• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

RIP Vigil Games (2005-2013)

G

grandjedi6

Master of the Google Search
malfcn said:
Who owns the "Crawler" work, is it lumped with DS?
Click to expand...
THQ

ban25 said:
I'll add that I was surprised by the Koch Media bid. I think they probably saw this as an opportunity to add a North American studio on the cheap. Could be true for Crytek as well, though it's not clear to me whether they bought just the Homefront IP or also the studio.
Click to expand...

Just the IP. Crytek themselves are actually the developer of Homefront 2.
 
B

batteryLeakage

Neo Member
This whole Platinum saving Vigil and Darksiders thing sounds a bit farfetched, but damn that would be awesome! One can dream though. . .

I've been playing Darksiders 2 recently, and am probably about halfway through it at this point. I've really enjoyed it too: I don't get where some of the negativity for that game comes from. Finishing the rest of the game is going to be really bittersweet. :(
 
Reallink

Reallink

Member
ban25 said:
Well, look at the bulk of the expense...it's the salaries. So, if you're going to make something cheaper, it implies you're going to lay a bunch of people off. As for the big publishers, they already have lots of internal studios in Austin (EA/BioWare, ZeniMax, Nintendo...), so they can just recruit directly (and pick the creme of the crop) -- no need to pick up an entire studio, especially if those people aren't going to continue on a product already in development.
Click to expand...

Darksiders 2 had no business costing 80-90 million dollars. I can't even imagine where they would have spent that much money. Vigil's overhead must be enormous, which I suspect is why they couldn't find a buyer.
 
B

ban25

Member
Reallink said:
Darksiders 2 had no business costing 80-90 million dollars. I can't even imagine where they would have spent that much money. Vigil's overhead must be enormous, which is suspect is why they couldn't find a buyer.
Click to expand...

I haven't followed the bankruptcy so I haven't seen the budget for DS2, but yeah, that's quite high for that game. I suppose marketing costs could have gotten them there, but based on the relative lack of exposure it had at launch (my opinion, anyway), I really doubt THQ plowed that much into marketing it.
 
T

ThoughtsOfSpeaking

Banned
ezekial45 said:
Yes they did.

The quotes you're picking out are ones where Capcom said they offered their supervision, I:E; feedback, tweaks, design tips. Like I said, they supervised the development of the game, did not do any hard development of the game. That's exactly what they said earlier in the video when they described the aspects of the combat. Capcom saw their proposal, offered advice, and Ninja Theory went on to work on it.

The entirety of this game (coding, design, framework, art, etc) was developed by Ninja Theory. Again, Supervision does not mean they did any heavy lifting. The Capcom JPN team did no heavy lifting on this game whatsoever. It's entirely Ninja Theory's work.
Click to expand...


You are giving NT too much credit. One of Alex jones's favourite phrases during development was "Collaborating with Capcom Japan down to a Code level"

I'd look it it up but im feeling too lazy. He said it in several interviews along with his DMC DNA nonsense.
 
B

Boost

Banned
Sad indeed.

I wanted to be a videogame developer when I was in highschool, well, I took a different route (mobile developer), BUT still wish I did become a VG developer.
 
S

Slamtastic

Member
Me in the other thread re: Platinum buying the IP/studio/members of:

I'd rather see Vigil stay together, or at least the parts responsible for designing the combat in DS2, and continuing to grow and improve until they are a studio as respected for action game combat as P.

Platinum can't make every video game ever, sometimes we need to take baby steps and let other devs get better with action game making through experience, hoping that one day they'll be on their level and we as gamers will be the winners with more high quality games coming out.
Click to expand...
 
S

Sojgat

Member
I had to laugh/cry a little when I got the Darksiders 2 art book this morning. I ordered the thing before the game was even out.
 
G

Globox_82

Banned
Sick industry when games have to sell 2 million to make profit. PS1 days were the best 300k and you were making money. Something has to change or this industry will die. We will end up having 5 games in a year and that will be it.
Shame on Nintendo for not picking them up, they sure need some mature exclusive IPs
 
G

Globox_82

Banned
Reallink said:
Darksiders 2 had no business costing 80-90 million dollars. I can't even imagine where they would have spent that much money. Vigil's overhead must be enormous, which is suspect is why they couldn't find a buyer.
Click to expand...

No wonder he enjoyed working there if true. Who knows wher that money really ended.
 
O

Oersted

Member
Globox_82 said:
Sick industry when games have to sell 2 million to make profit. PS1 days were the best 300k and you were making money. Something has to change or this industry will die. We will end up having 5 games in a year and that will be it.
Shame on Nintendo for not picking them up, they sure need some mature exclusive IPs
Click to expand...

IP is not on sale yet and Retro (aka Nintendo) already hired some Vigil staff. Shame on you for not doing any research ;P
 
C

codecow

Member
Globox_82 said:
Sick industry when games have to sell 2 million to make profit. PS1 days were the best 300k and you were making money. Something has to change or this industry will die. We will end up having 5 games in a year and that will be it.
Shame on Nintendo for not picking them up, they sure need some mature exclusive IPs
Click to expand...

It will never die as long as people want to play. It may contract a lot as unfortunately we've seen the last couple years.
 
B

Brofield

Member
Still following this very closely. I'm torn what to think of 2013 thus far, what with Nintendo announcing Pokemon X/Y, the latest ND, but now THQ going under officially and my broken heart at not seeing Vigil being bought by anyone.

I sincerely hope for as happy an ending as possible. Hell, I haven't even gotten a chance to play any of Darksiders yet!

Man, and I thought it was bad finally picking up The Last Window: Secret of Cape West and finding out days later Cing goes under.
 
C

CambriaRising

Member
Reallink said:
Darksiders 2 had no business costing 80-90 million dollars. I can't even imagine where they would have spent that much money. Vigil's overhead must be enormous, which is suspect is why they couldn't find a buyer.
Click to expand...
You need to say where you got that amount from because no where on google could I find anything even close to that.
 
O

outunderthestars

Banned
soulassssns said:
Wish Ninty (Retro) would buy the Darksiders IP.
Click to expand...

I am confused as to why people think that the Darksiders IP would suddenly be profitable if only _________ bought it. it's a franchise that requires AAA development resources for niche audience. It already killed one developer, why would you want it to kill another?
 
S

scorpscarx

Member
1AA841F1B185DEF79681158A04D5C024E65262B7
Click to expand...

Rip, we hardly knew ye... DSI/II are both excellent, excellent games.
 
D

DocSeuss

Member
ban25 said:
I'll add that I was surprised by the Koch Media bid. I think they probably saw this as an opportunity to add a North American studio on the cheap. Could be true for Crytek as well, though it's not clear to me whether they bought just the Homefront IP or also the studio.
Click to expand...

Kaos is dead. Crytek was already making Homefront 2 themselves.
 
V

ViewtifulJC

Banned
There was a shimmer on a slither of hope, that at one point, there'd be a Darksiders III: 4 Player Co-Op; It rode off into the sunset today.

Fuck this planet
 
S

soulassssns

Banned
outunderthestars said:
I am confused as to why people think that the Darksiders IP would suddenly be profitable if only _________ bought it. it's a franchise that requires AAA development resources for niche audience. It already killed one developer, why would you want it to kill another?
Click to expand...


Opinions, gotta love'em
 
G

GDGF

Soothsayer
so maybe you can imagine what it feels like when you read the list of who bought what only to discover your name is not on the list. Why? Did we do something wrong? Were we not good enough? Were we not worth 'anything?'
Click to expand...

That kind of hurt my heart :(
 
D

Dawg

Member
tragic said:
(...)
Ben Cureton
Lead Combat Designer
Vigil Games


P.S. This is no place for a horse.
Click to expand...

nFfe846.jpg


I hope something will work out for you guys still. I wouldn't be able to believe Darksiders is gone. I still remember the good old days of Darksiders 1 where I was traversing those sewers, fighting Wicked K. and just riding around on Ruin :(
 
KingJ2002

KingJ2002

Member
that was hard to read... seeing the layoffs at activision and watching offices completely cleaned out... i can only imagine what they went through.

I hope they all bounce back and darksiders finds a suitable home. Platinum Games will make it good... but ... i dunno... i'd rather see the Vigil team stay on it to make DS3 what it was meant to be.
 
Monocle

Monocle

Member
This is terrible. Vigil would have been capable of amazing things given reasonable funding and enough time. Both Darksiders games had flashes of greatness that hinted at the possibility of truly excellent future projects. What a waste.
 
P

Phthisis

Member
Ben, if you're still reading this thread, your games were amazing, some of my favorite this generation. The environment design, the world, the lore, the art, it was among the best game developers today have to offer. As a fan, the whole Vigil situation breaks my heart more than I can say, so I imagine it's probably 100 times as painful for you guys. I started replying the series about two weeks ago, so this news couldn't come at a worse time. I'm sorry for you and everyone else.
 
J

Jac_Solar

Member
Is this false?

Update: A letter from THQ CEO Brian Farrell and president Jason Rubin to their employees appears to corroborate the below information, as well as provide further details regarding the results of the auction.

Sega may be the proud new owner of Relic Entertainment, based on initial signs coming out of this week's THQ asset auction. Relic developer Kyle Berndt has tweeted that he is now a Sega employee, indicating that the company may have been purchased by Sega during the auction proceedings.

No official announcements have been made regarding the fates of THQ's various studios and their respective intellectual property, but we're keeping our collective ears to the ground as more news continues to trickle down.
Click to expand...

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/01/23/rumor-sega-purchases-relic-during-thq-auction/
 
N

NullPointer

Member
Cheesecakebobby said:
Tonight I will hold a vigil for Vigil :(
Click to expand...
Tried to do the same with some new game+ I had been saving, but for some reason my steam version of Darksiders 2 just will not launch anymore. Tried all the usual stuff and all the fixes I could find on Google to no avail.

Somehow this seems appropriate.
 
S

Spike

Member
This part is so sad:

... so maybe you can imagine what it feels like when you read the list of who bought what only to discover your name is not on the list. Why? Did we do something wrong? Were we not good enough? Were we not worth 'anything?' Imagine that.
Click to expand...

:(

Still, if Platinum Games is able to save this IP, well, it would be a good day for gaming.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Swen Vincke interview: Larian Studio size sustainable for a good number of years, new games not going to "dwarf" BG3, and more
7
521
amigastar replied
  • Poll
The "They should just make shorter games" talking point needs to die.
2 3 4
172
6K
Bernardougf replied
PS2 through 360 was the Attitude Era for videogames
2
60
3K
StreetsofBeige replied
Game devs praise Steam as a 'democratic platform' (a bastion in our panic mode industry)
2 3
104
4K
ArtHands replied
The industry is really missing that magic that used to come with E3 week and live press conferences.
2
75
2K
cireza replied
Top Bottom