Pricks. Dickheads. C*nts. Etc.

Anyone who lives in Britain wants Stalker 2 I'll buy it you day one.

Btw I saw that earlier and yeah it's a bad leak from what I read, tons of files decrypted and available on the internet.

Such fucking assholes.

The article also briefly mentions that Zenimax has a reputation of having shit pay (lower than average salaries) and it is harder for Arkane Austin to hire because they don't offer remote work, and since Redfall wasn't announced, they couldn't describe it to job applicants, they wanted to hire for multiplayer but kept getting people applying who wanted to work on immersive sims - Hence why studios announce their games early, so applicants actually know what they're applying for.

Been saying this for years but I wouldn't say that was the main issue because they did that shit with Doom too and many other titles.

The stupidity of calling it Prey whilst having absolutely nothing to do with Prey just annoyed Prey IP fans and did nothing to increase its commercial attractiveness because outside of the Prey fans who were now annoyed, nobody knew what the fuck Prey was, Lmao.

And Bethesda barely marketed it to begin with.

I've come to realize that if the name Bethesda isn't in the studios name, then Bethesda's PR/Marketing is going to be shit

Lol.

Would be fucking hilarious if Microsoft just closes the deal anyway.

I really don't know how they would given everything I've read and it seems like Microsoft doesn't know...yet.

Probably hired all those lawyers to find a little gap in the law.

Be hilarious if they just eat the fines.

First they'll have to fight CMA's "you can't acquire any shares in Activision"

If this ain't bluster from Microsoft then I reckon UK Gov will start being very nervous about CMA's handling of things, Lol.

This is Microsoft choosing the nuclear option.

CMA might sue Microsoft but it sounds like Microsoft is going to sue them right back.

Where does this 'damned if they do, damned if they don't' angle come from?

It'd be one thing if they felt like they had no choice but to release the game out of pressure. But they didn't just stop there. They also made it the centre of their first developer showcase for the year; made it the only AAA exclusive for the first half of the year, the first since Halo Infinite; and even chose it as the first game they'd price at $70. How can you put this much backing behind a project without knowing the disastrous state it's in, and expect to not be blamed when you're the parent company?

I'm all for them taking a hands-off approach when it comes to letting the developers and studios have full creative freedom, but to not have accurate and up-to-date information on those projects and what you're planning to put out to market, just makes them look negligent.

Phil can try his hardest to clean up this PR disaster, but his job will continue to be impossible if he doesn't make sure he's getting the right information when he needs it, rather than after the damage is done.

If they were hoping that does not mean they actually communicated this need.  This is the problem I see a lot.  People hoping for something to happen but keeping their mouth shut and expecting things to just change.  Also another issue is that we are only getting tidbits of information and usually one sided.  This always leads to opinions made on incomplete information.  We have really no clue all the details which is the issue.  Basing an opinion on just one report not knowing the full scope leads to jumping to a lot of conclusions.  The only real thing we know is that Redfall was a project with a lot of problems where communication broke down in a number of areas.  Blame is the first thing everyone wants to jump to do but I have seen working under such conditions that its way more complicated.