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Bethesda responds to Prey 2 cancellation

CGwizz

Member
Yea right, shit hapens right ?

Once again Pete lying and once again we have more proof they are shady as fuck.
 

Codeblue

Member
Reason I don't buy Bethesda games.

It isn't hard to avoid their broken games, but having to pass up Mikami's stuff sucks.
 
I've got a handy tip for Pete Hines if he doesn't want to keep on bringing up the drama. Don't call the new game Prey. Just let Arkane Austin treat it as a System Shock spiritual successor.
 

thenooo

Neo Member
Notice the game wasn't what they wanted. What about the fans? It was what I wanted. My money was ready to be given. Same BS happened to Rainbow 6 Patriots. They thought we didn't want the game. Thanks for making up our minds for us (sarcasm)
I'm sick and tired of companies in general cancelling games that have a ton of dev time with near finnish builds. I understand why pre-alpha demos get canned, but this was almost done.

Did you read IGN article? It actualy questions morals of Bet/Zen more than the quality of the game itself. It feels like you are more upset with not getting another (good?) game rather than greedy publisher intentionally forcing the bancrupcy of the HH and eventually canceling the game and getting away with it while companies like Konami being lynched for the same thing (being amoral cunts and cancelling potentially great game).

Nah, just F that 20 minute board meeting that made one idiot think he was smart for cancelling a good game. Bethesda as a company has given us Doom, Wolfenstien, Fallout, Skyrim, Evil Within, and now Quake.

Bethesda is the developer of Fallout and Skyrim and has nothing to do with the others. Several people pointed out they pulled Konami-level of bs but you are still eager to vote with your wallet for that. Its like buying Konami games after all that P.T. debacle.
 

Truant

Member
What happened to Prey 2 was a tragedy. With that said, I really want to support Arkane by getting the reboot. They're such fantastic developers.
 
I remember when I liked Bethesda, back in ol' 2003.

You'd like them more if they released bad games that didn't live up to the expectations set by their announce trailers? Come on. Games really do get cancelled all the time, even if you're Blizzard, and work on new projects begins in their place. Not everything can work out well all the time.

Bethesda is the developer of Fallout and Skyrim and has nothing to do with the others. Several people pointed out they pulled Konami-level of bs but you are still eager to vote with your wallet for that. Its like buying Konami games after all that P.T. debacle.

Wrong. Bethesda GAME STUDIOS develop TES and Fallout. Bethesda SOFTWORKS publishes everything under the Zenimax family umbrella (so DOOM, Wolf, Prey, Dishonored, etc, as well as TES and Fallout). Stop looking for controversy where there's only a simple explanation: game wasn't looking good, game got cancelled. Happens frequently, we just rarely hear about most games that get cancelled because they haven't even been announced yet.
 

Futurematic

Member
Stop looking for controversy where there's only a simple explanation: game wasn't looking good, game got cancelled. Happens frequently, we just rarely hear about most games that get cancelled because they haven't even been announced yet.

Did you read this thread?
 
You'd like them more if they released bad games that didn't live up to the expectations set by their announce trailers? Come on. Games really do get cancelled all the time, even if you're Blizzard, and work on new projects begins in their place. Not everything can work out well all the time.

Wrong. Bethesda GAME STUDIOS develop TES and Fallout. Bethesda SOFTWORKS publishes everything under the Zenimax family umbrella (so DOOM, Wolf, Prey, Dishonored, etc, as well as TES and Fallout). Stop looking for controversy where there's only a simple explanation: game wasn't looking good, game got cancelled. Happens frequently, we just rarely hear about most games that get cancelled because they haven't even been announced yet.

Read the posts I quoted at the top of this page.

Also, the guy you quoted was saying that Bethesda (Game Studios) only developed Fallout and Skyrim whereas Bethesda (Softworks) merely publish the other stuff and weren't the developers of those other games, so they don't deserve all the credit those. He wasn't wrong at all, just didn't name the specific branches of Bethesda.

Did you read this thread?
I don't think he has. Hopefully.
 
Yes, and the IGN article from a potentially very biased source. I'm not buying any of it. Greedy evil publisher scenarios are lapped up far too easily by gamers.
If that gut feeling is all it takes to completely dismiss everything from various developers and practices over the last decade and a half, then nothing will shake your trust in that corporation.

Or you work for ZeniMax/Bethesda Softworks, in which case, I ask that you give Hines my regards
 

BBboy20

Member
lies.jpg
 

Fred-87

Member
"Everyone's the same"? Really? I find your unsourced accusations extremely hard to believe. EA bought DICE by gradually buying more and more shares in the company, the same way most public companies are bought. And as for GRIN, that was a case of Square Enix getting cold feet (straight after GRIN released three awful games in a row), pulling funding and then cancelling it. GRIN were doomed regardless though, they were a mid-tier developer developing games in the generation that killed the mid-tier and they'd just released three bad games.

Anyway, sure Pete Hines, I totally believe your PR nonsense. It was a totally amicable breakup where one company just happened to be almost driven out of business.

I also find it hard to believe. Im sure it has happened in the past 1 or mb a few more times. But if all publishers do this all the time... then its destructive. No developer wants to work with a publisher ever. Its just too hard to believe
 
If that gut feeling is all it takes to completely dismiss everything from various developers and practices over the last decade and a half, then nothing will shake your trust in that corporation.

Or you work for ZeniMax/Bethesda Softworks, in which case, I ask that you give Hines my regards

I don't believe a conspiracy theory about buyouts is more likely than a game simply not shaping up to be of high enough quality to justify further investment. If I was in business and asked to invest hundreds of thousands, potentially millions, into a product that wasn't shaping up as hoped, I'd get cold feet and consider pulling the plug too if things didn't turn around quickly.

But sure, if you'd rather create ANOTHER conspiracy theory and assume I must be a Bethesda employee, I guess that fits in with this thread and its believers pretty well.
 

Timedog

good credit (by proxy)
Bethesda is garbage. I'll buy doom when I can get it for garbage tier price. No Bethesda game gets bought new if possible. I don't like giving money to garbage.
 

Lord Phol

Member
Bethesda really are awful with their business practices. Releasing broken games on consoles (knowing how bad it is but not saying a word), hostile takeover tactics and stealing from mods just to name a few things. Coming from the project cd Red thread to this really shows how different companies can be.
 
Reason I don't buy Bethesda games.

It isn't hard to avoid their broken games, but having to pass up Mikami's stuff sucks.

You could buy them second hand. You would have to wait for some kind of GOTY version with all the dlc on disc to get the dlc but yeah. Buying a used copy somewhere keeps Bethesda from getting your money.
 

Mr. Tibbs

Member
Industry veteran Lorne Lanning on hostile takeovers:

Metro: Well, it is just a rumour, you understand. I don’t know whether it’s true. But the suggestion is that the game was almost finished and then ZeniMax [Bethesda’s parent company] started pretending the developer, Human Head, were missing their milestones, so they didn’t get paid. The idea being they could then buy them up for a cheap price, but instead Human Head went on strike. Apparently they did something similar with Arkane Studios [makers of Dishonored], where they were loaning them money just to purposefully get them in debt. I mean, like you say, you never find out if these things are true, but I do know ZeniMax owns Arkane now and Prey 2 never did come out…

Lorne Lanning: That’s a standard play. That’s not a unique story. Without going over who did what to who through the 20 years I’ve been in the business, that’s not a unique story at all. In fact that became more of a common practise… I’m not commenting on Bethesda because I don’t know the story but what you’re telling me is a rumour, I’m not pointing fingers at anyone as much as… as a practise for the industry that was not uncommon.
I wonder who Fargo was referencing here?

'As head of development house InXile, he was making a game under contract for the publisher. "They wanted us to hit a certain date," he says. "But they had made a bunch of changes. It wasn't possible. They sent a guy down to our office while I was out of town promoting the game. The guy comes into the office and tells my people, 'Hey we need to move the date. If you don't figure it out, we'll shut this company down.' He came in and threatened to fire all my employees while I was away."

Fargo made his outrage known to the publisher. "I called them and said, get that guy out of my office. I'm not having another meeting until you kick that person out of my office."

But the damage was done. Fargo was left dealing with a nervous game development team. "Guess what? My guys start looking for jobs," he says. "If I were them, I would do the same. What happens when they leave me in the middle of a project toward the end? The product slips more. Who's going to get blamed? Me. It was outrageous behavior. I was like ... How did we get here?"'

Another one from Fargo:

"I don't think we'll be talking with Bethesda," Fargo counters, his voice for the first time losing that enthusiastic kick I've been enjoying for the past half hour.

Why not?

"We had a tough relationship with them.

"It's kind of funny to be competing with my own franchise."

I press.

"They're very successful and they do some very high quality products. They have a very different attitude towards development than what I'm used to. I'm sort of more... if you think of a film, every director has his or her own way of doing things, no matter what. There's no cookie cutter for their approach. And that's what makes films so great: you have these wildly different approaches. I had my own approach and they have a structured way of doing it that's just different than mine."

This past bad experience of course has to do with Hunted, a game that promised much but failed to deliver both critically and, crucially for Bethesda, commercially.

"That was the only time I did business with them, yeah," Fargo says. Don't hold your breath for a sequel.

And - perhaps unsurprisingly - don't hold your breath for an inXile-developed Fallout, either.

"Yep. Very unlikely."

And as for it it being a rumor that Bethesda was looking to acquire studios around 2010-2011, this Games Industry article suggests otherwise.
 

Honey Bunny

Member
Why they named this game "Prey" and opened themselves up to the cancelled bounty hunter version of the game being thrown in their face is beyond me.

How likely is it that this story is given the attention it deserves by investigative journalists?
How likely is it that Elder Scrolls fans are going to skip the next Elder Scrolls game even if these stories do come out and they're as bad as they seem?

That's why.
 

Whompa02

Member
None of this matters because everyone seems to be freaking out in joy about the new Prey anyway and it will make Bethesda tons of money.

One thing I don't get is that the original Prey looks like a game Bethesda would actually publish...not this boring Doom 3 looking slog.
 

Briarios

Member
I don't believe a conspiracy theory about buyouts is more likely than a game simply not shaping up to be of high enough quality to justify further investment. If I was in business and asked to invest hundreds of thousands, potentially millions, into a product that wasn't shaping up as hoped, I'd get cold feet and consider pulling the plug too if things didn't turn around quickly.

But sure, if you'd rather create ANOTHER conspiracy theory and assume I must be a Bethesda employee, I guess that fits in with this thread and its believers pretty well.

It's not really a conspiracy theory when there is precedent and evidence ...
 

nOoblet16

Member
I don't believe a conspiracy theory about buyouts is more likely than a game simply not shaping up to be of high enough quality to justify further investment. If I was in business and asked to invest hundreds of thousands, potentially millions, into a product that wasn't shaping up as hoped, I'd get cold feet and consider pulling the plug too if things didn't turn around quickly.

But sure, if you'd rather create ANOTHER conspiracy theory and assume I must be a Bethesda employee, I guess that fits in with this thread and its believers pretty well.

Except we know that the game was shaping up extremely well and very close to being done while we also have evidence of the buyout through milestone abuse. We also have evidence that Bethesda has done this before with other studios.
 

Mr. Tibbs

Member
Maybe it has vagina doors, they're just not ready to show them yet!

:(

Both parties were a bit concerned about the confusion that brand shift would cause, particularly if Arkane's title was as complete a departure from the original as they had described. There wasn't a focus on Native American identity and mythology, no gravity-shifting puzzles — "we don't have vagina doors," Hines joked. Ultimately, Arkane was told not to shoehorn in aspects of Prey or its canceled sequel, market confusion be damned.
 
I don't believe a conspiracy theory about buyouts is more likely than a game simply not shaping up to be of high enough quality to justify further investment. If I was in business and asked to invest hundreds of thousands, potentially millions, into a product that wasn't shaping up as hoped, I'd get cold feet and consider pulling the plug too if things didn't turn around quickly.

But sure, if you'd rather create ANOTHER conspiracy theory and assume I must be a Bethesda employee, I guess that fits in with this thread and its believers pretty well.

It's not really a conspiracy theory when there is precedent and evidence ...

^

You have nothing to counter the evidence with aside from "I personally don't believe that would happen." You have no argument aside from equivocal, vague notions of what constitutes a conspiracy theory and baseless skepticism, all in a weak attempt to legitimize your own corporate ball-washing. But Bethesda are bastions for quality control of course!

You'd likely prefer people suspecting you're from Bethesda to the alternative, less flattering conclusion .
 

gafneo

Banned
id Software, Machine Games, and other devs made those games, not Bethesda the publisher. That's who that poster is referring to.

How do you think Bethesda/ZeniMax acquired those other dev companies?

Bethesda made those games by feeding them money. My bad, I meant published, not develop.
 

gafneo

Banned
I think its not impossible at this point to revive Prey 2. Maybe it could be published by another company like True Crime did when it got ditched by Activision. Square changed the name to Sleeping Dogs and it became one of the best open world games. Prey 2 is one of those special gems I don't think deserves to die. It was a poor human mistake to let it go.
 
I ain't supporting this shit. Prey 2 looked great. This new prey might be interesting but it's not what I fucking wanted.

Keep telling me sweet little lies Bethesda. I ain't buying them
 

nOoblet16

Member
I think its not impossible at this point to revive Prey 2. Maybe it could be published by another company like True Crime did when it got ditched by Activision. Square changed the name to Sleeping Dogs and it became one of the best open world games. Prey 2 is one of those special gems I don't think deserves to die. It was a poor human mistake to let it go.

I think Bethesda owns all the material that Human Head produced which means it's never coming out. Violation Games released their cancelled Saints Row PSP game for free, Prey 2 was near completion and something like that or rebranding like Sleeping Dogs could have been done if Human Head owned their work.
 

RCSI

Member
I'm actually kind of surprised how this isn't common knowledge, especially on here.

There have been threads about this in the past, however those threads did not garner enough attention and it gets swept up by the passing of time.
 

gafneo

Banned
I think Bethesda owns all the material that Human Head produced which means it's never coming out. Violation Games released their cancelled Saints Row PSP game for free, Prey 2 was near completion and something like that or rebranding like Sleeping Dogs could have been done if Human Head owned their work.

OK, so lets persuade Bethesda. Not likely will it matter, but worth a try. This Prey 2017 title is basically DMC compared to RE4. They should just re-title it Red Shift. Meanwhile Prey 2 gets remastered for PS4, sell it on PSN for half price bundled with original Prey. Now we get a team to work on an official Prey game that ties the stories together while giving us bounty missions mixed with portal warping, no game overs, a Native American protag, and a kickass bar scene in the intro.
 

gafneo

Banned
It's apparently effective. Business people being scum is a time-honoured tradition.

I don't think its about being scum. It's just a bad move. It's like how MS gave Peter Moore the say when green lighting Rareware games. The guy only knows Madden, Fifa, and Battlefield from working at EA. What does he know about the actual fanbase that would kill for a new Perfect Dark?
 
Reads more like, we weren't able to take over human head games so we scrapped them and everything they worked on. We wanted to keep the trade mark however so decided to slap it on a new IP we were creating.

Such a non answer, especially towards the name use and cancelling that entire universe.

It's like if EA bought Valve and used the Half-Life name for their Dead Space series.
 

tuxfool

Banned
I don't think its about being scum. It's just a bad move. It's like how MS gave Peter Moore the say when green lighting Rareware games. The guy only knows Madden, Fifa, and Battlefield from working at EA. What does he know about the actual fanbase that would kill for a new Perfect Dark?

You don't think driving a developer (that is faithfully honouring their contract) to bankruptcy isn't scummy?
 

gafneo

Banned
You don't think driving a developer (that is faithfully honoring their contract) to bankruptcy isn't scummy?

Not always because it could have been a huge gamble for them and that one choice was made out of fear that they'd risk their own asses. It was a bad move because the game looked promising. With what was marketed already, they could have guaranteed a pretty figure IMO. They probably thought it would have competed too closely with Assassin's Creed and Cod.

I don't blame Konami either for canning Silent Hills because Kojima was not going to work on the project as he violated some type of confidential terms. They already failed to profit off of Downpour, so sourcing out the game would have been another risk. There are probably mostly great people at Konami as a whole. There are only a few bad eggs that frivolously create the bad image for the rest of the company.
 

nOoblet16

Member
OK, so lets persuade Bethesda. Not likely will it matter, but worth a try. This Prey 2017 title is basically DMC compared to RE4. They should just re-title it Red Shift. Meanwhile Prey 2 gets remastered for PS4, sell it on PSN for half price bundled with original Prey. Now we get a team to work on an official Prey game that ties the stories together while giving us bounty missions mixed with portal warping, no game overs, a Native American protag, and a kickass bar scene in the intro.

Tbf this criticism about Prey 2017 being a Prey game only in name and being more of an offshoot, also applied to Human Head's Prey 2.

They could probaby hire a team to finish the job so as to release the game (like gearbox's Duke Nuken Forever) and under a different name so that it does not conflicts with their Prey 2017 game but I doubt they will do it.
 
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