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R.I.P Visceral Games

FreedomEclipse

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Sadly, Its happened. Special thanks to your friendly neighbourhood home wrecker.. Electronic Arts



to quote a comment to summarize all of this...


"They were forced to not work on things they are good at and to do an insanely focus tested market driven thing because their employers told them to do so. It's like I hired a carpenter to do my plumbing... at gunpoint. I'm the fucking idiot if I then complain that my pipes are badly done, and a complete fucking asshole if I then tell him he's bad at his job and fire him (or the gun)."
 
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It was dead informally from the moment someone at EA said that Dead Space 3 didn't reach it's sales goal. This is sort of old news.
 
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That sucks.......another nail in the "why I don't like EA" coffin.
 
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EA and Atari can suck my salty balls.
 
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Indeed. Dead Space 1&2 were good where 3 sucked
 
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I actually hoped they'd focus on them now that Bioware is crap. But it seems EA just can't help themselves.

I don't care about Dead Space. I care about the Amy Hennig written Star Wars game. She intended it to be single player and story focused. Apparently they're shifting it to some other EA studio and "expanding" it's target market. More than likely a multiplayer market with MT. As if Battlefront wasn't enough... and a stupid MMO.

I won't buy whatever they do, just out of principle. You don't hire someone like her and just do this.
 

FreedomEclipse

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I actually hoped they'd focus on them now that Bioware is crap. But it seems EA just can't help themselves.

I don't care about Dead Space. I care about the Amy Hennig written Star Wars game. She intended it to be single player and story focused. Apparently they're shifting it to some other EA studio and "expanding" it's target market. More than likely a multiplayer market with MT. As if Battlefront wasn't enough... and a stupid MMO.

I won't buy whatever they do, just out of principle. You don't hire someone like her and just do this.

Bioware is the next on the chopping block i hear.
 
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Bioware is the next on the chopping block i hear.

I hope so. I'd rather see them die quickly than die a slow death and barely resemble what made them great. I already hate that I invested in DA and ME's worlds... they're already getting stupid as it is, but it'll only get worse.
 
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Visceral made one good game (Dead Space) and then a bunch of creative joined Sledgehammer Games and it was all downhill after that.
 
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Visceral made one good game (Dead Space) and then half the creative team joined Sledgehammer Games and it was all downhill after that.

This was mostly Visceral in name. There was already a restructure, with Amy Hennig on their new flagship game and Jade Raymond (producer they got from Ubi) who had set out a roadmap for more of these type of action/adventure titles. It was supposed to be somewhere inbetween the MP/Battlefield and RPG centric Bioware.
 
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Too bad about the game. Seems like they were making a fun and focused game. But EA decided to open the world up, add dozens of side activities all to get more hours into the game. And the worst part? Internal testers thought it would be better. I've said it many times before, gamers are their own worst enemy. Too many games are falling victim to this. I hope the next Metro isn't the next on the chopping block.

s for Visceral, were they not within the Redwood City campus? If so it is more or less a restructuring and shuffling of people around. I suppose some people at Visceral were unhappy with the direction EA (and the majority of idiot customers) wanted the game to go. So EA renamed the building and shuffled the project around.
 
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This absurd obsession with open worlds is killing the games. Not everything needs to be an open world. It may work in The Elder Scrolls running around forests and in GTA doing chases, but not everything needs to be open world. Where are thematic race circuits in racing games? Beautifully crafted semi open world levels like in Deus Ex or Dead Space? What was wrong with those? I prefer smaller but super detailed and interactive worlds over massive worlds that are massive just for the sake of being massive, but when you look at them with a critical eye, you see they are big with very little actual content.
 
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yeah Bethesda and Rockstar also take a ton of time to fill those worlds with things to make them worth while. Open world for openworld's sake is pointless. It's just more walking/driving without anything to do.

I thinks its time for another pendulum swing back to well designed levels. The problem came in with games like Halo where it seemed like every room was the same copy paste crap. Still you forgave it because the gameplay was fun. Then all of the sudden open world took over to fix the copy paste only to leave purpose and content on the cutting room floor when they didn't have time/budget to finish it out.
 
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This absurd obsession with open worlds is killing the games. Not everything needs to be an open world. It may work in The Elder Scrolls running around forests and in GTA doing chases, but not everything needs to be open world. Where are thematic race circuits in racing games? Beautifully crafted semi open world levels like in Deus Ex or Dead Space? What was wrong with those? I prefer smaller but super detailed and interactive worlds over massive worlds that are massive just for the sake of being massive, but when you look at them with a critical eye, you see they are big with very little actual content.


Warframe.

Released as a building block level design, randomized over any mission. Recent release is Plains of Eidolon. Release is an "open plain" where the goal is faffing about, fishing, mining, murdering at random, and exploring. The worst trends in video games are those which take hold because a publisher is chasing money rather than designing a good game.

It's depressing to see Dead Space die, more depressing to see Visceral gone, but a confirmation that EA is the reverse Atari. Instead of being a hollow skin which others wear EA murders and skins good developers. This is why my Origin ban is still in place. Crysis 2 was my last foray into that nightmare, and GoG is where I choose to spend my money today.
 

FreedomEclipse

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Warframe.

Released as a building block level design, randomized over any mission. Recent release is Plains of Eidolon. Release is an "open plain" where the goal is faffing about, fishing, mining, murdering at random, and exploring. The worst trends in video games are those which take hold because a publisher is chasing money rather than designing a good game.

It's depressing to see Dead Space die, more depressing to see Visceral gone, but a confirmation that EA is the reverse Atari. Instead of being a hollow skin which others wear EA murders and skins good developers. This is why my Origin ban is still in place. Crysis 2 was my last foray into that nightmare, and GoG is where I choose to spend my money today.


Activision is the same. Remember Raven Software?
 
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I only buy Need for Speed since there's really no other good arcade-ish racing game. And here and there a Battlefield game. Haven't really bought anything else from them in quite a while. Since they haven't really released anything else worthy in a while. It's really a shame Dead Space and its devs are gone now. After System Shock 2, Dead Space was really one of very rare few games that captured that believable world with monsters, upgrading, fiddling with weapons, exploring and killing monsters. It was exciting game that will always remain in my memory next to legends like System Shock and Deus Ex. But they just always have to fuck up everything good.
 
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The cancellation or maybe "restructuring" of this Star Wars game is another one that's been pulled from my radar due to crappy management from parent companies.

I was really looking forward to Star Wars 1313. Stupid Disney.....
Here's another interesting Star Wars game that may never see the light of day or get changed so much it becomes a POS. Stupid EA....
 
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This absurd obsession with open worlds is killing the games. Not everything needs to be an open world. It may work in The Elder Scrolls running around forests and in GTA doing chases, but not everything needs to be open world. Where are thematic race circuits in racing games? Beautifully crafted semi open world levels like in Deus Ex or Dead Space? What was wrong with those? I prefer smaller but super detailed and interactive worlds over massive worlds that are massive just for the sake of being massive, but when you look at them with a critical eye, you see they are big with very little actual content.

The reason why Bethesda does it so well is because it's not just an open world.. it's also partly sandbox. They have so many random elements it creates emergent gameplay. Even moreso with mods.

GTA to an extent too. It's not quite as random, but sometimes I get these absurd experiences that could never be predicted and create a situation that has me laughing my ass off. As you said, maybe the chase experiences.. or maybe doing some driveby and suddenly Willie Nelson is playing on the radio.
 
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This absurd obsession with open worlds is killing the games. Not everything needs to be an open world. It may work in The Elder Scrolls running around forests and in GTA doing chases, but not everything needs to be open world. Where are thematic race circuits in racing games? Beautifully crafted semi open world levels like in Deus Ex or Dead Space? What was wrong with those? I prefer smaller but super detailed and interactive worlds over massive worlds that are massive just for the sake of being massive, but when you look at them with a critical eye, you see they are big with very little actual content.

You hit the nail on the head, but I few like me and you are a minority. Deus Ex HR/MD hit the perfect balance between being open ended but not absurdly huge. There were some things to find, different ways to accomplish something, and different tactics to use. But all the areas had a purpose and all the side missions were unique enough in goals, content, voice acting and the like to not feel the same. Even in MD with the hub area being bigger there were smaller hidden mini quests to stumble upon, but they were each different enough to be worth seeing.
 
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Nothing beats the feeling when you play the game for the 3rd time and you manage to find never seen before vents, hidden switches, doors etc. It's so cool. Where in Skyrim for example, there are just visible different paths and just tiny few such hidden gems.
 
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Nothing beats the feeling when you play the game for the 3rd time and you manage to find never seen before vents, hidden switches, doors etc. It's so cool. Where in Skyrim for example, there are just visible different paths and just tiny few such hidden gems.

The dungeons in TES were never much of a highlight. In Skyrim actually, it's probably a step up as they were handcrafted (before it was generated). The real meat of TES is the environment itself.. and NPC behavior at times. There's more going on there than anything indoors.

Most open worlds can't even mange that. The layouts are often theme parky and wildlife/patrols are predictable, like MMOs.
 

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It's what EA is actually good at sadly.
 
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