Watching his reel, NO WONDER highlight intros went completely down the drain at a certain point, he stopped working on Overwatch.
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Blizzard cancels a project that has been in the works for 2 years
- Thread starter Kolx
- Start date
Tell us about Project Titan. What was it really? Why did it not see the light of day? Why couldn't Blizzard make it work?
I think Project Titan is the most important story not-yet-told out of Blizzard and something that speaks to the larger industry. We're talking about Blizzard, THE MMO company, being unable to craft a successor to WoW. And, no one since Wow, not even Blizzard, has been able to develop a successor. The failure of Project Titan is a story of the death of subscription based MMOs.
are you talking about Deadpool the movie or Deadpool the video game? because the video game did not sell like gangbusters
Its kind of like talking to your family every time you may get a new job or theres a girl you like, then it becomes "a thing" you know? Why bother? You tell people EVERYTHING thats going on and theyll get more micromanagey about it, if you talk to them too little fans will fill the void with speculation so its a hard balance
Leaks also cost companies money in a lot of cases, some people change their spending on a game if they know something is coming ahead of time. Im sure theres cases where its done on purpose to manipulate whatever numbers
As a professional courtesy, you want your friend developers to be able to announce their game on their terms, not by having Bob69 on twitter do it for you. A lot of time and effort is spent on making really cool reveals and it can really suck when it gets leaked (whether its malicious or accidental, which also happens a lot)
It is kind of fun to work your way into the industry and get to know things other people dont know, cant lie, but you have to treat that with respect.
I've heard via grapevine they've been systematically underpaying relative to the rest of the industry relying on the brand name to do so.
The brand name + relative stability (at least until earlier this year) + profit sharing bonuses (which I can't imagine have been all that great lately) are what help people justify working there despite this.
Facts! I really loved Blizzard once. Now I'm just cautiously optimistic.
I really hope this years Blizzcon is more positive. They really need to stick to a more consistent release schedule.
Yes, I remember this. But, I want more. Why wasn't it "good enough?" What did Blizzard see that caused them to shut down their successor to WoW? How did they seem to realize before most everyone else that the subscription MMO model was dead? It's just fascinating to think that Blizzard failed to make a new, killer-hit MMO and no one since them have been able to do it. WoW was apparently the ceiling and no one has been able to crack it since.
Sorry the movie definitely, Haha. Not the game. Have no info on the game whatsoever.
Oh yeah I totally get where you're coming from, especially for games going live, but the reason I made the comparison to the Deadpool movie was because to my knowledge that was canned and deemed "Not good" as well. So it's always interesting to look at what "might have been" after something has been truly dead.
That being said I also know about the harm it can do to devs after reading/watching the Davide Soliani interviews about Mario + Rabbids. How people shit on the game before it was announced and didn't think it would be good. AFter FE:Warriors I was on board because Nintendo usually took collabs seriously in the gaming space but I remember how it sucked hearing how the dev team was really discouraged/distraught having it leaked ahead of time and to such negative feedback.
I totally understand and respect where you're coming from and hope that I made no implication otherwise. Between people like you and Schrier you get the good AND the terrible of knowing what you know in this industry and while I'm envious because I'm so passionate about the industry myself I also feel like there are still some things that are weird about the entertainment industry and how they treat their teams/projects.
Hope that helps a bit about where I stand on everything.
Depressing to read but not at all surprising after speaking to friends who also went to work there. The games industry likes to tout the "You get to work on a video game! For [insert name here]!" and skate by on a lot of shady stuff just on that alone. Not that Blizzard is a hellscape or anything but between job insecurity/California living expenses I imagine that can only go so far.
And thus the world will never know the wonders of Rock and Roll Racing 2: Return of the Lost Vikings
Exactly what I was thinking.
It would be awesome to see Blizzard take what they've learned with Overwatch and apply it to a Diablo type shooter.
I'll take it that a potential Overwatch campaign is dead in the water, given current circumstances with the games player base (among other things)?
FPSMMOs just straight up never took off. That's why Titan was inevitably axed- it was a concept, it turned out, that just didn't have a big market for it and was kind of a behind the scenes dev nightmare. So they ejected all the MMO elements, kept some of the design/world building, and just used the combat. And it turned out just selling the combat solo was a big hit!
Similar to how WoW has to effectively have two different rulesets to make PVP work, their dev model was an outdated concept that wanted to do both PVP and PVE, when in the intervening years, we've seen hit games focusing on PVE w/ character upgrades (Destiny, Borderlands) or PVP (Apex, Overwatch, etc.) but not really both. None of those modern PVE or PVP requires any type of substantial character maintenance before you jump into a game, unlike say, an MMO, and that pick up and play thing with FPSes is probably critical for getting people to play them and buy into the ecosystems.
You are totally fine, it was just a good opportunity to expand on the subject, allows the lurkers to get some insight they might not have had otherwise :)
That's an eye opener for me too, they'll have to walk a fine line and not piss anyone off who worked hard to get some of the legendary skins.
Well Blizzard is like the hot girl or guy in high school. Everyone wants to be with them but when you actually get to know them you realize they are just shitty people and that they only look nice.
Blizzard is a company that has for years now in recent times been given the benefit of the doubt when they haven't raised their bar in ages and has just rested on their laurels and the goodwill they've built up.
thats cool. but is there a wow 2? man i need a new big budget mmo, so much mediocrity in the space.
I feel like every story I read about Blizzard over last year or so has been sad/negative.
It's a real bummer to watch this happen to one of your favorite devs.
It's a real bummer to watch this happen to one of your favorite devs.
Damn. I wonder how they're going to spin Overwatch League whenever the expansion/sequel for Overwatch comes out.
I highly doubt this, destiny has a very well liked pvp mode and continues to be successful. It's what keeps people playing when there's no other content as opposed to things like anthem without pvp.
If bungie can figure it out (admittedly despite growing pains they had) there was more to the story as to why titan failed.
Bungie did not figure out how to do an MMOFPS. It wasn't just development difficulties with making the game fun, it was those in addition to "who is the audience for this game?" MMOs peaked with WoW. The audience for an FPSMMO was likely a subset of players who like both MMOs and FPSes. The audience for the game was getting smaller, not larger, and killing it off ended up being a good thing given what came out of it - whatever "Titan" would have been, it's unlikely to have had the widespread success OW has found.
We have 2 ex-Blizzard devs at my firm who said the exact same thing lol. Honestly glad I didn't accept their job offer three years ago
Damn, that's a bummer.
I haven't played Overwatch in a while but it's still easy to remember pretty much all or most of those animations from his reel. I loved playing as Mei and seeing some of my old favorite animations was a blast. Plus to see he made most of the lootbox animations too? Damn. Very impressive.
I haven't played Overwatch in a while but it's still easy to remember pretty much all or most of those animations from his reel. I loved playing as Mei and seeing some of my old favorite animations was a blast. Plus to see he made most of the lootbox animations too? Damn. Very impressive.