How a small studio's chance at big time died at Microsoft's doorstep

[binary solo]

bananaking21 said:

binary solo said:

Sounds to me like Darkside didn't play it very smart. Though MS are the dicks in this situation.

As soon as MS said they needed to do a SP campaign Darkside should have played hardball and demanded a budgetary increase. If MS said no Darkside should have said "no extra budget no SP campaign, do you still want the project to move forward?" Project management is all about constantly reassessing whether the project can be successfully completed, as soon as the answer is no it can't then the project must either end or alterations muct be made to the project in order for the assessment to return to a yes situation.

It is definitely shit for MS to substantially increase the scope and not allocate additional funds for it.

Darkside were certainly lead by a good deal of emotion in their handling of the situation, they wanted to make a game of their own and were pushing along forward of doing so. we dont now all the details about what would have happened if they just said "no". would MS scrap phantum dust then and cancel on them? maybe, what would have happened to the studio then? would they have ended and were they forced to continue along because they had no other chance? or did they think its worth the risk? the thing is, i would have probably done the same thing, as without ambition the studio would have never made their own game. 

The way the article reads Darkside went all in and refused other work some time after the major scope creep happened. If they'd put the acid on MS from the start to up the budget then they would probably still be in business as an outsourcing studio. It's grunt work but it pays the bills. What studios like this need to do is get some indie projects going on the side do your own brand new IP, maybe even do a kickstarter campaign. The problem with trying to create all of someone else's vision is that they are in control not you, and it's too easy for things to go bad.

One of the best things about getting a good rep as an outsourcing unit is that you work with a bunch of different studios at almost no risk. You get paid regardless of whether the game flops or succeeds and headline studios might come and go, but an outsourcing unit with a good rep will just keep on going. The other thing about outsourcing projects, unlike this Phanton Dust abortion, is the scope of the projects is always very well defined and tightly controlled, because its just one cog in a much bigger machine. So it's easier to know exactly what is required and easier to deliver.

It's a shame that the ambition to break into AAA ruined a good thing.