So, Microsoft just shut down Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin

[Fabulously Olivier]

The worst gaming news of the week just dropped. Extremely disappointing and undeserved after the masterpiece that was Hi Fi Rush.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/microsoft-announces-4-studio-closuresincluding-arkane-austin-and-tango-gameworks-creators-of-prey-and-hi-fi-rush-respectively/

This is devastating news. Hi-Fi Rush was my favorite game last year. Developer interviews confirming that it was a long shot project that they would have expected to get canned when news was coming out about a Bethesda acquisition during its development. I don't want to bury Arkane Austin either. Sure Redfall was a very public flop, but Prey 2017 is still a game that friends are hounding me to play.

[Etrurian emperor]

Things like this, the other mass lay offs and Square Enix ''re orientating'' themselves after FF7 didn't do well enough I feel we're losing the fight for the medium. The investor class seems to have completely taken over in ways unthinkable even in the previous decades where the industry was dominated by that class.

[Armchair General]

3 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Things like this, the other mass lay offs and Square Enix ''re orientating'' themselves after FF7 didn't do well enough I feel we're losing the fight for the medium. The investor class seems to have completely taken over in ways unthinkable even in the previous decades where the industry was dominated by that class.

Well, as long as the indie devs are willing to pick up the slack, there shouldn't really be an lot to worry about. Sooner or later, somebody will get the message that this isn't an industry where one can continue to expand horizontally

[Fabulously Olivier]

13 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Things like this, the other mass lay offs and Square Enix ''re orientating'' themselves after FF7 didn't do well enough I feel we're losing the fight for the medium. The investor class seems to have completely taken over in ways unthinkable even in the previous decades where the industry was dominated by that class.

So, the Square thing is a response to the company releasing huge numbers of AA bombs over the past few years. I expect that they'll basically kill off IP like Diofield Chronicles (unfortunate, as I liked it), Harvestella, TWEWY, Babylon's Fall, etc. Octopath and Triangle Strategy are so safe that the head of Team Asano got promoted. Star Ocean's probably fine as its most recent entry sold. Final Fantasy is safe but needs to rediscover its identity, and Dragon Quest is safe.

 

It would help Square a lot if they learned that their turn-based games actually do sell, and that whole shift to action to appeal to the West era was nothing more than the result of over a decade of racist western game journalists shitting on Japanese games.

[Revier]

7 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Diofield Chronicles (unfortunate, as I liked it)

Interesting to hear that, that game gets so little discourse I'm not sure anyone remembers it. So was it a good SRPG? I know that Square Enix did a frankly terrible job marketing it, almost none was talking about it even on its release day in my circles.

[Fabulously Olivier]

6 minutes ago, Revier said:

Interesting to hear that, that game gets so little discourse I'm not sure anyone remembers it. So was it a good SRPG? I know that Square Enix did a frankly terrible job marketing it, almost none was talking about it even on its release day in my circles.

I think it's fun for what it is. The story and characters are pretty good. The game is well-paced. And it's one of the few polished entries in an extremely rare type of SRPG (small scale RTS with no economy/building mechanics). Granted, Unicorn Overlord has successfully overshadowed it in that subgenre now, but they scratch the same itch.

 

It has a demo. I would recommend trying it.

[Etrurian emperor]

2 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Octopath and Triangle Strategy are so safe that the head of Team Asano got promoted.

That's good to know. I was worried about those two. Didn't the Octopath team get sold to Fromsoft though?

2 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

I expect that they'll basically kill off IP like Diofield Chronicles (unfortunate, as I liked it), Harvestella, TWEWY, Babylon's Fall, et

That's....less good. Twewy deserves better and since Square essentially set the game up to fail It be kinda unfair to punish it for that. 

Edited May 8 by Etrurian emperor

[Fabulously Olivier]

6 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

That's good to know. I was worried about those two. Didn't the Octopath team get sold to FromSoft

Yes, but the IP is theirs. HD 2D games are still core to their business, and they'll have qualified people to make it. They still have the Triangle Strategy team, and the Dragon Quest HD 2D remake should train Square's staff on it.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

5 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Yes, but the IP is theirs. HD 2D games are still core to their business, and they'll have qualified people to make it. They still have the Triangle Strategy team, and the Dragon Quest HD 2D remake should train Square's staff on it.

off topic but that remake was announced 3 years ago this month. Fascinating that it not only hasn't come out but the only news is a lone tweet that Yuji Horii played a build of it. No screenshot or info. A game we would have expected within six months, possibly immediately following the then-upcoming Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters, and it's just vaporware. It's an odd legacy for a game that gave us the terminology "HD-2D"

Seeing how we're probably still a year or two out from seeing anything on Dragon Quest 12, I gotta point out that the Mana series has been pushed harder by Square. Maybe because it was always an action rpg and thus a great fit for Square's modern catalogue. 3D Remake of Trials, Remaster of Legend, and a whole new game in Visions of Mana.

[Armchair General]

8 hours ago, Revier said:

Interesting to hear that, that game gets so little discourse I'm not sure anyone remembers it. So was it a good SRPG? I know that Square Enix did a frankly terrible job marketing it, almost none was talking about it even on its release day in my circles.

It was on my radar, but what put me off was how small the battlefields are. It's certainly is unique (for the Switch, at least)

[Fabulously Olivier]

Apparently Tango pitched Hi Fi Rush 2 before getting shuttered.

 

Fuck Xbox with a rusty fork. 

[Etrurian emperor]

On 5/8/2024 at 4:42 AM, Armchair General said:

Well, as long as the indie devs are willing to pick up the slack, there shouldn't really be an lot to worry about. Sooner or later, somebody will get the message that this isn't an industry where one can continue to expand horizontally

While Indies can do a lot of damage its still a shame to see the franchises associated with the big boys fall. Indies will keep the JRPG's alive but it would still be bad to see things like Final Fantasy, Twewy or Octopath Traveler die off if Squire does. Or in this case Dishonored and High Fi Rush being finished now Microsoft killed them. 

[Lord_Brand]

Honestly, Final Fantasy has drifted so far from its JRPG roots that it might as well be dead. The modern Final Fantasies do nothing for me; I'm an old-school FFI-IX purist, and of those I prefer I-VI the most.

But yeah, I'm starting to feel strong anti-megacorp sentiments; there's such a thing as "too big", and a lot of these companies have been "too big" for a long time now. I wouldn't be opposed to anti-megacorp laws alongside anti-monopoly laws. I'd sooner invest in ten small businesses than one big empire.

[Revier]

14 hours ago, Lord_Brand said:

there's such a thing as "too big", and a lot of these companies have been "too big" for a long time now. I wouldn't be opposed to anti-megacorp laws alongside anti-monopoly laws.

 No argument there.

Edited May 11 by Revier

[Armchair General]

On 5/10/2024 at 3:12 AM, Etrurian emperor said:

While Indies can do a lot of damage its still a shame to see the franchises associated with the big boys fall. Indies will keep the JRPG's alive but it would still be bad to see things like Final Fantasy, Twewy or Octopath Traveler die off if Squire does

While I sincerely doubt if something as big as Square will suddenly keel over without downsizing their staff, I think that the market is getting an little bit saturated when it comes to certain genres.

[Fabulously Olivier]

1 hour ago, Armchair General said:

While I sincerely doubt if something as big as Square will suddenly keel over without downsizing their staff, I think that the market is getting an little bit saturated when it comes to certain genres.

Nah. That shit's selective, not reality. People groan every time a new looter shooter is announced when they are actually objectively not numerous/saturated, but no one bats an eye at the literal hundreds of survival games and roguelikes we get every year. 

[Gommerfield]

On 5/7/2024 at 5:05 PM, Fabulously Olivier said:

The worst gaming news of the week just dropped. Extremely disappointing and undeserved after the masterpiece that was Hi Fi Rush.

Hi Fi Rush was well-polished and deserves a sequel. That's a shame to hear.

[Lord_Brand]

I hear they were pitching the sequel just before they got canned. Really skeevy thing for Microsoft to do. Really dumb, too, 'cuz now the talent they cut loose is either going to a competitor, or indie.

Edited May 22 by Lord_Brand

[Fabulously Olivier]

I know people are worried for Ninja Theory, and perhaps this is totally tactless of me, but I'll be frank. If Microsoft had to shut down a studio, they shut down the wrong one. Tango didn't spend 6 years developing a 6 hour walking simulator/movie with rare instances of shallow combat and "puzzles."

 

And uh, that sucks. Because Hellblade 1 was actually great, and I'm one of the few people who actually kinda liked DmC as its own thing.

Edited May 22 by Fabulously Olivier

[vanguard333]

Arkane Austin closing was sad, but predictable: they received the same higher-up-driven death spiral that many game studios have received over the years. Tango Gameworks, however, makes zero sense.

The fact is that Hi-Fi Rush surpassed all expectations and was a surprise hit in every sense of the word, drawing a lot of unexpected attention. All eyes would be on what they produce next; even if I try to imagine the perspective of a corporate executive obsessed with profits, market share and stock price going up, the logical step would be to throw more money at Tango Gameworks for their next game to be an even bigger hit, not shut it down. What were they thinking?

 

On 5/10/2024 at 7:00 AM, Lord_Brand said:

I wouldn't be opposed to anti-megacorp laws alongside anti-monopoly laws. I'd sooner invest in ten small businesses than one big empire.

The sad thing is that there are anti-monopoly laws, but they aren't being updated or enforced because corporations rule America and America is an empire in all but name.