You've written a whole lot of unnecessary stuff here I don't think you actually read my post all that carefully. I won't comment on Scalebound because you were spectacularly off the mark to begin with.
To start: Phantom Dust. You're a big fan, that's great. So am I.
To any reasonable Phantom Dust fan, this
should be promising and exciting.
Not cause for
relief that a game that looked promising and faithful to the original but looked rough while still in development was cancelled, thereby limiting exposure to said game, and thus worsening chances for future instalments. That just does not make sense to me.
Jason Schreier's article on the cancellation of Phantom Dust speaks volumes on Microsoft's terrible behaviour towards Darkside. From announcing the game without informing them to straight up changing the scope of the game mid development, knowing full well a studio that size isn't going to stand up to a platform holder who's paying to keep their lights on and towards a project they, I'm sure, must have seen as a long term commitment considering they had job postings up as recent as a month before they shuttered - no doubt due to the game being cancelled deep in development.
I'll choose my words carefully because I don't want to get banned, but your posts read as disingenuous and it speaks to my earlier point - which you completely misunderstood, and in your response proved correct.
Games get cancelled because of finances, nothing more, nothing less. Microsoft, the business, has no opinion on games.
My issue is with fans that will make excuses for a company or defend them out of misplaced loyalty, which is exactly what I see when I see a supposed Phantom Dust super fan express relief and denigrate developers when their game is cancelled.
These fans are not the reasons games are cancelled, but they provide a cover screen, however little it may be at times, to giant corporations like Microsoft, who can, will do and frequently do bully developers into doing what they want, which is what Microsoft did. Again and again.
Darkside were forced to make adjustments in developing Phantom Dust that they couldn't put together. They crumbled under the pressure and shuttered.
Lionhead were
forced to make Fable Legends even though they had no desire to make it. They crumbled under the pressure and shuttered.
Scalebound wasn't ready to be shown, and they Microsoft trotted it out again and again until shit went sides and Scalebound was cancelled.
These are just recent examples. There are more.
Microsoft has changed a lot since the Xbox One launch fiasco, but it took time, and it will take more time because more changes need to be made, and I don't think fans like you are helping by excusing past mistakes.
If Microsoft didn't think they were mistakes, they wouldn't be changing their ways.
Now I've said my piece, I'm done. I have no desire to carry on with this disagreement or further risk derailing this thread.
