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Jedi: Fallen Order's reveal has me questioning why EA shut down the Visceral game even more.

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breakYODAy

breakYODAy

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What we saw from that gameplay demo was a linear style game. The type of game that is hard to monetize with microtransactions and will likely be played through in 15-20 hours, never to be revisited again. This game flies directly in the face of EA's recently stated development philosophy.

I wonder how this game could make it though the scrutiny of executives with recurrent monetization on the brain, yet the Visceral game couldn't. Narratively, Amy Hennig's story would likely have fared a bit better than what we'll get from Fallen Order, with gameplay not being all that dissimilar (minus force powers and lightsabers). Does Respawn just have more clout within EA to push a project like this to the finish line?
 
JahIthBer

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Because this game was half finished before EA brought Respawn, they might as well let them finish it, however anyone buying this game with "maybe EA will make more SP games" in mind should think twice, because EA is pushing this game out because they have to, not really because they want to.
 
Lant_War

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We don't know how Visceral's game was turning out. Maybe it was a disaster.
 
--R

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Because it was on development hell. Read Kotaku's article on it.
 
ckareset

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The game wasn't good. Whatever smoke and mirrors you saw was just that, smoke and mirrors
 
Hey Please

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Quoting from the other thread:

BossAttack said:
Re-reading the article, it seems I did mis-remember. The demo was "phenomenal" but you couldn't really do anything, it just looked nice.

Kotaku said:
The team had accomplished a few cool things so far. They'd built a traversal system for Dodger and his partners, and at least graphically, their work was looking great. At E3 2016, Visceral showed off a short clip from Ragtag, part of a larger demo that the team had been developing. The demo looked phenomenal, sources said—Hennig had insisted on getting the best technology possible, and they were working both with Lucasfilm's ILM and Sony's studio in San Diego to create gorgeous lighting and effects. In the clip, we see the protagonist Dodger exit the cantina on Tatooine, brushing his arm against the door as he leaves.

You might not even have noticed the way Dodger touched that door, but for Visceral, that simple animation was months in the making. They spent hours and hours of development time just working on the way in which Dodger would touch the door. This was a frustrating experience for some members of the team, who felt like they didn't have enough core features in place to be spending so much time on a demo. That demo may have looked good, but people who worked on it said you couldn't play very much. "Dodger couldn't even shoot his gun and we're fine-tuning where his hand placement needed to be," said one Ragtag developer. "We don't have a single environment for Dodger to exist in... How do you build a system if you don't know what your average area is gonna be?"

Working with a big publisher often means embracing poor game development practices just to impress fans and executives, which is what Visceral had done, according to people who worked on that demo. "If you looked at it objectively, you'd be like, 'There's nothing here,'" said one. "Dodger can do like three things. But it was cut in a specific way that looked interesting, and visually it was really nice looking."
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Somehow Rag-Tag was even more of a mess with no gameplay loop to show off.
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Respawn has a lot of leverage due to the success of Apex Legends, and Visceral's title was in development hell.
 
Askherserenity

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What a dumb thread.

You don't know shit about this game and even less about the canceled game.

The game isn't even linear according to the Game Informer article.
 
Effect

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JahIthBer said:
Because this game was half finished before EA brought Respawn, they might as well let them finish it, however anyone buying this game with "maybe EA will make more SP games" in mind should think twice, because EA is pushing this game out because they have to, not really because they want to.
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For a while now I've wondered who was in the driver seat for this and I never thought it was really EA. Like said this game goes against what EA does and wants to do it. It doesn't go against what Disney and Lucasfilm likely want for Star Wars when it comes to game offerings. If EA 100% had their way I don't for a second think this game would exist today. I don't think we'd see a follow up or another like it if it's up to EA. If we do it's likely because Disney/Lucasfilm want it made.
 
Magic Mushroom

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Fallen Order is not that linear, according to Andrew Reiner, who played it. It's influenced by Metroid Prime and Dark Souls.

E3 demos never paint the entire picture.
 
JahIthBer

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Effect said:
For a while now I've wondered who was in the driver seat for this and I never thought it was really EA. Like said this game goes against what EA does and wants to do it. It doesn't go against what Disney and Lucasfilm likely want for Star Wars when it comes to game offerings. If EA 100% had their way I don't for a second think this game would exist today. I don't think we'd see a follow up or another like it if it's up to EA. If we do it's likely because Disney/Lucasfilm want it made.
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EA just gave them the license to make a SW game & EA would obviously publish it, free money for them, but EA's own internal studio's like Dice & Visceral (RIP) are more costly for them since they are footing the whole bill, so they want to focus on MP & MTX.
We could get more SP games if EA lend out the license, but EA seem to hold it close to their chest & Respawn only got it likely because they worked so closely with EA on Titanfall.
 
spam musubi

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The reports were that Amy Hennig didn't have the right kind of experience to manage a team like Visceral to make that kind of game, that they were too focused on making one off assets for cinematic setpieces instead of making the gameplay workand thus the game was in development hell and kept getting developers taken away to work on projects that had an actual chance of finishing.
 

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We have no idea how the game was shaping up to be. Maybe it was an unfun mess. Fallen Order may not look like the boldest game ever made but it looks polished and intriguing enough. I doubt EA cancelled the other project just 'cause, they lost a lot of money over it.
 
Com_Raven

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Visceral was an AAA studio in one of the msot (if not the) expensive cities in the world, and they never had a major financial hit for EA. Those are two facts that we can assess from the outside.

beyond that, there has been plenty of talk about slow and troubled development.
 
ArkhamFantasy

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Zampella appears to have negotiated quite a bit of creative freedom for Respawn. We also don't know what kind of state Visceral's game was in, it could have been in dev hell.

We heard scuttle butt about Respawn's star wars game progressing very well,. Respawn is a great developer.
 

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I assume finishing the game at the rates they'd need to pay a AAA development Studio in San Francisco wouldn't have given EA the return they planned.
 
Evolution of Metal

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JahIthBer said:
Because this game was half finished before EA brought Respawn, they might as well let them finish it, however anyone buying this game with "maybe EA will make more SP games" in mind should think twice, because EA is pushing this game out because they have to, not really because they want to.
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You are thinking about the wrong game. The remnants of Visceral project have not been absorbed by Respawn, it is in the hands of Motive/Vancouver.

edit: Stig and Respawn have announced the making of this SW game back in 2016, way before Visceral was shut down.
 
Siggy-P

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Lifejumper said:
Some games just don't demo well.

Remember Era shitting on the Spider-Man e3
demos?
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To be fair that Spiderman game is a case of feeling better to play than it is to watch a scripted boss fight with QTEs.

But still, I still feel like it would have been better to show all the cool exploring stuff off. We got what looks like 5 minutes of filler gameplay stretched out for 13 minutes. The fact that people even think it's linear is a problem.
 
JahIthBer

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Evolution of Metal said:
You are thinking about the wrong game. The remnants of Visceral project have not been absorbed by Respawn, it is in the hands of Motive/Vancouver.

edit: Stig and Respawn have announced the making of this SW game back in 2016, way before Visceral was shut down.
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I mean Respawn was working on this before EA purchased them, i think im correct there? maybe not.
 
Yautja_Warrior

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breakYODAy said:
What we saw from that gameplay demo was a linear style game. The type of game that is hard to monetize with microtransactions and will likely be played through in 15-20 hours, never to be revisited again. This game flies directly in the face of EA's recently stated development philosophy.
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That's not a bad thing though and fuck microtransactions and games that monetize, these companies get enough money from us.

More games that don't try to milk more money from people is a good thing.
 
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breakYODAy

breakYODAy

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Akita One said:
I know right? People claim they want more single player games, then try to trash it as soon as it doesn't immediately look like GOTY.
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To be clear, I didn't make this thread to trash Fallen Order. I'm actually looking forward to it, and pleased that I'll get to buy a single player Star Wars game with no microtansactions. I really just wanted to get people's thoughts on why EA would invest in a Star Wars project that looks like the type of game they say they don't want to make anymore.
 
NekoNeko

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dunno but Fallen Order looks pretty cheap, the other one might have been way more expensive.
maybe they went to respawn and asked them for the same thing but on a much much smaller budget.
 
Akita One

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breakYODAy said:
To be clear, I didn't make this thread to trash Fallen Order. I'm actually looking forward to it, and pleased that I'll get to buy a single player Star Wars game with no microtansactions. I really just wanted to get people's thoughts on why EA would invest in a Star Wars project that looks like the type of game they say they don't want to make anymore.
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But you keep saying "the type of game they don't want to make" with only negative assumptions about what this game is. We already know it's not linear.
 
Pillock

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I still don't think people would be happy with it regardless of who made it. Something would obviously not be exactly what people were expecting so it would be immediately shat on.
 
iksenpets

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Visceral and Respawn may have stumbled into making similar games, and Respawn's was just shaping up better. Or Visceral's may have been actively bad. But they were probably not both going to get released, at least not close to each other.
 

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breakYODAy said:
To be clear, I didn't make this thread to trash Fallen Order. I'm actually looking forward to it, and pleased that I'll get to buy a single player Star Wars game with no microtansactions. I really just wanted to get people's thoughts on why EA would invest in a Star Wars project that looks like the type of game they say they don't want to make anymore.
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Their comments on linear single player games not appealing to players as much as they used to was never a confirmation that they were completely against making solo experiences anymore.

As has already been said, Visceral had a string of failures to their record and their game likely cost a lot more and wasn't moving along smoothly. These factors are much more important to consider than a quote that often gets taken out of context.
 
ArkhamFantasy

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iksenpets said:
Visceral and Respawn may have stumbled into making similar games, and Respawn's was just shaping up better. Or Visceral's may have been actively bad. But they were probably not both going to get released, at least not close to each other.
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The big difference is that Respawn made the most influential games of the previous generation, they had an enormous amount of negotiating power, visceral had zero.
 
TheGummyBear

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nampad said:
I have no idea what you are talking about.
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It's an attempt at a prequel meme.

One referenced in the demo.

Y'know. That one.

giphy.gif
 
TheUnseenTheUnheard

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Don't question why we don't have another game. Just question why Disney gave Star Wars to EA this time around.
 
iksenpets

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ArkhamFantasy said:
The big difference is that Respawn made the most influential games of the previous generation, they had an enormous amount of negotiating power, visceral had zero.
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Respawn was still independent at the time this entered production though, right? Inertia should have been a pretty big advantage for Visceral. Choosing Respawn over them meant both contracting with and then buying an outside dev, and all the business costs of shuttering Visceral.

Also, I know pretty much none of the talent was still there, but Dead Space should've been worth some leverage, dammit. :(
 
GOOCHY

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LOL two straight project's of Amy's have ended badly. Maybe it's not the games?
 
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