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Forums - Sony - Roughly half of Evolution Studios (Driveclub) faces redundancy.

Qwark on 23 March 2015
kitler53 said:
Qwark said:
...

I am not saying it does, I only say that Sony has studio's which are way worse than Evolution and don't have to deal with big layoffs. Funny enough SC Europe is always the loser, after Liverpool and layoffs at guerilla cambridge this is 3rd "restructuation"at a british studio, concluding that Sony is racist.

It's almost like if you fuck up it doesn't matter, (Order 1886 after 5 years a game which barely last an hour per year, Killzone SF not what it meant to be, Knack need I say more) if you make a good game (Infamous second son) you get small layoffs, and if you partly fuck up and make it right by support you get a huge layoff. Which is pretty odd, best stay developing a never releasing game seems to be a safe bet or work at ND.

I don't knock pupeteer down it was a fine game but it didn't sell 250.000 units, while LBP sold 16 times as much, not saying it was a bad game, it was pretty good but it surely didn't set a record, perhaps maybe Sony's worst AAA selling exclusive ever.

As for the PS+ version, while that was just dumb, but hey at least they did something, in comparison to another certain studio. Which is making a game for over a decade and only made a PS3 remake while it's a way bigger studio. And evolution is my only hope to make either Wipeout or Motorstorm and now it almost certainly is going to close after the seasonpass is done I am not to happy about that.

 


lol, racist.   SCEA, SCEE, and SCEJ have different management.  if anything SCEJ needs to be more like SCEE after the continued disaster that is TLG.  ...but if you remember right there were layoffs there too and a guy from SCEA came in to replace the SCEJ managers and get them better organized.   ..and layoffs at SM.  ..and layoffs at ND.

not sure why you even bring up infamous.  every game ditches a bunch of artists and contractors after finishing a project.  games have cyclic development cycles and studios that don't have multiple projects being worked on at a time cannot justify paying employees that will go over a year without any work to be done.  everyone in the industry does this.

you seem overly upset by evolution in particular.  i guess i just don't get it.  it's not like motorstorm was ever a big hit either outside of the orginal (heavily bundeled) game.  it's been a really long time for them without much to show for it.   the driveclub disaster of a launch is only the latest poor performer.

I wouldn't call anything above a million made by a not so big studio a poor performer excluding digital ofcourse. Motorstorm 1 and Motorstorm 2 where pretty awesome and more important pretty unique, with so many diciplines blowing yourself up volcano's and water. Driveclub is also pretty great at least now it is and it has some pretty good sales. 

To simply put it if evo is done making racing games, there is not a single studio to fill the gap, since liverpool is also closed. PD is only making GT and since GT is not arcade that studio doesn't count. It's not always standard to ditch people after you're done most of the time you start up a new project. Especially considering the people who where fired wheren't just freelanchers but also employees who worked on Sly at cetera. 



Please excuse my (probally) poor grammar

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kitler53 on 23 March 2015
Qwark said:
..

I wouldn't call anything above a million made by a not so big studio a poor performer excluding digital ofcourse. Motorstorm 1 and Motorstorm 2 where pretty awesome and more important pretty unique, with so many diciplines blowing yourself up volcano's and water. Driveclub is also pretty great at least now it is and it has some pretty good sales. 

To simply put it if evo is done making racing games, there is not a single studio to fill the gap, since liverpool is also closed. PD is only making GT and since GT is not arcade that studio doesn't count. It's not always standard to ditch people after you're done most of the time you start up a new project. Especially considering the people who where fired wheren't just freelanchers but also employees who worked on Sly at cetera. 


ms apocolyse wasn't a million sellar and 2008 is an aweful long time ago to have to go back to their most recent "sucessful" game.

...and regardless of gameplay in your opinion, GT and DC have a too much overlap to justify both.



SvennoJ on 23 March 2015

Well you don't need 120 people to make monthly DLC.

Sounds like Sony is not confident in making enough money from a sequel or another Motorstorm to keep all of the relatively expensive UK staff around. 60 people is still plenty to make a new game anyway, since they already have a great engine for ps4. Maybe another year 2 season pass first, then a new game.

Dunno if they'll go for another Motorstorm after the failure of Apocalypse. Maybe test the waters first with a remaster. A 1080p60 combined version of the first 2 that doesn't compromise on visuals in 4 player splitscreen would be fun.
A whole new one would be better, but looking at the sales of racing games nowadays it's a risk. Yet, who knows. DriveClub proves there are plenty people that like racing without a story or other nonsense bolted on. Going back to the basics of the first 2 Motorstorms should get that series back on track.



Qwark on 23 March 2015
kitler53 said:
Qwark said:
..

I wouldn't call anything above a million made by a not so big studio a poor performer excluding digital ofcourse. Motorstorm 1 and Motorstorm 2 where pretty awesome and more important pretty unique, with so many diciplines blowing yourself up volcano's and water. Driveclub is also pretty great at least now it is and it has some pretty good sales. 

To simply put it if evo is done making racing games, there is not a single studio to fill the gap, since liverpool is also closed. PD is only making GT and since GT is not arcade that studio doesn't count. It's not always standard to ditch people after you're done most of the time you start up a new project. Especially considering the people who where fired wheren't just freelanchers but also employees who worked on Sly at cetera. 


ms apocolyse wasn't a million sellar and 2008 is an aweful long time ago to have to go back to their most recent "sucessful" game.

...and regardless of gameplay in your opinion, GT and DC have a too much overlap to justify both.


Since GT isn't coming out anytime soon DC has as much right to be alive as any other Sony game, although Driveclub 2 wouldn't be that smart surely 2 studios who focus on racing games can survive. And since Driveclub already outsold every motorstorm game except one I wouldn't call the studio unnecesary since Driveclub is a succesfull game critically and comercially it has some reputation problems but that didn't stop it from generating sales. Unless you think Apocolypse is moe succesfull than Driveclub, the franchise got overused.

But after 5 years in the freezer a new chapter in the form of part 2 could defenitly make a succesfull game since there isn't anything like it yet. The last mororstorm dates from 2009 and sold a million, so it isn't that bad of a franchise. Concidering this game isn't going to be made anytime soon is a shame, because even though layoffs happen 55 people at once is pretty much.



Please excuse my (probally) poor grammar

Uabit on 23 March 2015
Turkish said:
Uabit said:
Next time maybe making a good game saves their job.


Next time play a game before you criticize. Driveclub has become the best racing game of recent years after the post launch support it got.

You are either a fanboy or someone with no idea of racing games i see. 

Moderated,

-Mr Khan



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IamAwsome on 23 March 2015
Teeqoz said:
So what does "Driveclub as a service" mean? Does this mean Driveclub will be around for the rest of the gen, and Evolution's only job forward is providing updates and extra content for it? That sounds odd. Anyone have a better idea of what it might mean?

They'll probably continue to update the game with patches, etc.They may also continue to support the community as well as finishing the season pass content, and cleaning up the game  for the PS+ rerelease. Unfortunately though, this may be the end of Evolution after Driveclub.