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Forums - Sony - Ex-Zipper Employee Sends Anonymous Letter

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Jay520 on 28 June 2012
Dgc1808 said:
Jay520 said:
Chark said:
Jay520 said:
M.U.G.E.N said:
ugh I call BS. Sony are known for giving more freedom to their devs with the games they make

and can someone who played the game tell me what parts they had that were taken from infamous/uc etc?


Cover system, regenerating health, camera angle, etc etc.

I think your confusing that with EVERY GAME THIS GENERATION.

Honestly those mechanics are not new or exclusive to any of those titles. If this is true then they were trying to push forward generic successful game mechanics that are "oh so popular" among current gamers and mainstream 3rd person shooter titles. Nothing wrong with tested and true mechanics if you're trying to make money and appeal to an audience already receptive to it, just a lack of creativity and originallity can easily be sacrificied placing those mechanics above all else.

.

 


I doubt the author meant Socom copied exclusively from those games. He likely meant that Socom copied from the industry in general. He just mentioned the aforementioned games to give examples.


In any case, one thing's for sure. Those features were extremely foreign to SOCOM. Even Confrontation stayed away from most of that which while slammed by reviews at launch, was a very active game that the fans still embraced and kept alive.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/07/29/socom-confrontation-bigger-than-killzone-2-resistance-2-says-so/

The SOCOM community was enraged when we first got a sight of what SOCOM 4 was turning out to be. No one was excited for it.



I remember that article. Even with its significantly lower reviews and its broken launch, it was still more active than Killzone 2 which sold considerably more AND was several months newer. You would think Sony/Zipper would learn, but no. Lets try to be more generic!

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Dgc1808 on 28 June 2012
M.U.G.E.N said:
Xxain said:


oh wait lemme be a cynical wise ass and take an annonymous email that was sent to therealsocom at 100%

I am not that stupid...or I will think wiiU is last gen or something

And the fact that sony have given more freedom is not PR...it's shown in the games and also the devs without being annonymous have said so. The games speak for themselves.

I wanted to clarify few things before anything...and so far the things that were implimented doesn't sound like that big of a deal..at least not enough to create such a horribly critically and user recieved game like socom 4. Given how socom and zipper games have performed sales wise I honestly wouldn't be surprised if sony did put some preassure on them for this game...however the overall fault lies mainly with the dev for poor execution. 

Lesson of the day, take stuff like this with a mountain of salt...even if this guy actually did work for zipper, taking a disgruntled employees words as 100% accurate is a stupid thing to do


Generally, yes. SONY does offer a lot of freedom to their devs. This isn't the first time we've heard of SONY getting a game to take a drastic turn from what the devs originally wanted, though. Really, it just seems to come back to not biting the hand that feeds you.

http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1063301/naughty_dog_gritty_xbox_shooters_shaped_uncharted.html

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was originally a 'fantasy' game until orders came from Sony to make it more 'realistic'.

"It had elements of Tolkien in for sure. Sony kept pushing for a more realistic game in all respects. The market had changed a lot by then. The demographic was older and gritty shooters were really dominating. Sony wanted very much to get into that market share, it pushed all of its developers in this direction."

"So the big push from Sony, not just at Naughty Dog but at all of Sony's development companies at the time, was to craft games for PlayStation 3 that were much more realistic. The pressure from Xbox's success with gritty shooters was a very real force on our direction at that time."

We had a lot of internal grumbling about the realist bent. More of the old dogs were from the Crash and Jak era and preferred that more whimsical style. But alas, that was a losing battle."

Is Zipper to take any blame here? Of course. Naughty Dog didn't like the hand they were dealt initially but they made the best of it and made a hit franchise for SONY. Zipper just couldn't do the same.



4 ≈ One

M.U.G.E.N on 28 June 2012
Dgc1808 said:
M.U.G.E.N said:
Xxain said:


oh wait lemme be a cynical wise ass and take an annonymous email that was sent to therealsocom at 100%

I am not that stupid...or I will think wiiU is last gen or something

And the fact that sony have given more freedom is not PR...it's shown in the games and also the devs without being annonymous have said so. The games speak for themselves.

I wanted to clarify few things before anything...and so far the things that were implimented doesn't sound like that big of a deal..at least not enough to create such a horribly critically and user recieved game like socom 4. Given how socom and zipper games have performed sales wise I honestly wouldn't be surprised if sony did put some preassure on them for this game...however the overall fault lies mainly with the dev for poor execution. 

Lesson of the day, take stuff like this with a mountain of salt...even if this guy actually did work for zipper, taking a disgruntled employees words as 100% accurate is a stupid thing to do


Generally, yes. SONY does offer a lot of freedom to their devs. This isn't the first time we've heard of SONY getting a game to take a drastic turn from what the devs originally wanted, though. Really, it just seems to come back to not biting the hand that feeds you.

http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1063301/naughty_dog_gritty_xbox_shooters_shaped_uncharted.html

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was originally a 'fantasy' game until orders came from Sony to make it more 'realistic'.

"It had elements of Tolkien in for sure. Sony kept pushing for a more realistic game in all respects. The market had changed a lot by then. The demographic was older and gritty shooters were really dominating. Sony wanted very much to get into that market share, it pushed all of its developers in this direction."

"So the big push from Sony, not just at Naughty Dog but at all of Sony's development companies at the time, was to craft games for PlayStation 3 that were much more realistic. The pressure from Xbox's success with gritty shooters was a very real force on our direction at that time."

We had a lot of internal grumbling about the realist bent. More of the old dogs were from the Crash and Jak era and preferred that more whimsical style. But alas, that was a losing battle."

Is Zipper to take any blame here? Of course. Naughty Dog didn't like the hand they were dealt initially but they made the best of it and made a hit franchise for SONY. Zipper just couldn't do the same.

Yeah now that article I can trust more because the source is more legit than this one. But I agree companies do put pressure on their devs to push them in certain directions, which could end up with bad results. But what I'm trying to say is what you said with your last sentence. IF that's the direction they were told to go, they could have done a much better job at it than this.

I think they have done a wonderful job with Unit 13 so it sucks to see them go but it was inevitable. 



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Chark on 28 June 2012
Dgc1808 said:
M.U.G.E.N said:
Xxain said:


oh wait lemme be a cynical wise ass and take an annonymous email that was sent to therealsocom at 100%

I am not that stupid...or I will think wiiU is last gen or something

And the fact that sony have given more freedom is not PR...it's shown in the games and also the devs without being annonymous have said so. The games speak for themselves.

I wanted to clarify few things before anything...and so far the things that were implimented doesn't sound like that big of a deal..at least not enough to create such a horribly critically and user recieved game like socom 4. Given how socom and zipper games have performed sales wise I honestly wouldn't be surprised if sony did put some preassure on them for this game...however the overall fault lies mainly with the dev for poor execution. 

Lesson of the day, take stuff like this with a mountain of salt...even if this guy actually did work for zipper, taking a disgruntled employees words as 100% accurate is a stupid thing to do


Generally, yes. SONY does offer a lot of freedom to their devs. This isn't the first time we've heard of SONY getting a game to take a drastic turn from what the devs originally wanted, though. Really, it just seems to come back to not biting the hand that feeds you.

http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1063301/naughty_dog_gritty_xbox_shooters_shaped_uncharted.html

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was originally a 'fantasy' game until orders came from Sony to make it more 'realistic'.

"It had elements of Tolkien in for sure. Sony kept pushing for a more realistic game in all respects. The market had changed a lot by then. The demographic was older and gritty shooters were really dominating. Sony wanted very much to get into that market share, it pushed all of its developers in this direction."

"So the big push from Sony, not just at Naughty Dog but at all of Sony's development companies at the time, was to craft games for PlayStation 3 that were much more realistic. The pressure from Xbox's success with gritty shooters was a very real force on our direction at that time."

We had a lot of internal grumbling about the realist bent. More of the old dogs were from the Crash and Jak era and preferred that more whimsical style. But alas, that was a losing battle."

Is Zipper to take any blame here? Of course. Naughty Dog didn't like the hand they were dealt initially but they made the best of it and made a hit franchise for SONY. Zipper just couldn't do the same.

That's really interesting. It obviously worked out in the end, perhaps they even prefer the new route since The Last of Us is delving even further down the realism path. They should look back into something a little more whimsical next gen, they are developing titles simultaneously now so they can keep a franchise going with new IPs on the side.



Before the PS3 everyone was nice to me :(

badgenome on 28 June 2012
PullusPardus said:
badgenome said:
What elements of Infamous were in SOCOM 4?


the guy's hair.

Ah. I thought maybe he shot lightning bolts out of his penis or something, but yeah, I can see that.



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Dallinor on 28 June 2012
Chark said:

That's really interesting. It obviously worked out in the end, perhaps they even prefer the new route since The Last of Us is delving even further down the realism path. They should look back into something a little more whimsical next gen, they are developing titles simultaneously now so they can keep a franchise going with new IPs on the side.

Yeah if you read up on how that idea came together it was all ND, they came up with the idea and theme and Sony greenlit it.

Honestly Sony have to step in at some point to ensure they are making enough games appealing to a certain audience or covering a certain genre. If every developer was completely free to develop a title in any genre they wished, Sony could end up releasing multiple hardcore RPG's (for example) for a niche audience in the same year. It would be poor management and potentially crippiling to Sony's first party.  While a 'fantasy' game from ND would probably have been great, I think an action/adventure TPS like Uncharted was perfect for expanding their portfolio. I mean nobody can really argue that it wasn't the right move in ND's case, they now have a new huge selling series on their hands that's still showing growth with a potential new Playstation mascot for the future.

In Zippers case I dont think it was purely down to pressure from Sony. From what evidence we have, Sony tell some developers to change the direction of a game, but aren't as hands on as say Ubisoft (demanding monthly updates and changes on the fly). According to multiple sources, they allow a lot of creative freedom. Most studios I'd imagine had almost complete creative freedom to begin with, with managment stepping in and demanding changes for the sequels that came after, especially given the financial situation of the company and poor sales of some SCE releases. Those sort of changes are present throughout the entire industry though, as publishers attempt to re-create the success of other big selling games by including certain mechanics and themes from those games into their own. (Dead Space being a recent example.)

Zipper though had a huge team, one of Sony's biggest, working away for years and producing distinctly average games with poor sales. It was an overly large and completely unproductive burden on SCE studios. Who can say where the fault lies, but other Sony studios have done well this generation while they failed utterly. I would wonder if the intervention of Sony that's being mentioned here was a knee-jerk reaction to the release of MAG, or if it came earlier, and why were Zipper unable to cope with the changes?



 

Kresnik on 28 June 2012
Dgc1808 said:
M.U.G.E.N said:
Xxain said:


oh wait lemme be a cynical wise ass and take an annonymous email that was sent to therealsocom at 100%

I am not that stupid...or I will think wiiU is last gen or something

And the fact that sony have given more freedom is not PR...it's shown in the games and also the devs without being annonymous have said so. The games speak for themselves.

I wanted to clarify few things before anything...and so far the things that were implimented doesn't sound like that big of a deal..at least not enough to create such a horribly critically and user recieved game like socom 4. Given how socom and zipper games have performed sales wise I honestly wouldn't be surprised if sony did put some preassure on them for this game...however the overall fault lies mainly with the dev for poor execution. 

Lesson of the day, take stuff like this with a mountain of salt...even if this guy actually did work for zipper, taking a disgruntled employees words as 100% accurate is a stupid thing to do


Generally, yes. SONY does offer a lot of freedom to their devs. This isn't the first time we've heard of SONY getting a game to take a drastic turn from what the devs originally wanted, though. Really, it just seems to come back to not biting the hand that feeds you.

http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1063301/naughty_dog_gritty_xbox_shooters_shaped_uncharted.html

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was originally a 'fantasy' game until orders came from Sony to make it more 'realistic'.

"It had elements of Tolkien in for sure. Sony kept pushing for a more realistic game in all respects. The market had changed a lot by then. The demographic was older and gritty shooters were really dominating. Sony wanted very much to get into that market share, it pushed all of its developers in this direction."

"So the big push from Sony, not just at Naughty Dog but at all of Sony's development companies at the time, was to craft games for PlayStation 3 that were much more realistic. The pressure from Xbox's success with gritty shooters was a very real force on our direction at that time."

We had a lot of internal grumbling about the realist bent. More of the old dogs were from the Crash and Jak era and preferred that more whimsical style. But alas, that was a losing battle."

Is Zipper to take any blame here? Of course. Naughty Dog didn't like the hand they were dealt initially but they made the best of it and made a hit franchise for SONY. Zipper just couldn't do the same.


Thanks for linking that, it was really interesting to read.  

I would LOVE to see ND return to making whimsical fantasy stuff next generation.  With 2 development teams, I don't see why it wouldn't be possible.  I just hope they're not too entrenched in realism now.

I mean, don't get me wrong - I love Uncharted, but they did the fantasy stuff so bloody well too.



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Gnac on 28 June 2012

Anonymous?

Seems legit.



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9087 on 29 June 2012

Socom was like a cheap military Uncharted rip off

 

IMO the thing that ruined multiplayer was it just wasnt very good. Period. I mean it was decent.... but not great. 

 

I cant seem to get over how UGLY the UI and HUD's are in Zipper games.