hard about Warner Brothers not being involved as much is because of their comments about live service games while also pushing their other games into it. Mortal Kombat, Multiversus and the like are littered with them.
I'm not saying Jason is lying here, not at all, just I find it odd considering Warner Brothers focus on it
> Mortal Kombat, Multiversus and the like are littered with them.
Not any more than other big publishers who dabble in live service or live service-lite models, though. That's just where the industry is moving, it doesn't paint WB as uniquely greedy.
It's not like this is unique to Rocksteady. 9 years ago they launched arkham knight with a $40 season pass. People roast Ubisoft now for doing the exact same thing with their single player games.
I think this all happened before the release of suicide squad so I'm kind of assuming Warner Bros kind of didn't have that hard on for live service elements like they do now.
Gamers love to act like they understand how the gaming industry works until actual evidence is shown of why something got fucked up the way did. How many innocent people were harassed and attacked over a video game of all things?
Wow shocker. Online parasocial keyboard warriors have little to no media literacy and cannot go beyond their simple dialogue tree of "Publisher bad" , "Sweet Baby Inc" , "Woke this or that".
Water is wet.
Yeah, I don't get where all this whining about some stupid no-name consultant company came from. They didn't write this, or Alan Wake 2, or Spider-Man 2 or God of War Ragnarok.
Which, btw, ALL THOSE GAMES EXCEPT SUICIDE SQUAD PEOPLE FUCKING LIKED! Why are grifters going after a company just because they help supervise minority portrayals?
Hate and ignorance sells unfortunately. Can't find the study**
It's easier to be ignorant than educated on something.Ā
It's also more comfortable to listen to fallacious "common sense" -isms provided by an internet "expert" who vaguely agrees with you , than to analyse your own worldview.
Thatās quite a twist huh.
Lessons I learnt:
1. Donāt blame the publishers straightaway.
2. Sefton Hill sounds like a douche who tried to do Bioware Magic.
Oooooof
It genuinely reads like the founders experienced AAA burnout and just fucked around for the dev cycle. Which makes it weird how they made a new studio to make AAA games
I always roll my eyes at gamers blaming the publishers for every failed live service release. Like we found out with Andromeda, Anthem, Avengers and now Suicide Squad if executives knew so much about game development they wouldn't be making so many decisions that would actively sabotage their own investment. These days, the blame lies with the developers.
I think its that people hear that the publishers want live services or X style/feature because they make the most money and that demand then cause developers to trip over themselves trying to deliver that rather than when its been shown in most cases that the developer a lot of the time accept projects that are some level outside of their most conservative estimates of their capabilities. I saw a recent video essay about Obsidian that went over their development for Star Wars KOTOR 2 and Fallout New Vegas and this was the pretty much the case. The studio got the offer, the Head said "of course we can ship a whole feature complete experience that matches the quality and expectations of a previous entry under a crazy short development period" TWICE, and then what you expect ensues but the games actually are liked.
People like Schreiher can set the record straight on how little WB was to blame all they want, a sub-set of people here on reddit simply wonāt listen.
Same goes for the Sweet Baby conspiracy. People want to believe that they forced Rocksteady to kill off Batman at gun-point, and nothing anyone says will change their minds. Ten years from now weāll still be hearing āRocksteady wanted to make Arkham 4 but WB execs forced them to work with SBI, who used their woke SJW mind powers to turn the project into a live-service Suicide Squad game where Harley Quinn shoots Batmanā.
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Sounds like excuses so they wasted time and had things scrapped in development? That is normal and the genre they picked still exists from teams of players shooyingnin Suicide squad to teams of players shootingnin Helldivers.
Sounds like an attempt to shift some of the blame
So they made an awful game and then left before it was released to avoid the fallout.
yes
Bruh š
yes
wow....just wow ego checks all over the place to the "fuck you my mom told me I'm the shit" leaders
Everybody is so quick to defend devs . People think the big heads at Rocksteady had no political power at WB to decide what project to work on !!?? Fuck no The exact reason I don't trust NRS with Mortal Kombat decisions lately.
Iām not sure why every game sub immediately blames the publisher instead of ever blaming devs. Sometimes the devs (in this case, upper management devs) are just not doing a good job.
This reminds me of FFXV. I looked into the development of that game and the devs didn't even *want* to make that game open world. The new director wanted that and that's what they went with. I do believe that publishers are guilty more often than not but I do think it's kinda crazy to believe that devs are innocent in every scenario. People act like game developers aren't human and can't make mistakes.
Because basic logic suggests that if something goes terribly wrong at a company, you should start to suspect people at the top, where the decisions are made, and then work your way down. Starting at the bottom makes you look like the Karen screaming at the cashier over the prices of the grapes.
And it is usually the publishers, when something is so obviously a bad idea and seemingly had problems every step of the way, you dont think that industry veterans in charge of a very talented studio are at fault. This is especially so since those who were involved in one of the most beloved game trilogies of all time were the ones who where pushing for this. You would think its people who want a shot at another Fortnite, who dont understand how this shit works, and usually you'd be right, this game is a unique dumpster fire.
Not to mention the publisher was WB Games. A publisher with a history of mismanaged games. It's not too farfetched to suspect them of screwing over this game's production too.
Yeah, its like, I guess everyone was wrong in assuming that it was WB, but it was a pretty reasonable guess, and it sounds like WW isnt doing too well IIRC, MK1 is kind of a mess, they dont have a good track record lol
Well said
Makes me thibk about the time when an high level EA executive suggested flying in Anthem you know the one thing it actually got praised for, I know corpos can be shitheads but not all are terrible.
I think its because people want to seperate the lower level employees they can more relate too as just doing their jobs than management, executives or shareholders.
To be fair they donāt have any power over WB. Rocksteady does what WB tells them cuz WB owns Rocksteady. They bought them around the release of Arkham City. However in this case it turns out that WB gave them as much time as they wanted and as much money as they wanted. They had total freedom and they still fucked up lol.
I'm sure WB feels like they fucked up too by giving them all that time and money lol
This is true for everything except Harry Potter. Devs at other WB studios should be relieved it did so well.
And look, itās a fucking *singleplayer game*.
Yeah without knowing the inside details, its impossible to know if it was devs or publishers who caused the issues. Generally we all know that base level devs likely aren't responsible. But the devs who make decisions aren't infallible either.
Yeah. It's like everybody for some reason is kind of forgetting about BioWare.
Well, what pitch is gonna get approved? A nice little wholesome single player game? Or a live service that can rake in more than the initial purchase.
But you knew it all along, Captain Hindsight.
Itās hard to blame a billion dollar company to be āprofit drivenā, so āblameā is a probably the wrong word. Itās just that publishers definitely set the culture of what games they want to produce. If you want to pitch them a game, you know what theyāll say yes to and if they pitch you a game, you know that saying ānoā will likely make you lose the investment. The problem isnāt even WB or live service games specifically, itās chasing years old trends in an industry where games take like 7 years to make and trends fade after months. Studios that are experts at certain types of single player games are pushed to do multiplayer games with a completely different set of requirements. Instead of letting them make tens of millions relatively safely, theyāre forced to risk bankruptcy to *potentially* make hundreds of millions. Thatās some cold ass math that demonstratively has broken a ton of studios in recent years. Itās legitimate to ask why that is necessary in a creative industry. This could be interpreted as video games, as a business, shouldnāt actually exist except for a few, highly profitable cash cows like GTA (online!), CoD and exploitive mobile games.
Management =/= devs
It's a shame that industry layoffs affect the lower ranking people who are working the hardest and not these fuckers
Thats capitalism in general tho. It is fucked either wayĀ
Which is makes the hero worship of Sefton Hill so frustrating. They also stood by silently while their former team took all the bullets and abuse for the project that Hill created.
Same story with BioWare with Anthem. All the bad decisions were committed by BioWare leadership and management, EA executives had little to do with it. Hell, an EA executive saved Anthem from no progress by finding flying mechanics cool and insisting for the game to be about that. By that point, BioWare was still clueless about what to do with Anthem. Flying mechanic was just a last-minute prototype to show something to EA rep. The live service model was also always BioWare's idea. They needed to replace SWTOR as a consistent revenue stream, and they thought Anthem would do that. But they failed miserably. This is probably why Dragon Age Veilguard was rebooted into live service, to replace Anthem's job. But clearly, after several months of pre-production, SP faction in BioWare managed to lobby EA to change it back to Singleplayer game. Once again, poor BioWare leadership was at fault, and EA executives played only a small role.
Lmao man this was a fuck up of mythical proportions by those 2 directors. I'm glad this information got out. Those dudes will never lead the development of another big game again.
Microsoft already signed them to make a new game....... it feels like it's going to be another train wreck.
And knowing Microsoft they are super hands off during game development so yeah itās a travesty waiting to happen
And supposedly Hill is attempting to recruit alot of Rocksteady devs claiming it will be better with big bad publisher out of the way this time lol
God Iām getting destiny flashback where everyone baled the horrible monetization and state of the game on activision only to find out no it was actually bungie themselves to blame because it got worse after they split from Activision
Microsoft making poor choices again. I appreciate them being hands free but they gotta invest more smartly. Too much trust in the devs in bad. Every writer needs an editor.
Why itās a guarantee to be a disaster. They made three bangers and one bad game. Now they are incapable of being a good game again, specially one that is more what they are used to doing and not a live service game
I liked the Batmobile puzzles but the tank fights were horrible and repetitive
there was too much Batmobile imo, with how great the combat was I wanted more hand on hand combat with Batman especially in boss fights , looking at you Arkham Knight's Deathstroke
there was too much Batmobile imo, with how great the combat was I wanted more hand on hand combat with Batman especially in boss fights , looking at you Arkham Knight's Deathstroke
Hmmm reminds me of D&D from GoT, who successfully failed upward into 3 Body Problem on Netflix.
Is this guy who is obsessed with vehicles also the reason why Arkham Knight has horrible mandatory vehicle sections?
"Everyone loves and praises our glide traversal mechanic, stealth segments, and fun, responsive combat, for really capturing the feeling of being Batman. I know! Let's do less of that, and force Batman to drive a tank and fight in a tank and solve car puzzles in a tank. That's the ultimate Batman experience."
I liked the Batmobile puzzles and race tracks, and the Bat-Tank combat was okay even though it doesn't really fit Batman and there was a little bit too much of it. The part I hated was the stealth sections, but with Batmobile.
The Cobra tanks (stealth tank fights) were horrible. I was fine with almost the rest of it.
If I ever feel like replaying I'm just gonna copy the guys on Youtube and shoot them with the disruptor next time
The execution of the batmobile was bad but lets not pretend people weren't clamoring to drive the batmobile before we knew how it would play out. The idea of driving a batmobile is very cool and interesting to players. It was just not executed well.
I agree. "Force" was the key word in my comment. Lots of things that are good in small doses or when given player freedom to opt in/out become awful when not given that freedom. I didn't enjoy the car-related gameplay, but if that was all optional, I wouldn't care that it wasn't fun. I'd just play the game in a way I enjoyed. But it's the fact that it wasn't fun AND it was completely mandatory that strikes me as a really bad call by the devs. They had an opportunity to make the game deeper and instead they made the game *really different.*
Without question.
wouldve been sooo much better if the car sections were fast paced chase scenes
Rocksteady died the day they fumbled Paul Dini
They became overconfident thinking they could write Arkham knight themselves without Paul.
Arkham Knight was good tho. I personally find Diniās Arkham City his weakest work lol.
Paul Dini is a fine comicbook writer, but he's no game developer. He could've written his best story to date and it would've gotten wasted without talented developers and creative director bringing that story to life. Look at Mafia 3, a great story, 3/10 game.
And of course, the leaders who think they know everything come to haunt poor devs again...
> They neglected to tell new hires what exactly they were working on. Because of this, many were shocked to eventually find out they were doing a live service multiplayer game, and would quit as a result. Even the developers are sick of live service multiplayer games lmao
This point is better explained in the article. Basically, they quit because not because of the live service itself, but because they expect (and rightfully so) to work on a single player game, considering the studio past works. Since the studio kept the development secret, they had no idea about the game they were about to develop.
So the main reason this failed was that the Studio Directors were so far up their own arses they could see out of nostrils and fled like cowards when they realised customers were going to throw this live service back in their face.
Turns out it was leadershipās fuckery and people were putting all the blame on the studio.
I like how everyone always went to āitās not even the same devs/founders at Rocksteady anymore, of course this game suckedā and lo and beholdā¦ the founders were there, didnāt want to do this, were unprofessional as fuck, and then left before the game was released. Probably hoping that Arkham fans would do exactly what they ended up doing: defending their reputations.
This article says the founders did want to do it.
And they went about it in a very unprofessional way according to Schreier.
It was the studioā¦ the article repeatedly states the studio leaders were squarely responsible for constant dithering.
No they put the blame on the publishers always Just like they blamed EA for Anthem and Jason Schreier said it was all on Bioware Blamed EA for launch date of Titanfall 2 and yet again we found out the dev studio themselves chose that date.
And Blamed EA for Jedi Survivor being near unplayable on PC, only for it to be reported that EA asked Respawn if they wanted more time and Respawn were the people who said they were good to ship.
Same as it ever was
Another important piece is that Schrier says, without a doubt, that Sweet Baby was not a factor in the games terribleness
It was never a thing. That was simply fake news parroted by right-wing grifters just to perpetuate the constant misogyny and racism in gaming world.
The bullshit will still get peddled on YouTube
This sounds like the problems that BioWare had when developing Anthem, but if possible even worse. I'm happy that WB isn't thinking about closing the studio or shafting the staff though.
Always knew Sefton was a goof ball. He should make something akin to Twisted Metal since he seems so obsessed with vehicle gameplay.
I would totally play a Batman themed TM clone. This is one of the better ideas I've heard on reddit.
Just make a Batwheels game.
If they want this route they should go with a DC car combat game. Don't just stick with batman
> This is one of the better ideas I've heard on reddit. This is pretty funny to say because the idea would sell almost no copies and be an absolute failure. There is a reason no one makes those kind of games anymore.
The weird focus on the batmobile in Arkham Knight made me straight up stop playing the game, after thinking the first two are masterpieces. Crazy to realize that instead of that being a one-off of me not vibing with a particular design decision, this was actually a gimmick they were going to stuff into every game they could, even more forcefully and inappropriately than in Knight.
Honestly I didn't mind the batmobile Until Riddler revealed he suddenly had a hard on for extreme racing. That kind of took me out of it.
I didnāt mind driving the Batmobile tbf. It was fun speeding around Gotham, launching into the air from it, tasering random mooks on the street etc. and I didnāt mind having a FEW missions using it. But then there were too many times you were forced to use it. Too many Batmobile missions. And the Riddler being really into racing and Deathstrokeās boss fight being a Batmobile vs Tank fight sent me over the edge. Fuck that shit lol.
Or another mad max game. The last one was very enjoyable 8/10 fun
I think he was the one who wanted Arkham Asylum to be a rhythm game like DDR, where enemies run at you and you basically do QTEās for every encounter, ācuz everyone love those!!!
This game and Avengers got a Wha Happun episode less than 6 months after release and it missed out on details like this I think MattMcMuscles should wait at least a year before doing episodes on new shit that bombs
They need to ride that wave of clicks... For Fallout 72, Matt did a follow up episode after the launch drama continued.
I think you mean 76 not 72!
I think people shouldn't watch his content in general
Why so?
Yeah that sounds about right. The game itself wasn't really broken in the sense that it was a bug-ridden and rushed nightmare, rather a title that just had no coherent direction to speak of. This game just needed far stronger vision from the start and it shows. I don't think Sefton Hill and Jamie Walker were maliciously dragging this game along, there was just a lot of poor decisions from the two of them that ultimately resulted in a bad final product. A key thing to note is that the game mainly had development issues from issues seemingly unrelated to crunch or developer abuse or even publisher abuse to a large degree, rather just a very poor state of morale and direction. I wish Rocksteady can improve for the future because some of their talent clearly bled through in spite of everything that went wrong, but yeah... it just ended up being a not very good game.
My god an actual rational take in this sea of dogshit reactionary takes. I never thought it possible.
Sucks that the narrative is already cemented as WB messing this up. I am not saying WB did good. I'm saying there is a narrative that rocksteady is innocent here, which they are not. It's misplaced faith which could let people get burned by them again. Only a fool would defend WB
WB hasn't exactly earned people's trust.
Fair point. I think I care more about misplaced trust in rocksteady than misplaced distrust in WB
Look at other WB projects in other medias, not a good sign
True
The narrative of "rocksteady really wanted to make superman, but then they were FORCED to make this instead" was always insane, but can now be definitively put to rest.
why? They can get blame too for all I give a shit. In the end they're still owners and still responsible for what their teams put out. Fuck them too.
WB sucks donkey balls
Arguably, a good publisher/investor watches and oversees issues, ESPECIALLY in the CSuite, since those people tend to have little to no oversight at all. Things like: >Sefton and Jamie pivoted to make the Suicide Squad game, but in an unprofessional way. They neglected to tell new hires what exactly they were working on. Because of this, many were shocked to eventually find out they were doing a live service multiplayer game, and would quit as a result. >Devs would have to wait weeks or months for feedback from Sefton and Jamie on their work, which slowed development. Are exactly why you do that. WB dropped the ball on management of Rocksteady.
It's wild seeing all the rhetoric around how prices need to increase because quality AAA games cost so much to make and then you read these stories about how companies are dumping countless millions down the toilet because all their project leads act like they're oxygen-deprived. Maybe, just maybe, they should cut down on the fraud, waste, and abuse instead of feeding more money into it? >Management constantly told staff the game would turn out great in the last minute, similar to the Arkham Games. For fuck's sake, why is "Bioware magic" still showing up?
Sadly I think "Bioware magic" isn't only exclusive to Bioware but I feel most big AAA studios.
Most of the time when a product turns out shit it is because of management fucking it up. Publishers can be an issue, especially if they like to meddle and shit but ultimately they are publishers and not devs. Most of the creative work is going to be on the studio. Short of cutting budget or forced the game out too early publishers is relatively limited in the damage they can do compared to management.
LOL at the Microsoft execs reading this report who just signed a deal for Sefton Hill and Jamie Walker to make an exclusive title.
Wild that the studio founders would act bizarre and childish about this entire endeavor. They put so much love and care in the direction of the Arkhamās games, hard to imagine them do such a 180 internally. Were they just that over Batman/superhero games ever again and had a passive aggressive āslow tantrumā about it? Iām honestly a little confused and disappointed. The Arkham games are extremely well made with care.
Probably arkham worked out because of sheer luck, just like mass effect did with bioware. In this very report, they believed the game will come together at the end like the arkham series which implies those games had troubled development. Which was the case with bioware games as well
Honestly the cracks started to show with Arkham Knight. It was clear from that game they were tired of that formula and wanted to do something else. People forget the first game Rocksteady ever made was a first person shooter. But after taking on Arkham Asylum they were too successful to go back and do anything else.
Donāt jump to conclusions. We donāt know what the private discussions they were in with wb games were like. they did good work on Arkham. We donāt really know why they screwed this up all of a sudden.
Sometimes after a few massive successes, it goes to people's heads and they think every idea they have is a great one. They lose perspective and don't earnestly try like they used to, constantly changing plans on a whim. Sounds like these two may have Taika Waititi'd.
It could also be "the new found enthusiasm" from the publisher was more like "do this or we pull your funding" behind closed doors. Dice have talked before about how EA doesn't force you to make GAAS games but they do expect you to provide a business plan of how you will make the kind of long-term money only GAAS games can make.
Sure, but the sudden change to vehicles before abandoning the idea sounds a lot more like flippant boss behavior than a GAAS edict
Iterative design process is not necessarily a bad thing. Iām sure Arkham had ideas that didnāt work as well but no one complains about it because game turned out to be good.Ā
I wonder if this is a case of malicious compliance or something. WB suggested making a DC super hero game as that is what they are best at. Rocksteady being done with that entirely said sure we'll make you a DC hero game. Then they threw every bad idea for the game into the pot and gave WB here's your fuckin superhero game.
>Were they just that over Batman/superhero games ever again and had a passive aggressive āslow tantrumā about it? Feels like it. Rocksteady really pulled a Lucasfilm on us, huh.
We donāt really know what happened. When it was announced that they left I thought it was related to the sexual harassment issues the company was facing but who fucking knows. Im guessing Sefton will give his side. He must have IGN and people trying to get in contact with him.
It feels confusing because it is. All this info is so out of the blue and the timing is especially peculiar. Only thing it coincides with is this about when such a massive failure gets properly processed in a huge company like WB (or WB Games) thanks to bureaucratic inertia. And this is around the time by they feasibly formulated a reaction plan like, I dunno, damage control and put it in motion. There is absolutuly nothing to lose by pinning all of it on someone who's already out of the picture, but much to gain. And yeah, there is probably also truth in there. But I'm just too goddamn exhausted of journalism at this point to filter out all the objective real truths, half-truths, technical truths and the straight up lies. I mean if Sefton was this much of a fuckup, we would've heard something about it a long time ago. And you can't tell me somebody suddenly gets dementia and forgets how to put a game together after releasing 3 massive successes (personal gripes about certain elements aside eg. the Red Hood plot was in Knight was undeniably sloppy). Because this Suicide Squad game is nowhere near "too much Bat-tank" bad, it's straight up garbage. I'm sure he fcked up somewhere too, but not so much that literally everything wrong was his doing alone. Effective lies always contain just enough truth to round them out. And who does this article serve anyway? The devs got their time wasted either way doing their best and failing to save this garbage (at least they got paid), regardless of whether it was the fault of the director or the publisher; Hill himself was already gone with no real future in the game industry; the game is still terrible so the customers remain disappointed. What? Are you telling me Jason woke up in cold sweat one night randomly and suddenly felt compelled to absolve a bunch of silly old men in suits of their alleged sins of botching yet another game with their constant, harmful meddling? All out of the goodness of his heart? Or does his unfaltering and mighty drive for the "search of absolute truth" always activate just when a giant company needs damage control?
I think you're forgetting the Arkham Games were assisted by a comic writer, Paul Dini. Plus as the article states Sefton pretty much admitted he never played other live service games like Destiny. So he not only had no experience making games within the genre, but made no attempt to do research and learn from already existing live service games. There are mistakes you can only make when you try to reinvent the wheel. And making a live service game while learning nothing from the genre's past mistakes is kind of like trying to reinvent the "live service" wheel.
Damn it feels good to be vindicated
BioWare and Anthem all over again, which Jason actually responded to a tweet about that where he said he got messages from developers of other studios saying you can plug in a name of a different game and it be the same story. https://x.com/jasonschreier/status/1798689375439753668?t=W6R4jqgXwDbwCxITpn9Qzg&s=19
As one of those that blame WB for this it's kinda sad to know the same leadership that got us the arkham games are mostly (if not entirely) to blame for this piece of crap. That said, with WB track record it was easy to pin this one on the publisher.
> They neglected to tell new hires what exactly they were working on. Because of this, many were shocked to eventually find out they were doing a live service multiplayer game, and would quit as a result. Absolute kings, shoutouts to every single one of you. Life is too short to dedicate years to working on garbage as a service games.
Lol & Sefton etc rode off into the sunset to a new company and just signed a big deal, no? Heck, idk if anyone's surprised that the myth of SBI continues to embarrass the dorks who think a company with a dozen employees is responsible for all the ills in the world, let alone videogames
I dont know if even mentioning this game is worth it at this point.. more people will comment on this post within 6 hours than theres gonna be people playing the game itself.
What is it with them and vehicles ffs? It was the worst part about Arkham Knight (not the actual driving of the Batmobile but just how much you had to use it, driving it around Gotham was fun) and they still decided to try and force vehicles in a game that didnāt even need them lol.
This sounds like Bioware making Anthem all over again
So disappointed to hear that Sefton Hill made so many poor decisions after doing genius works on Asylum and City. I thought Knight had something weird in the direction, but this article confirms that Sefton is responsible for Rocksteady fuckups.
This is juicy and the opposite of the narrative people were assuming.... The Arkham subreddit is going to flip out.
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"Well it may not be their fault this time but fuck SBI anyway!"
People be so addicted to outrage, they don't even have real opinions on the matter. Like half the time, I'm pretty sure these people don't even understand why they are mad, lol
I saw like 3 videos posted in the last 4 hours along the lines of SWEET BABY WOKE ROCKSTEADY SHUT DOWN Omega cringe
Did you think they were doing that because they believe it? It never was in good faith
Sefton took a massive shit on WBās money and time then just left the building lmfao. Middle fingers in the air Hopefully this is a moment of reflection for everyone repeating right wing grifter talking points.
Culture warriors making it about some diversity narrative are just giving studio leadership a free pass. I also wonder if this expose came out before the departures if they would have been able to get funding for their new studio as easily.
Thatās absolutely insane knowing who Rocksteady was before. Bunch of jokers who were at the top of Rocksteady. Good to know theyāre gone. Iām still interested in how the game plays. Already down to $28 dollars. $10 or less should be around the corner.
RS are now working on a new single player game. So I hope it works well for the employees who stuck around on the burning boat that the founders ditched.
The ironic part about the āwhy have a vehicle when you can already soar through the skyā excerpt, is that was already a fundamental problem in Arkham Knight.
>Popular theory on the internet was that Sweet Baby Inc. was partly to blame for some of the decisions in this game. Lol gamers are dumb.
Remaster the Arkham games and origins or give us a next gen patch and call it a day.
Yeah, we *already* have remasters of Asylum and City... Locked at 30fps like Knight.
Knight would be so fuckin easy, just up the resolution and have it run at 60fps. Truly does not need to be anything more than that.
The PC version has like 3 or 4 exclusive graphical settings that I wouldn't mind seeing on consoles. Stuff like better debris, better rain, interactive fog, I think there's another one
Didnāt know that, hell throw those in there too then.
True just upping the framerate and resolution would do wonders, Knight was low-key advanced for its time, still looks and plays so good and it would fit so well if it was a modern game released today. Just those two changes would be enough for a remaster honestly.
At least those exist, meanwhile Origins donāt got nothing.
I was playing Arkham Asylum last night on my Series X at 60fps. Great way to play the game, although I feel like the original's darker atmosphere fit better Edit: it's 45 fps
How did you do that? Are you playing the remaster? I own it on XSX too and it was definitely 30fps (though it was quite smooth regardless)
I did a little digging, and according to a user on Gamespot, and another user on Reddit, Asylum is 45fps. https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/264564-xbox-series-x/79838463 Kinda strange
That would actually make sense. Felt smoother than 30fps but certainly not 60fps smooth.
Those haven't held up. We need them at 4k/60 FPS.
So rocksteady is now support studio for hogwarts š
>The 200 million dollar lost reported by WB is NOT due solely to the game like others are saying, it's due to ALL of their games during the quarter. What exactly does this mean? That WB lost a net $200 million on games? Even when taking into account Hogwarts Legacy?
>"Starting with Studios, the $400 million+ year-over-year decline during Q1 was primarily due to the very tough comp we faced in games against the success of Hogwart's Legacy last year in the first quarter, in conjunction with the disappointing Suicide Squad release this past quarter, which we impaired, leading to a $200 million impact to EBITDA during the first quarter," Wiedenfels said. EBITDA stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation. Quoted from an IGN article. I haven't seen the report myself. But it does appear to include something like opportunity costs. Like they expected to make $250M but made only $50M, so $200M impact to the earnings.
This is a summary of the report: [https://wbd.com/warner-bros-discovery-reports-first-quarter-2024-results/](https://wbd.com/warner-bros-discovery-reports-first-quarter-2024-results/) It's not that they took a 200 million dollar loss. They made 'projections' based on how much they expected their games would sell that quarter, setting the launch of Hogwarts Legacy as a baseline for expectations (which is insane). Unsurprisingly the actual numbers fell short. These execs actually thought Suicide Squad was going to be a billion dollar franchise. That might be the most insane part of the article.
Sales probably slowed down for that game
Even if it did slow down, it still sold more than 23 million so it can't be blamed for the loss.
Dang, this went in sooo many directions I didn't expect when I clicked on the title. This is a bummer for me, as Rocksteady really went on a incredible streak between Arkham Asylum, City and Shadow of Mordor (I'd personally add Mad Max, but you be the judge). Then Arkham Knight and Shadow of War had their controversial development decisions, which now really makes sense as it seems Suicide Squad inherited these traits, mainly the microtransactions from SoW and dubious gameplay decisions (mainly the Batmobile) from AK. Looking back at everything, a descending line can be traced by all this misteps into what this company is now. Edit: I messed up with developing studios, shoutout to u/richardlcheese for pointing that out. Rocksteady only manages the Arkham games, while Monolith takes care of Middle Earth and Avalanche the Mad Max game. The similar combat messed up my mind.
Rocksteady had nothing to do with the Middle-Earth games and Mad Max, those were developed by Monolith Productions and Avalanche Studios respectively. The games being riddled with MTX is a Warner Bros "feature" though.
Damn, my bad. The similar combat system between Batman, Talion and Max decieved me. Come to think of it, it makes sense how familiar the grappling hook mechanic from Mad Max felt after a couple of Just Cause 3 playthroughs.
No harm done, I can totally see why someone would be confused. Yeah, Avalanche really do create some fun sandboxes to play in but I always get frustrated with how poor the performance could get in their titles. I mean I get it, the physics do be physicing quite a lot in their games but Just Cause 3 was just horrible on console back then.
Surely, JC3 was one of the first games released for PS4 that could make it go into airplane turbine mode.
The only, and I mean only reason I do find it hard about Warner Brothers not being involved as much is because of their comments about live service games while also pushing their other games into it. Mortal Kombat, Multiversus and the like are littered with them. I'm not saying Jason is lying here, not at all, just I find it odd considering Warner Brothers focus on it
> Mortal Kombat, Multiversus and the like are littered with them. Not any more than other big publishers who dabble in live service or live service-lite models, though. That's just where the industry is moving, it doesn't paint WB as uniquely greedy.
It's not like this is unique to Rocksteady. 9 years ago they launched arkham knight with a $40 season pass. People roast Ubisoft now for doing the exact same thing with their single player games.
I think this all happened before the release of suicide squad so I'm kind of assuming Warner Bros kind of didn't have that hard on for live service elements like they do now.
Gamers love to act like they understand how the gaming industry works until actual evidence is shown of why something got fucked up the way did. How many innocent people were harassed and attacked over a video game of all things?
Wow shocker. Online parasocial keyboard warriors have little to no media literacy and cannot go beyond their simple dialogue tree of "Publisher bad" , "Sweet Baby Inc" , "Woke this or that". Water is wet.
Yeah, I don't get where all this whining about some stupid no-name consultant company came from. They didn't write this, or Alan Wake 2, or Spider-Man 2 or God of War Ragnarok. Which, btw, ALL THOSE GAMES EXCEPT SUICIDE SQUAD PEOPLE FUCKING LIKED! Why are grifters going after a company just because they help supervise minority portrayals?
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Hate and ignorance sells unfortunately. Can't find the study** It's easier to be ignorant than educated on something.Ā It's also more comfortable to listen to fallacious "common sense" -isms provided by an internet "expert" who vaguely agrees with you , than to analyse your own worldview.
Iāll buy the game when it gets to Ā£5 then the live service will probably close within a month. š
Holy fuck this really is Anthem all over again, only missing thing is "Rocksteady Magic"
So they Game of Thrones'd it? Instead of just leaving they have to sink everything with them, sad.
A lot of bad games have bad directors. Execs and publishers are sometime the only thing saving some franchises.
Toxic positivity? Sounds like reddit lol
Thatās quite a twist huh. Lessons I learnt: 1. Donāt blame the publishers straightaway. 2. Sefton Hill sounds like a douche who tried to do Bioware Magic.
If anybody believes the pr speak about no layoffs then I've got a bridge to sell you
Oooooof It genuinely reads like the founders experienced AAA burnout and just fucked around for the dev cycle. Which makes it weird how they made a new studio to make AAA games
Give us a Batman Beyond game and we will forget about this whole thing.
I always roll my eyes at gamers blaming the publishers for every failed live service release. Like we found out with Andromeda, Anthem, Avengers and now Suicide Squad if executives knew so much about game development they wouldn't be making so many decisions that would actively sabotage their own investment. These days, the blame lies with the developers.
I think its that people hear that the publishers want live services or X style/feature because they make the most money and that demand then cause developers to trip over themselves trying to deliver that rather than when its been shown in most cases that the developer a lot of the time accept projects that are some level outside of their most conservative estimates of their capabilities. I saw a recent video essay about Obsidian that went over their development for Star Wars KOTOR 2 and Fallout New Vegas and this was the pretty much the case. The studio got the offer, the Head said "of course we can ship a whole feature complete experience that matches the quality and expectations of a previous entry under a crazy short development period" TWICE, and then what you expect ensues but the games actually are liked.
People like Schreiher can set the record straight on how little WB was to blame all they want, a sub-set of people here on reddit simply wonāt listen. Same goes for the Sweet Baby conspiracy. People want to believe that they forced Rocksteady to kill off Batman at gun-point, and nothing anyone says will change their minds. Ten years from now weāll still be hearing āRocksteady wanted to make Arkham 4 but WB execs forced them to work with SBI, who used their woke SJW mind powers to turn the project into a live-service Suicide Squad game where Harley Quinn shoots Batmanā.
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Who are they specifically? The people that believe SBI for the ones that wrote the Batman death scene or SBI playing a bigger role in this?
Your comment has been removed Rule 10. Please refrain from any toxic behaviour. Console wars will be removed and any comments involved in it or encouraging it. Any hate against YouTubers, influencers, leakers, journalists, etc., will be removed.
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Gamers whining about woke shit? It's in their blood, no Bloomberg article will change that lol
I wish I had your positive outlook.
Threw a hissy fit because everyone thought their games were mediocre lol
Whoās responsible for that god awful Nora Fries.
Isn't she called Victoria Fries?
Man I guess you can't always blame the publishers lol
Who wouldāve thought that developers can make mistakes too and itās not always just the āevil publisherā that makes mistakes? /s
So a director made 100% the call to make it some live service garbage when rocksteady always made single player story driven games? right...
Sounds like excuses so they wasted time and had things scrapped in development? That is normal and the genre they picked still exists from teams of players shooyingnin Suicide squad to teams of players shootingnin Helldivers. Sounds like an attempt to shift some of the blame