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Why does the industry keep fucking Amy Hennig over?
- Thread starter NTGYK
- Start date
Hyperbole much? In a long career she had one seemingly acrimonious split with a developer and, from her own mouth, has had multiple games canned, massive success and praise and she's just received a lifetime achievement award! I think most game creators would love to be 'fucked over' like that!
Working with licensed IP is hard. The difficulty increases triple when it's Disney. You can get the rug pulled even if you're hitting milestones, or outdoing milestones.
I mean for fuck's sake, the devs for Disney Infinity got shut down even after they successfully launched the highest selling toys to life game, solely because Disney's shareholders complained there wasn't enough projected YoY growth and just suddenly shut everyone down one day.
I mean for fuck's sake, the devs for Disney Infinity got shut down even after they successfully launched the highest selling toys to life game, solely because Disney's shareholders complained there wasn't enough projected YoY growth and just suddenly shut everyone down one day.
This is laughable. Its clearly just an EA thing. She picked the wrong studio. Jade raymond left EA and now has a prominent role at google with stadia. I dont think you even know what sexism is if you think this is an example of it
I seem to have skimmed over what you originally responded, and are absolutely correct that Sony are not the only ones making single player games with good business, and I should have mentioned that they can (and for Sony often are) be profitable. However, they don't always necessarily have to be and the margins are much better for Sony because of it. Keeping in mind, that just being "profitable" isn't enough for a $50-150 million title over the course of easily 5 year investment, the returns have to be a lot, lot better when you take into the risk that comes from game development (and the fact that you have to pay for the inevitable cancelled projects in the bigger picture) and expectations to beat simply investing the money into some funds. As you mentioned, other studios like Ubisoft are indeed making well off it single player games (however they get massive gains from the added micro-transactions to make it a competitive busines model) or Bethesda's main RPG projects (which most likely are able to attract an audience with lower marketing costs due to their IPs and strong branding). But also my original point stands that single player only projects aren't necessarily the easiest sell for a publisher for the reasons mentioned earlier.
Uncharted 4 was apparently a mess and you could blame EA for chasing GAAS as the reason why her project was canned but Respawn's game wasn't.
We can't jump to the conclusion of sexism because she was given these big roles in the first place and if people thought her last 2 major projects were going to be a success she would have been there until the end.
We can't jump to the conclusion of sexism because she was given these big roles in the first place and if people thought her last 2 major projects were going to be a success she would have been there until the end.
While I wouldnt dismiss the sexism being a factor, it does happen to a lot of creators with a proven track record.
Yep. Really bizarre thread. Projects are cancelled. It is is what it is.
Also, I don't know if this auteur style analysis is very relevant to gaming. Modern games are garguatan projects.
At least she kept working.
This is absolutely nothing compared to what happened with Yu Suzuki.
This is absolutely nothing compared to what happened with Yu Suzuki.
Thread title should read "Why do big triple-A studios shutter seemingly solid creative teams in the middle of development." By the way things seem to have gone, she's had a bad run of luck recently. It's not always a conspiracy against one person, especially when her last couple projects were with different companies.
When you think about it there are probably thousands of nameless, faceless devs, artists, etc crunching away like crazy, getting underpaid, not managing to unionise, etc. But no it's Any Hennig getting fucked over and not only that, according to some it's because she's a woman.
The thread was fishing for this response, I guess, but it's incredibly misguided and shows zero critical thought.
I'm sure there are tons of factors, but if that deep dive into why her star wars game (and the whole studio) failed is to be believed, she's definitely partially at fault there.
A lot of posts here seem to be suggesting that she is without fault and these problems are something happening TO her, with nothing on her. Even if we didn't have employees suggesting she was part of the problem, that's an incredibly unrealistic view to take of any person, especially one put in charge of high profile projects that failed.
I'm not trying to suggest that she is solely at fault, but I'm certain she's not blameless either.
A lot of posts here seem to be suggesting that she is without fault and these problems are something happening TO her, with nothing on her. Even if we didn't have employees suggesting she was part of the problem, that's an incredibly unrealistic view to take of any person, especially one put in charge of high profile projects that failed.
I'm not trying to suggest that she is solely at fault, but I'm certain she's not blameless either.
Because she is a writer, and her projects haven't worked out. Uncharted 4 had troubled development before Druckman n Straley came in.
The EA game was clearly not well managed. Maybe she has had some bad luck, but part of the issue could be on her.
Her being just a writer could play a role here, how many writing types are actual game directors n leads? Even Druckman was Uncharted 2 game design lead under Straley.
Most of Amy's background is writing, in that one article there was a comment on how little she trusted her new team.
Beyond that, maybe she simply isn't good enough to run a triple A project.
The EA game was clearly not well managed. Maybe she has had some bad luck, but part of the issue could be on her.
Her being just a writer could play a role here, how many writing types are actual game directors n leads? Even Druckman was Uncharted 2 game design lead under Straley.
Most of Amy's background is writing, in that one article there was a comment on how little she trusted her new team.
Beyond that, maybe she simply isn't good enough to run a triple A project.
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People won't admit, but there is some hard truth in this post.
A whole bunch? Most famous game directors are also writers, actually. Countless if you include indies.
Amy Hennig isn't just a writer, she's been directing video games since 1996.
Ubisoft, Bethesda, Square Enix, Capcom, CDPR and 2K/Rockstar all still operate and do well in single player AAA games too. And Microsoft will probably be doing so again also given their recent acquisitions. More are also doing single player AA again now too (Sega, THQ Nordic, Bandai Namco, Marvelous, etc).
I feel like that is true for a lot of the old major heads. Levine stated it was too hard to manage large teams after Infinite, Kojima between MGS IV and V, the only new thing his studio pushed was Peacewalker. Rest were ports, demos, being the producer, etc. Carmack moved on after RAGE. They all changed for different reasons, but early 10's had a lot of the old guard attempting to work like how they did 10 years prior and it just doesn't cut it anymore.
Eh, the EA thing seemed more like her taking on a role she wasn't fit for as/or lacking a strong partner. Amy has a art and lit background. She shouldn't be a game director and a creative director. She doesn't have the design experience to lead from the game director aspect. So she needs a strong game director to work with her. Her best game had her working with a partner. Bruce Straley with UC2, and the lesser UC3 still had Justin Richmond. UC4 and Rag Tag don't seem like they have that, and the best leader has 2 Heads. She needs to go somewhere where she can either be just a creative director or just a writer. I think the pressure of responsibility got to her.
I think is bad luck
Her ideias for uncharted 4 were...average at best, and from all the insiders, she's actually the cause for that star wars game to fail (bad management, she wanted to oversee every little detail and that caused a delay in the project, among other things)
I think she will do better in the next project
Her ideias for uncharted 4 were...average at best, and from all the insiders, she's actually the cause for that star wars game to fail (bad management, she wanted to oversee every little detail and that caused a delay in the project, among other things)
I think she will do better in the next project
I thought she had another game director for the EA Starwars game?
As another poster said rumor was she didn't trust her new team, so likely she wasn't leading by delegating work to the game director/working with them to see what could and couldn't be done and is instead attempting all the oversight on her own. Mind you that's fine but when you don't have that design experience and you couple that with leaving Sony's system you've been in for a decade and you're bound to fail. Uncharted 4 seems to have had the same issues with leadership.
So whatever happened to -insert any other famous game dev which is not exactly at its prime today- .
Chill out, she's had bad luck/made bad decisions. That doesn't mean she can't ship a game anymore.
Chill out, she's had bad luck/made bad decisions. That doesn't mean she can't ship a game anymore.
disney is breathing down ea's neck (even more so after the battlefront 2 launch). i think that has something to do with a sp-only star-wars game. ea must have lost millions on battlefront 2 and all the scrapped microtransactions/dlc stuff, because disney stepped in,
because the games industry treats all of its workers as disposable meat for the grinder
she's not the only one
she's not the only one
Some of these cats are used to handling smaller teams, smaller budgets, smaller dev cycles.
Some of these cats also worked with other absurdly talented people. Gotta look at it like that. She didn't exactly leave bums, she left Naughty Dog.
Not saying it's all her, but people acting like she is some legend either is odd to me. Because people with better resumes have had cancelled projects.
The role is incredibly competitive. Only so many large games are made per year, and only one person can be the director of each those games. It also really burns people out. I've not had the same director from one game to the next. She has talent and connections, I'm sure this is not the last we'll hear from her.
Maybe attaching herself to overly ambitious projects with faulty foundations? Look at a writer like Chris Avellone. Since he left Obsidian he has been attached to so many games I can barely keep track of them, but he works in a pretty niche, yet thriving genre, the humble PC RPG, with sidesteps into bigger projects like Prey and Respawns Jedi game. Amy works pretty firmly in the AAA space, and as people ITT have mentioned, EA is kind of a meat grinder as far as projects and developers go
She had a better offer from EA and took a chance? I don't know.
1. Sexism
2. Bad luck
3. A Triple A game industry that doesn't want the type of games she specialises and sees them as unprofitable
4. People ignoring or deliberately misinterpreting what she says, even ResetEra is massive guilty of this. Re-reading the old "Single-player games like Uncharted: Drake's Fortune wouldn't get approved by publishers today." and it's embarrassing seeing so many people not reading what she actually said or straight up mocking or ignoring her, acting like they knew better then her. Even regulars and verified users like GameXplain (seriously why) were doing it. It's so crigney
2. Bad luck
3. A Triple A game industry that doesn't want the type of games she specialises and sees them as unprofitable
4. People ignoring or deliberately misinterpreting what she says, even ResetEra is massive guilty of this. Re-reading the old "Single-player games like Uncharted: Drake's Fortune wouldn't get approved by publishers today." and it's embarrassing seeing so many people not reading what she actually said or straight up mocking or ignoring her, acting like they knew better then her. Even regulars and verified users like GameXplain (seriously why) were doing it. It's so crigney
I don't know if I buy this... Game directors are usually born from specializing in other areas of design... It's not always gameplay. Take Cory Barlog, for instance, who was an animator on the original God of War. And he went on to direct one of the best games of this generation. There was no "co director" at his side. Amy's teams at Naughty Dog and Visceral were obviously both extremely talented, as is she. Making games is hard, and I'm sure they were shooting for the stars with the original Uncharted 4 and Star Wars, and it just didn't pan out. My guess it was a combination of a lot of different factors, but we'll never know all the specifics. I don't this it has much to do with her lacking vision, experience, or ability though.
Edit: There were reports of her mismanaging? I wasn't aware of those. I'd like to read what was said. But even so, whenever there is a game cancelation, I'm not surprised to see finger pointing. Everyone has their own side of the story.
Except she famously said there was no problem with sexism in the industry (she's wrong) but she'd be the first to disagree there.
It's probably a combination of attitude and not being a budget minded producer. Another Kojima.
I don't think she had anything to do with Jak and Daxter's creation, so we don't need people adding more to her great resume.
This is what drives me crazy though. Think about all the Kojima rants on YouTube, the day to day coverage, the #FuckKonami hashtag all over twitter and the countless reddit posts.
Now I'm not here to claim that Uncharted is anywhere near the level of cultural importance as Metal Gear Solid. But Hennig's games sold over 15 million copies as a PlayStation 3 exclusive. Even Phantom Pain, with all it's coverage and five separate platforms hasn't even sold half of that.
Oh sure it's easy to blame EA. When this Star Wars game was canceled, there was a huge outcry...But not for Hennig. In fact, never for Hennig. Not even as she was pushed out Sony's door, away from the franchise she created.
And that's what I mean by sexism. It's not always "rawr! women suck! rawr!" It is the accepted lesser value of their work and contributions. If the conclusions from outside the industry regarding her regular dismissals, despite a significant proven track record, are simply "ah bad luck" Then how do you suppose she's viewed from inside the industry?
It has and will always remain bonkers to me that her achievements receive the equivalent of a polite nod while her work is continuously celebrated and imitated.
After Jedi Fallen Order being announced, I'm thinking the Visceral game just had very rough development and EA decide to can it. That's not exactly being fucked over, especially is Hennig couldnt keep development smooth. Not everything is always the fault of the publishers.
Kinda wanna say the Jak and Daxter line is misleading. She was the director of Jak 3 and that's it.
Or just, you know, Soul Reaver 1: The actual finished game.
