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EA shuts down Visceral, moves Star Wars game to EA Vancouver/others

A

AlwaysTriumph

Neo Member
A linear, story based game is many wanted. It’s what I wanted. EA had battlefront they have an online kotor wasn’t that enough for a Star Wars GaaS?

With that license and that studio they could have come out as the first $79.99 game and people would have paid for it and they could have helped the industry make the transition to a higher price point.

Also why make this announcement right before you are about to release another game that is getting savaged for its implementation of loot boxes? Do they want the most ill will going into a launch ever? Yeesh.

Important in all of this people lost jobs, livelihoods, and dreams of making a good Star Wars. My thoughts are with them.
 
S

SunBroDave

Member
As terrible as it is for all of the employees who are being let go, everyone here needs to realize that EA didn't shudder Visceral and throw their masterpiece of a Star Wars game in the trash because they're pure evil.

This game was clearly in bad shape, which is why we basically never saw it. Just like we barely ever saw Andromeda before release.
 
S

SporeCrawler

Member
given the weak performance and poor critical reception of viscerals games in general (except deadspace 2) its not really surprising. still sad to see as deadspace 1 and 2 were amazing games.
 
A

Anbokr

Bull on a Donut
I hope this means the star wars game delves more towards an RPG and not Battlefield/mass-multiplayer; we'll see I guess. God would I kill for a new star wars rpg with amazing graphics though. Such a ripe universe for a good ol' classic RPG game.
 
Clear

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
People do realize that Visceral was just a rebranding for EA Redwood Shores right? Its always been EA internal and was around for more than a decade prior to its name change.

You really shouldn't lump it together with studios acquired by EA based on a history of independent success.
 
Y

Yazzees

Member
jayu26 said:
I do believe Dota is considered Gaas model. So Irony?
Click to expand...
My point being that AAA publishers are mistaken to think I'm interested in following one or two games of that type, and mistaken to think they could recreate the success of games like LoL and Dota (which they already attempted during that avalanche of shitty licensed MOBAs in 2013-2014). Should have made that more clear.
 
A

ArkhamFantasy

Member
Crossing Eden said:
Which is why I think it's likely that the game may not have been coming together as well as expected. Literally the only footage ever released was this:
giphy.gif
Click to expand...

They didnt mention quality once in their statement, they made it pretty clear that the game being linear was the problem, and that's what Visceral is good at making.
 
A

.Anema

Member
What the fuck EA!
Please don't tell me that we will never see another Dead Space :/
EA its a fucking nightmare that needs to disappear.
 
S

SporeCrawler

Member
Clear said:
People do realize that Visceral was just a rebranding for EA Redwood Shores right? Its always been EA internal and was around for more than a decade prior to its name change.

You really shouldn't lump it together with studios acquired by EA based on a history of independent success.
Click to expand...

hmm so they also did the good james bond games and the godfather...
 
G

GnomeBambino

Neo Member
Crossing Eden said:
That game had a peak CC users at 1.3 mil and even in spite of being a drop from the last's debut sales, was the biggest launch at retail this yearlast I checked. Activision is laughing all the way to the bank at the idea that Destiny 2 had "mediocre" sales.


Which is why I think it's likely that the game may not have been coming together as well as expected. Literally the only footage ever released was this:
giphy.gif
Click to expand...

It could mean that but it could also simply tell us the game was in early development which doesn't mean development is going poorly. As I said in my previous response to you the game's development could have been troubled or EA might see the project as less valuable because they couldn't continue to nickle and dime the player after the game was sold. I see this situation as similar to when Microsoft cancelled Scalebound it's possible that a veteran team of game devs screwed up so bad Microsoft had to pull the plug. Or seeing how almost all of Microsoft's first party games have featured microtransactions Scalebound didn't fit the mold and was canned. I feel this StarWars game may have had a similar fate.
 
S

ScientificPizza

Banned
Holy shit that sucks

It did feel like after they got saddled with Hardline that they needed something huge next or this was going to happen. It sucks that this didn’t turn out that way

Dead Space is one of the all time greats
 
T

Tapejara

Member
Baraka Obama said:
I believe that devils cartel was made by another dev that was renamed to visceral and then shut down after that game flopped. Edit I looked it up and I can't find anything so maybe I wrong

Just looking at this list you can tell that EA hardly game them any creative freedom to make anything interesting besides Dead Space.
Click to expand...

Actually, you are somewhat correct. The Army of TWO team was originally part of EA Montreal, however was later renamed to Visceral Montreal between the release of The 40th Day and The Devil's Cartel. Before The Devil's Cartel released, Visceral Montreal was completely shut down, however this did not affect the entirety of EA Montreal.
 
N

Ninja Scooter

Member
Yazzees said:
My point being that AAA publishers are mistaken to think I'm interested in following one or two games of that type, and mistaken to think they could recreate the success of games like LoL and Dota (which they already attempted during that avalanche of shitty licensed MOBAs in 2013-2014). Should have made that more clear.
Click to expand...

The problem is that making a AAA SP game is also no sure-thing, can potentially be more costly, and has a much lower chance at pulling in constant revenue. Most of the companies and publishers that shut down last generation did so because they created costly single player games that couldn't complete with Halo or COD or Gears and sold like shit.
 
I

Im_So_Pringles

Member
This game is being transformed from an Uncharted-like singleplayer game to something more akin to Mass Effect or Destiny with a semi-open world structure with hubs. Lootboxes/Microtransactions will also appear in some form. Mark my words.
 
Y

Yazzees

Member
It's almost funny how perfectly-tailored this news is to being a GAF nightmare. "Despised AAA publisher shuts down beloved single-player game developer that was working on an Uncharted-esque Star Wars game in favor of making it into a GaaS". Condolences to those who were hyped, and congratulations to Jim Sterling's patreon revenue.
 
B

Brotherhood93

Member
What's crazy is that to change direction of the game so drastically and lay off a bunch of staff has to come at a really significant cost, right? Seems like quite a gamble even if they can make more money by going MP/GaaS instead because to make the change worth it they have to cover that loss too. Uncharted 4 has to have sold ~10m at this point so if, like we assume, this was going to be a Star Wars Uncharted-like it seems like this could have still made a lot of money as it was. It's sad that the cost of it failing will likely mean more devs losing their jobs but I really hope it fails.
 
M

Marcel

Member
AlwaysTriumph said:
A linear, story based game is many wanted. It's what I wanted. EA had battlefront they have an online kotor wasn't that enough for a Star Wars GaaS?

With that license and that studio they could have come out as the first $79.99 game and people would have paid for it and they could have helped the industry make the transition to a higher price point.

Also why make this announcement right before you are about to release another game that is getting savaged for its implementation of loot boxes? Do they want the most ill will going into a launch ever? Yeesh.

Important in all of this people lost jobs, livelihoods, and dreams of making a good Star Wars. My thoughts are with them.
Click to expand...

Yeah sure pal. People love to pony up more money than they have paid in decades for one license game. Give me a fucking break with this fantasyland post.
 
T

Taker666

Member
If the only thing we're getting from EA is online multiplayer focused Star Wars games..I wish they'd just sell the rights to single player games to someone else.

They've had the rights for 4.5 years now...and all we've got is Battlefront I&II.

On the plus side, they paid for a 10 year license,so we're almost halfway through.

I hope companies can buy the rights on a game by game basis going forward (once this deal expires)...rather than being stuck in another 10 year deal with EA.
 
S

Shift Breaker

Member
I was honestly excited for a more linear, story driven Star Wars game.

Welp, the open world, loot box obsessed gaming releases continue. Obviously it's far, far too early and overreactive to claim that I'm instantly going to not buy whatever this Star Wars game becomes because of this, but I'm definitely going to keep my scepticism at the ready.

Also, obviously, it's awful news for the people at Visceral as well, to be shut down in such an...well, unsurprising fashion. Hopefully they all get back into work swiftly after this.
 
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