If Sea of Thieves Succeeds?

[DonFerrari]

Veknoid_Outcast said:

ThisGuyFooks said:

How would you rate Rare's performance this gen?

According to Wikipedia, the studio currently has around 200 workers.

For the Xbox One they have released:

 

• Killer Instinct (0.11)
• Kinect Sports Rivals (0.62)
• Rare Replay (0.88)

In my opinion, considering the amount of workers they have, this has been a very underwhelming generation for them.

We have to wonder what will Microsoft do with them IF Sea of Thieves underperforms.

 

Right now, Rare is decent at best. Its last great game was 17 years ago. Rare Replay is one hell of a collection, but it's just that -- a collection.

Sea of Thieves is a "put up or shut up" moment for the company. Personally, as an XOne owner and a Rare fanatic growing up, I hope it turns out to be a great.

All that said, I do not think Rare ever made a mediocre game because some exec at Microsoft pushed the studio to do X when it wanted to do Y. I think Rare made some questionable design decisions on its own, and Microsoft was either unwilling or unable to steer them toward greatness. 

There's a line of thinking going around that pushes a lot of the blame on publishers, but I think that narrative will start changing. Studio leads are often responsible for screwing up their own products or introducing ugly business practices. I'm inclined to agree with Mat here: 

Some of the most aggressive mtx ideas I’ve ever heard have come from devs, while some of the most adamant pushback on mtx I’ve see has come from people at pubs. This idea of the big bad publisher and victim dev is, in my experience, a myth. https://t.co/5UZAESFVAr

— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) November 13, 2017

MTX???

But I agree that devs aren't victim as I also think workers usually aren't victims. They have internal policies to follow or can look to work at a place that have policies they want or they can open their own company.