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MS cancels Gore Verbinski's 'Matter'

LiK

Member
http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/06/microsoft-cancels-gore-verbinskis-matter-for-kinect/

Matter, a Kinect game expected to launch on Xbox Live Arcade in 2013, has been cancelled by Microsoft. It was to be the first game developed in partnership with film director Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Rango) and Blind Wink Games.

"Microsoft Studios is no longer pursuing this title," says a company representative. "We have no further details to share at this time."
 

Oppo

Member
Oh man. I had totally forgotten about that.

Has a video game ever really benefitted from having a film director involved? I guess... Boom Blox? Although who knows what Spielberg did.
 

Ridley327

Member
Oh man. I had totally forgotten about that.

Has a video game ever really benefitted from having a film director involved? I guess... Boom Blox? Although who knows what Spielberg did.

Spielberg seems to have the best track record, with Boom Blox and the original Medal of Honor, but even he's not immune, as we saw with the sad fate of LMNO.
 
tumblr_m4rzu0elyM1r1i0lk.gif
 

oVerde

Banned
Oh man. I had totally forgotten about that.

Has a video game ever really benefitted from having a film director involved? I guess... Boom Blox? Although who knows what Spielberg did.

AFAIK, The Dig was quite a successful game :)

600full-the-dig-screenshot.jpg

thedig_790screen001.jpg
 
Oh man. I had totally forgotten about that.

Has a video game ever really benefitted from having a film director involved? I guess... Boom Blox? Although who knows what Spielberg did.
I was going to ask the same thing. Boom Blox is the only thing I can think of.
 

Krilekk

Banned
Seems like it's becoming a method. Announce Peter Jackson project, cancel it. Announce Gore Verbinski project, cancel it. All for a bit of E3 hype.
 

Manp

Member
it's like the peter jackson game... it seems to me that these game exist (or not?) only to make e3 conferences 10 minutes longer.
 

wondermega

Member
my friend was involved with this. it sounded like the absolute worst case of "they have zero idea how to make a videogame" which I'd ever heard of - by a longshot.
 

CamHostage

Member
Has a video game ever really benefitted from having a film director involved? I guess... Boom Blox? Although who knows what Spielberg did.

Ha, good question...

  • Gore Verbinski's "Matter": CANCELED
  • Guillermo Del Toro's "InSane": CANCELED
  • Peter Jackson's "Halo": CANCELED
  • John Singleton's "Fear and Respect": CANCELED
  • Tony Scott's "Criminal": CANCELED
  • Michael Bay & Digital Domain's "FPS Project": CANCELED(well, vaporware)
  • Steven Spielberg's "LMNO": CANCELED
  • Steven Spielberg's "Boom Blocks": 2 and out (but still, success!)
  • Steven Spielberg's "The Dig": Shipped
  • Steven Spielberg's "Medal of Honor" & Dreamworks Interactive: Shipped, software studio only lasted so long before Spielberg lost interest but certainly was a success
  • John Woo's "Stranglehold": Shipped
  • John Woo's "SEGA/Tiger Hill Project": CANCELED
  • John Woo's "ShadowClan": CANCELED
  • The Wachowski's "Enter the Matrix / Matrix: Path of Neo": Shipped
  • Zach Snyder & EA Projects: ??? (Vaporware?)
  • J.J. Abrams & Valve Project: ???
  • George Lucas' LucasArts Software Library: True success (albeit George's hands-on time only went so far)

What others should be on the list?
 
I think many directors just don't know how to make video games after assuming that, seen as it's a visual entertainment medium, it'd be something they'd be inherently good at.
 

wondermega

Member
Any interesting details to share? Come on, spill it out.

spending abhorrent amounts of money, hiring and firing people left and right over protracted development periods, frightened subordinates nervously tripping over one another to try and comprehend the bosses' vision which was clear only to him, that sort of thing. In their defense, they were a movie production studio without previous experience of having to deal with a game development pipeline, the two are fundamentally very different and don't translate 1:1 at all (well, if you intend to release an actual marketable product). Although I guess with enough money, anything is always possible in both industries (although being an enjoyable experience at that point, becomes negligible)
 

CamHostage

Member
I think many directors just don't know how to make video games after assuming that, seen as it's a visual entertainment medium, it'd be something they'd be inherently good at.

To be fair, they hardly ever actually "make" the video game. None of them have directed a project, as far as I can think of, they've just sat in on production meetings and given the thumbs-up/thumbs-down. Most of these guys are involved in the creation process (and some of these games came from their initial idea,) so they're there for the early brainstorming sessions and such where they're thinking of what kind of game they'd like to see exist and how their particular point-of-view or artistic could perhaps lead the project, but then it's handed over to a real video game director to sculpt and showrun.

In a business as massive and technical as this one, that's still something, and even though we've been burned almost every single time it's still exciting when a premier director announces a game project, but the fact is, their not knowing how to "make video games" is probably the least of reasons why the projects failed.
 

Ridley327

Member
Peter Jackson's King Kong: shipped

and I guess the Wachowski's had some involvement with the Matrix games? I think?

Yeah, they had their hands all over both Shiny games; they even made a rare cameo appearance in Path of Neo, to help explain the new ending they wrote for the game.
 

cuyahoga

Dudebro, My Shit is Fucked Up So I Got to Shoot/Slice You II: It's Straight-Up Dawg Time
Ha, good question...

  • Gore Verbinski's "Matter": CANCELED
  • Guillermo Del Toro's "InSane": CANCELED
  • Peter Jackson's "Halo": CANCELED
  • John Singleton's "Fear and Respect": CANCELED
  • Michael Bay & Digital Domain's "FPS Project": CANCELED(well, vaporware)
  • Steven Spielberg's "LMNO": CANCELED
  • Steven Spielberg's "Boom Blocks": 2 and out (but still, success!)
  • Steven Spielberg's "The Dig": Shipped
  • Steven Spielberg's "Medal of Honor" & Dreamworks Interactive: Shipped, software studio only lasted so long before Spielberg lost interest but certainly was a success
  • John Woo's "Stranglehold": Shipped
  • John Woo's "SEGA/Tiger Hill Project": CANCELED
  • John Woo's "ShadowClan": CANCELED
  • Zach Snyder & EA Projects: ??? (Vaporware?)
  • J.J. Abrams & Valve Project: ???
  • George Lucas' LucasArts Software Library: True success (albeit George's hands-on time only went so far)

What others should be on the list?
Tony Scott's Criminal with Midway Austin—an open-world crime game about bank robbers—was cancelled around 2008.
 

CamHostage

Member
In their defense, they were a movie production studio without previous experience of having to deal with a game development pipeline, the two are fundamentally very different and don't translate 1:1 at all (well, if you intend to release an actual marketable product).

That thinking has worked exactly two times, from what I can think of: once from a director and once from an actor. The director is Spielberg, who came off of Saving Private Ryan and said, "You know, we did all this WWII research, let's make a game too and use our actors and sound and FX guys to make it extra-awesome" to birth Dreamworks Interactive. And the actor was Vin Diesel of all people, who did something (I'm still not sure what Tigon did or didn't do, but it sounds like Diesel was the guy who kept pushing when nobody else knew what to do with Riddick) and got the Chronicles of Riddick game to come together. (I'm not including Lucas because LucasArts was more an organic development, it started way back when there was no cross-over between the game studio and the movie studio; now, they're sharing the same models and libraries and even storylines.)
 
It probably wasn't casual enough. Just kidding, these movie directors probably don't know anything about game design in all honesty.
 

cuyahoga

Dudebro, My Shit is Fucked Up So I Got to Shoot/Slice You II: It's Straight-Up Dawg Time
That thinking has worked exactly two times, from what I can think of: once from a director and once from an actor. The director is Spielberg, who came off of Saving Private Ryan and said, "You know, we did all this WWII research, let's make a game too and use our actors and sound and FX guys to make it extra-awesome" to birth Dreamworks Interactive. And the actor was Vin Diesel of all people, who did something (I'm still not sure what Tigon did or didn't do, but it sounds like Diesel was the guy who kept pushing when nobody else knew what to do with Riddick) and got the Chronicles of Riddick game together. (I'm not including Lucas because LucasArts was more an organic development, it started way back when there was no cross-over between the game studio and the movie studio; now, they're sharing the same models and libraries and even storylines.)
Tigon did script approval and lent Vin Diesel's likeness for games, but little else.
 

CamHostage

Member
Peter Jackson's King Kong: shipped

and I guess the Wachowski's had some involvement with the Matrix games? I think?

See, I thought about King Kong (and also James Cameron's Avatar, which he memorably introduced at E3 years ago with an epic speech of no game or movie footage) but those seemed like they were more licensed properties that the studio got the directors to talk to them about a little bit, I didn't see a lot of deep input in those productions?

The Wachowski's on the Matrix games, though, I can't ignore, I'm not sure how much time they were actually in the game labs (they were busy with the Matrix sequels and the Animatrix and all that was going in in that mania,) but I know they were a big part of the story direction in ETM being a stand-alone product, and the fact that they appeared in Path of Neo (crazy ending!) just seals it.

Tony Scott's Criminal with Midway Austin—an open-world crime game about bank robbers—was cancelled around 2008.

Oh yeah, I remember that story, nothing about it ever leaked though, too bad.
 
The Wachowskis wrote a 244 page script for Enter The Matrix and had specific ideas about what kind of levels, situations etc the characters find themselves in. In Path of Neo their involvement wasn't as big in terms of script (then again Path of Neo didn't have much of a script) but they still had an outline of what levels they wanted in, how they should look, what will be the main objective etc. For example they detailed the training levels to be based on movies such as Hard Boiled, etc or that in the Burly Brawl fight Neo was to bring the surrounding buildings down by sending flying smiths to them using the pole.

And recently they said they had written a 350 page RPG (of the traditional kind.. not a video game one) in high school that is available for publishing. ;-)
 

Village

Member
Why dont directors just go to square enix then, clearly they know how to makes things "perdy". Though Laura is looking a bit... how should I , eastern made? Almost like a FF character, hell exactly like an FF character, which i think is glorious. But i know that's a turn off for some.

I am on a tangent


this game wont be missed
 

Lijik

Member
While we're listing movie directors who tried making games: This is a weird factoid I picked up while randomly clicking links on wikipedia, but the director of that animated Ant Bully film also directed the game.
I half-meant to check that out to see how it turned out, but Im sure its mediocre licensed fare considering the film wasnt that great to start with
 

CamHostage

Member
While we're listing movie directors who tried making games: This is a weird factoid I picked up while randomly clicking links on wikipedia, but the director of that animated Ant Bully film also directed the game.

Whoa, weird! And that game isn't just a fluffy nothing, it's forgettable but it's still a Jak/Mario clone and that's not a small job. (It probably is something of a vanity title of director since developer A2M has plenty of guys who could have shepherded the game, plus John A. Davis is not based in France I assume? But still, interesting credit there.)
 
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