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Perfect Dark’s Game Director leaves The Initiative

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adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
So, did the director leave because Crystal Dynamics is taking charge of development ?
 

Snake29

RSI Employee of the Year
The studio is new. It has the name of "Perfect Dark" as their new game. People will see that as a failure.
I expect people to flood this post, and consider perfect dark as a failure because of this move.

As for me, MS has alot of studios. They can simply ask help from those studios to manage the project. They arent in a hurry, since the game has no date yet.

Yes and that's why they hired a external studio to help them with this project.....

Sorry...it's not that "simple" and to me atm, Microsoft struggles more with their internal studios then their competitions.
 

Papacheeks

Banned
Could’ve did all he wanted to do and on to the next project.

You don’t leave without having either something lined up. Or if your work was done you would have put out something like a letter to the team. He left last month and we are just hearing about it now and with no replacement means there was no transfer of project/leadership where the person going forward would lead team.

This came out of nowhere. And it being second big lead leaving in less than s year? Sorry this feels l Iike person quit before being let go.

Getting halo infinite development vibes.
 
Be interesting to see how much of CD is involved in this given how The Initiative seems to be struggling to grow. Losing the GD ontop of that can't be good
Isn't this the studio that's not really built to make games but to lead others to make them? they only have like 70 people who work for the studio.
 

iamvin22

Industry Verified
Starting to think there’s some issues. It is something I feel microsoft struggles with at their studios.

really hoping it turns out great but we will see. if there’s no gameplay this year from the big games they showed trailers for like 2 to 3 years ago im going to deffo start questioning their abilities to produce great games in a timely fashion.
FACTS! After titanfall I refused to work on another Xbox project.
 
FACTS! After titanfall I refused to work on another Xbox project.
Santa Claus What GIF by Freeform
 

kingfey

Banned
Yes and that's why they hired a external studio to help them with this project.....

Sorry...it's not that "simple" and to me atm, Microsoft struggles more with their internal studios then their competitions.
They are in rebuild mode. Its not easy as other companies, which had decades of headstart.
They still havent learned their xbox one fiasco. If they dont fix these issues fast, they would have bigger issues in the future.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Could be lots of things, the game industry is competitive and tough. Maybe someone was doing a better job at directing then he was, maybe his heart was not in it etc etc.

Being a game director is stressful, just look at barlog at the start of GoW and at the end of it, he aged like a president and he did not want to do it again.

yeah, completely agree. Barlog literally aged 10-15 years in 3 years. So rough to see for such an awesome dude.

Yeah, i'm just hoping the games are awesome. Hopefully everything is fine.
 

yurinka

Member
When is it meant to release?
This September, when they announced the codevelopment with Crystal Dynamics, said that the game was 'early in development':


Big AAA games require time. Even if very experienced and talented, they are a new studio, which requires time. It's also going to be practically a new IP, a full reboot, so it requires extra time too. Add also some extra time due to covid. According to MS this was going to be a 'AAAA'' game so I would expect a 2024 or 2025 release being optimistic, but could go easily beyond that being realistic.

But if instead of being realistic you believe the Nvidia list, The Initiative is supposed to release a game December 8th, 2022, being one of the over a dozen games MS (not counting Activision Blizzard) was supposed to release this year. But Perfect Dark reboot is the only The Initiative project we know, and as mentioned it's instead on early stages of development so pretty likely that Nvidia list entry it's another bullshit entry out of someone's ass.
 
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Xenon

Member
Getting an honest answer of why this guy left would be interesting. Personally The Initiative seems like exactly what I would expect out of the current corporate world creating a game studio. If I were to speculate I would say that making a well crafted fun game probably didn't make the top 5 in the studios priorities set out for them by the higher ups and committees.
 
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reksveks

Member
Doesn't look good personally but too early to tell given the fact we haven't see anything from the game. Suspect MS won't need to rush this especially if they get the ABK deal done in 2023.
 
I would think they're only that small due to how difficult it is to attract takent. I can't see having to contract out external studios to help lead developement is ideal
No they are that small because they aren't a true development studio, there was confusion before about what they were supposed to be. They wouldn't be this small 4 years after opening with MS's financing, they are in an area where Activision employees could easily leave and join them as well as Insomniac, Sony Santa Monica studio etc.

They were never meant to be a true development studio, I believe they are supposed to lead the creative and the leadership type of role but the actual grunt work will be done by studios they contract with.
 

kingfey

Banned
Says the guy going on about the thread ignore feature.
This is open forum. He has rights to criticize these moves. Doesnt matter what console he has.
If MS didnt buy bethesda or activison/blizzard, this would have been a big issue.

Only reason I am letting moves like these slide, is because they have other studios, plus Tod Howard. Not concerned one bit about it. Also the studio is new. They might have a better placement.
 
No they are that small because they aren't a true development studio, there was confusion before about what they were supposed to be. They wouldn't be this small 4 years after opening with MS's financing, they are in an area where Activision employees could easily leave and join them as well as Insomniac, Sony Santa Monica studio etc.

They were never meant to be a true development studio, I believe they are supposed to lead the creative and the leadership type of role but the actual grunt work will be done by studios they contract with.

This is the first i've ever heard of this. Sounds like an inherently bad idea to boot
 

Klayzer

Member
I don't care what the resident Xbros are saying, but this is a sign of some trouble going on within the studio. You don't have to defend every bit of negative news that comes out of Team Green.

Curious what projects they're working on. The Iniative was assembled with a lot of high profile picks in the industry. You can't come in with all the fanfare they had initially, and not be under a microscope.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Have they actually said if this is a first person shooter still ?

With Crystal Dynamics at the helm, it may very well be a Tomb Raider style third person game.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Lmfao! You serious? So I guess all those employees that are leaving Activision in droves are dumb too right?

In droves? How many?

On Wikipedia it says acti-blizz had 9500 staff in 2020

Xbox game studios have about 5000 staff across there studios.

So yes, like I said if you never want to work for a Microsoft dev again you are cutting yourself off a huge chunk of the industry even if "droves" of people leave Activision.
 

assurdum

Banned
I’m using logic here so this might hurt, MS does not have much experience in having so many studios and so many projects.
People celebrate their acquisitions but MS have a long sad history of incompetency in this department. The fact Spencer throw money from the windows and think to compete to Sony just buy big companies really leave me a mental headache. How many years needed sony to consolidate their studio? 15 years? I don't understand how they can think to handle this situation perfectly in such short frame time during this generation, because things like this will become even more frequent and idiot like Pachter speculate they will be capable to kill sony just with their money. Lol. Sure. Time to slowdown a bit and think more to consolidate what already they have, imo.
 
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kingfey

Banned
I don't care what the resident Xbros are saying, but this is a sign of some trouble going on within the studio. You don't have to defend every bit of negative news that comes out of Team Green.

Curious what projects they're working on. The Iniative was assembled with a lot of high profile picks in the industry. You can't come in with all the fanfare they had initially, and not be under a microscope.
The guy worked with them for almost 4 years. That is normal. It would have been an issue, if that was for 1-2 year. Plus with high profiles they have, they can get another one easily.
 

Klayzer

Member
Why would that matter to you? You spent a lot of time talking up the negatives of Horizon Forbidden West when you had not played it and said you had no interest in playing it. You can't have it both ways.
I'm always astounded how hypocritical these guys are. Can't wait to give opinions on certain companies, and in the same breath, try to silence any critical opinions of Xbox related news. Its the same guys doing that in every thread.
 

kingfey

Banned
People celebrate their acquisitions but MS have a long sad history of incompetency in this department. The fact Spencer throw money from the windows and think to compete to Sony just buy big companies really leave me a mental headache. How many years needed sony to consolidate their studio? 15 years? I don't understand how they can think to handle this situation perfectly and idiot like Pachter think they will kill sony just because acquisitions. Lol. Sure.
Yup. MS is also really retard with their hands off methods, which also bites them in the hands later on.
Sony and Nintendo had to be carefully who they buy. Develop long term investment, and buy them when its right time.

MS only knows that they have money. Once Phil leaves them, they will have tons of issues managing all their big studios.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Why would that matter to you? You spent a lot of time talking up the negatives of Horizon Forbidden West when you had not played it and said you had no interest in playing it. You can't have it both ways.

Why would what matter to me? Thats obvious for anyone with a few brain cells.

Yeah, i dont need to buy a game to make a judgement on it. Only remidials need to play a game for 20hrs to make a judgement on it.
 

iamvin22

Industry Verified
In droves? How many?

On Wikipedia it says acti-blizz had 9500 staff in 2020

Xbox game studios have about 5000 staff across there studios.

So yes, like I said if you never want to work for a Microsoft dev again you are cutting yourself off a huge chunk of the industry even if "droves" of people leave Activision.
I've been fine haha.
 

assurdum

Banned
Yup. MS is also really retard with their hands off methods, which also bites them in the hands later on.
Sony and Nintendo had to be carefully who they buy. Develop long term investment, and buy them when its right time.

MS only knows that they have money. Once Phil leaves them, they will have tons of issues managing all their big studios.
I'm more worried of the fate of companies in the medium long terms like Bethesda and Activision but will see.
 
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