I mean an acquisition. How would an acquisition be a benefict?
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The Initiative is partnering up with Crystal Dynamics for the development of Perfect Dark
- Thread starter gabegabe
- Start date
I mean an acquisition. How would an acquisition be a benefict?
Oh right, I forgot that they are forbidden from expanding their team. Or not targeting AAA standard if the workload is too big.
So is Crystal Dynamics signing for an exclusive game published by Xbox Game Studios, being the main developer of the game and The Initiative are just for support? Because if not, your simile doesn't work.
Kojima (same as Insomniac with Spidey PS4) were first-party indie studios for one title. They got help from WWS, as all WWS games get. Same as Fable with Lionhead, same as Forza Horizon and Playground Games until like 2018.
This is the opposite, this is a (somewhat) big first party studio getting help from a big third party studio. It's just unseen, that's the news.
Honestly, I don't see that much concern in the thread, most people are like "wtf this is random", and almost all of the concern is more of potential development issues there might be, not because "omg MS is doing things!!!", which is how the original message I responded to was pivoted as.
Since when KojiPro became Sony's first party?
I know that people believe that Kojima now way in hell Kojima's games can skip Playstation but that's absurd.
Did you consider Playground Games first-party?
Because they released 3 Forza Horizon games without being owned by MS.
Doesn't makes them less first party, even if 3 of their 5 games were as an indie dev, like Kojima Productions with their one game deal with Sony.
Don't worry, when the rumored Xbox Kojima games comes out, that will also be first party, and I'm sure many teams from Xbox Game Studios will help them, just like in Death Stranding.
I'm being disingenuous and obtuse for just saying I think mostly the reason was to drum hype? If I'm wrong, I'm okay with it, it's just an opinion.
And no I have not read this article from earlier but if you want to link it or where it was mentioned, I'll check it out.
Kojima was never a 1st party studio for Sony. In any capacity. He collaborated just like you see here.
Playground talked about the difference between working on those titles as 3rd party and after they were bought out by Microsoft. I consider Playground 1st party because that's exactly what they are.
So is there concern or not? We are already over 15 pages BTW and over what?
MS buys studio - oh no they will force them to work on X
MS allows studio to do their own thing - why don't they force them to work on X
MS makes a deal with third party - they have so many studios, why would they partner with anybody else, their studios can't work
MS internal studio partners with third party - why their internal studio is doing nothing, why not coalition, development hell
Concerns concerns.
Until they were bought I did not consider them first party.
This should be extremely easy to understand. Both Kojima and Playground before MS acquired them where third party studios developing first party titles. Since they were not owned by their respective publishers, they were not first party studios.
Seems like you created quite a narrative there, given how 3 of those points are nowhere to be seen in this thread, and the fourth one, what little there is, doesn't name MS anywhere.
Yet you're encouraged to believe this same thread with Naughty Dog and EA Motive (for example, take another 200+ third party studio that you want) would only reach 3 pages of "oh this is super fine, Sony is the best :)", which is just absurd.
This thread reached 15 pages because it's a really weird and unusual collaboration between two big studios. This doesn't happen normally. It's not hard to understand.
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True, they must be around 100, which is big IMO
Not enormous, 300+ employees enormous like other devs, that's fair.
You've had a developer in the previous page making it clear that these kinds of partnerships are not unusual. But you seem to know better for some reason.
Funnily enough, both Naughty Dog and Motive do plenty of outsourcing, even on a larger scale to what we're discussing here. The only difference in this case is that they're announcing the partnership, which is something many MS studios do (happened recently with Halo: Infinite and with Splash Damage's collaborations with The Initiative).
They're about 70. Nowhere near enormous.
Naughty Dog - 500+ employees. Founded 1984
The Initiative - Founded in 2018. 70 employees.
Let's not compare these two.
You have a developer on the previous page that tells you that having an outside studio help at the start of development is not unusual, not that this collaboration is. Very different things.
This was the question they answered:
Which I never said it was, it's perfectly normal, all AAA studios do it.
They don't usually get super big third party studios to work with them, which is the news, like I said.
The comparison is between a first party Sony studio vs a first party MS studio, which is where the persecutory delusion comes from. You can change Naughty Dog with Sony Bend or Polyphony Digital, which are way smaller, if you like. That was not the point.
This whole conversation comes from the idea that this is only news because MS is doing it, and because outrage is at large in Era when they do anything. And that's absurd. This is being talked about because it's unusual, not because one or the other is doing it.
I fail to see how this is different from any other examples of outsourcing in the industry. How is this unique when third party studios work on first party games all the time?
Again, how is this unusual?
The unusual thing it that CD is owned by Square Enix, not to use outsourcing or partnership between internal studios and third parties.
And even if internal studios can do contractual work, I don't think we ever saw something similar anounced publicly like this.
But yes it doesn't say anything about the final product, so it's nothing more than baseless speculation than people can do here.
How is this different from other MS first party collaborations with studios owned by Sega or with others such as Splash Damage? I fail to see the difference.
I feel so sorry for the initiative. They 100% thought they had some great news in:
"hey we are not only outsourcing stuff to less known studios as every single other AAA developer in the industry is doing, we are getting highly regarded crystal dynamics on board!"
I can only imagine the dropped jaws when they saw the actual reception the internet came up with
"hey we are not only outsourcing stuff to less known studios as every single other AAA developer in the industry is doing, we are getting highly regarded crystal dynamics on board!"
I can only imagine the dropped jaws when they saw the actual reception the internet came up with
It's interesting because well it's a Square Enix owned studio and their leading Tomb Raider and Avengers studio so are they not doing much more with Avengers, are they not on Tomb Raider anymore or it's way off and Square Enix is just taking the money before going into full production on one of their own titles or is there a longer term acquisition on the cards.
Well, it's a new imagination of Perfect Dark , we already know that as the team said so. We also know already that it shares some core principles of the series though, the trailer showed all that (gadgets, general theme, spy first-person, Joanna, Datadyne etc.). It's a balance act, but it's definitely more than "just in name".
Gaming communities are a bubble, 99.99% of the people buying the game will not care/know who made this game.
The game will be good, I don't think there's much question in that, it's just being talked about because a studio that sells 7+ copies in all they touch don't get contracted for outsourcing work ever.
The only unusual thing is that they announced it, other than that, I don't see any need to be concerned right now.
I have seen someone ask why The Initiative would need help.
I have seen people propose that the game might have been in some development hell.
I have seen someone state that Microsoft having bought a good amount of studios, then partnering with a third party studio to get things done is not a good look.
I have seen people ask why not get some of their studios to partner on this. One that has been mentioned severally is Arkane.
I have seen someone concerned that Crystal Dynamics will take time before they are in position to make another multiplatform game, otherwise read as a game on PlayStation.
There has been concern that Crystal Dynamics is joining mid development, and not at the outset.
IIRC, there has been someone who has asked why The Initiative does not just grow themselves.
I could go on. This is not a model that is different to how Forza Horizon has been a collaboration between Turn 10 and Playground.
It is not different to Mistwalker working with Artoon on Blue Dragon and Feelplus on Lost Odyssey, no different to how 343i partnered with Creative Assembly on Halo Wars 2, or The Coalition with Splash Damage on Gears Tactics. World's Edge is essentially a partnership between World's Edge and Relic.
The only thing that shocks people is that Microsoft has come to an agreement with Square Enix to work on this title.
Heck, I am even reading people trying to justify Kojima and Guerrilla working together as being different when it is all outsourced work. Movements by Microsoft seem to attract some weird reasoning that is rarely evident elsewhere.
Good to know that they sold over 7 million copies of their Avengers game.
lol come on. Until we see footage of what the game looks like this is an enormous jump to a conclusion.
So funny when you're out of arguments and grasp into whatever you can.
Hasn't the majority of your "arguments" been debunked while you still try to be contrarian for the sake of it? Not sure you can tell others that they're "grasping."
Splash Damage worked on multiplayer parts of various games, it's more like IP licensing.
Here it would be like Hangar 13 and Gearbox, or Respawn and Ubisoft, working together on a game from scratch.
All I see is you moving goalposts and making completely inaccurate or downright embarrassingly wrong statements, from the Initiative being an "enormous studios" to Kojima being a first party one.
Not really.
My argument still stands: this is news not because of the outsourcing, but because who is doing it, a really big third party, million seller studio, like Crystal Dynamics.
Not because it's an MS studio and Era is "concerned" because of console wars. Which is the argument of the very first post I responded to.
It's funny, because all I see is the search for an invisible thread of a site-wide persecution against MS. Which doesn't exist.
That's a little more embarrassing IMO
you shouldn't feel sorry for TI or CD? This is great news and they have no reason to feel bad..instead they're probably reading the comments from concern trolls and laughing hard.
I super don't understand the negativity here. There is a clear historical connection between folks at the two studios. Also, since when is Crystal Dynamics a bad studio? They have released some fantastic stuff in the past, and I feel like the business model is what caused Avengers to be what it is rather than bad game dev. People should calm down, as I read this as good news that the game is getting a lot of attention.
Splash Damage did a lot more than that. They were the main developers on Gears: Tactics. Also, Age of Empires IV is a collaboration between Relic (owned by Sega) and World's Edge.
The whole IP licensing bit is quite baffling to be honest. Gears is a Microsoft IP. They're not licensing it to anybody, merely paying a studio for development work.
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It's Xbox that's why. If it was Sony or Nintendo it would be genius
What a ridiculous fucking strawman. You're making this more about console wars then the supposed people you're quoting. Where is all this energy of yours against the plethora of posters saying things like "yikes," "uh...," "I'm worried,' "this doesn't look good/bode well," etc.?
How do we have a thread where people point out this is a common practice, where actual developers are confused as to why this is a negative thing and saying it's normal, where everyone is pointing out that the relationship between CD and The Initiative is really close due to Gallagher and co, get to almost 16 pages in 12~ hours?
You´re completely right.
But I was not talking about why companies were/are trusting this or others projects, I was talking as a consumer.
Reading it again I was giving my own perspective without seeing others, to me Rise of Tomb Raider is a mediocre game at best.
So yeah for those that enjoyed Rise there is a reason to trust in this duo to develop PD.
For me ? Definetely not.
... or you can just look at the post above you.
Regarding the second paragraph, I really can't write it in more ways, say with me:
This is news not because of the outsourcing, but because who is doing it, a really big third party, million seller studio, like Crystal Dynamics.
In no single point I said this was bad. I think it's a good thing for the game, I like Crystal Dynamics. My first post in this thread says so, and my only opinion about it is "this is quite a weird thing".
Just a much quicker way of staffing up, that's all.
CD are extremely talented, technically. So absorb them into 1st party and away they go.
I really enjoyed the Tomb Raider reboot. Gallagher having his new team and old team at his disposal is so much more beneficial than him watching over a bunch of smaller support studios. I really can't imagine this being bad for the game in any way. And I am sure Square Enix really enjoys the check. They seem to make deals all the time.
I don't see why people are claiming this isn't an unusual partnership… it clearly is. I for one am interested to see how this works out. We may see more of this kind of thing in the future (small 1st party team incubates/prototypes a game and then gets a 3rd party AAA studio with a proven track record to develop it). This might actually be progressive move for the industry if it keeps top level devs in jobs and spreads the load a bit.