Insiders describe ‘fast and furious’ exits from Xbox’s Perfect Dark studio

[Quad Damage 1,742]

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/insiders-describe-fast-and-furious-exits-from-xboxs-perfect-dark-studio/

 

 

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Xbox's The Initiative studio has seen a "fast and furious" wave of senior departures in the past 12 months, VGC has learned.

As much as half of the core development team known to be working on the upcoming Perfect Dark reboot quit the company during the last year, or around 34 people, analysis of employee LinkedIn profiles has revealed.

 

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That includes most of The Initiative's senior design team, including game director Dan Neuburger, design director Drew Murray, lead level designer Chris O'Neill, principal world builder Jolyon Myers, two senior system designers, a group of three former God of War designers and more.

And the turnover of top talent doesn't end in design: Perfect Dark's two most senior writers also recently quit, analysis shows, along with the project's technical director, tech art director, lead gameplay engineer, lead animator, QA lead and more.

 

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Interviews with multiple former senior developers cited a lack of creative autonomy and slow development progress as the reason for their departures, and described the wave of exits as "fast and furious" with project momentum said to be "heavily affected".

The Initiative's management told VGC it's confident in the team it has in place, and new talent joining, and pointed to industry-wide staffing challenges during the pandemic.

"It's no small task to build a studio and reinvent a beloved franchise," studio head Darrell Gallagher told VGC. "In creating The Initiative, we set out to leverage co-development partnerships to achieve our ambitions, and we're really excited about all the progress we're seeing with our relationship with Crystal Dynamics.

 

 

[TLHBO 2,162]

It's sad what happened to this franchise.

[Sublyminal 177]

7 minutes ago, Quad Damage said:

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/insiders-describe-fast-and-furious-exits-from-xboxs-perfect-dark-studio/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Microshitstain strikes again.

[Quad Damage 1,742]

 

[jehurey 3,277]

Its becoming adundantly clear that Microsoft has trouble making "new" games.

 

Hell, they're barely able to make SEQUELS. Or in the case of the Forza games, they're churning out the same stuff .

 

But bringing back Perfect Dark is like them having to rebuild an IP, almost as if its new. And they have trouble with having a clear distinct creative vision.

 

Whereas, on Sony, a relative failure when it comes to struggling with a new IP is somerthing like Days Gone. And the main why that IP isn't continuing is because its too similar to another Sony IP that's more important.

[Voidler 1,675]

Explains why they went from a "new AAAA studio" to having the developer of Avengers make it for them 

[-GD-X★ 7,765]

[Mr. Impossible 411]

They might as well cancel the game at this point. 

[Quad Damage 1,742]

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As a result, it’s claimed that development has progressed “painfully” slowly and a solid company culture never formed. All former employees VGC spoke to said they were surprised at how lenient Microsoft had been over the lack of progress.

 

One person said: “Making games is hard enough, let alone when you feel like you can’t get through to people making the decisions that affect everyone”.

 

 

studio called "the initiative" lacking progress and leadership lmao

[lynux3 2,127]

[Mr. House 3,371]

Half the core team left.  For lack of creative autonomy, I expect nothing less from Microsoft. Probably forced to include woke SJW shit in their games too.

[bhytre 2,753]

6 hours ago, Quad Damage said:

 

Perfect Disembark®  

Edited March 16, 2022 by bhytre

[Voidler 1,675]

So MS had a new studio make Perfect Dark because all the talent has left Rare, and now the new Perfect Dark ended up falling apart and needing to be rescued with outsourcing cause all the talent left again 

 

How long until the talent flight from Bethesda and Activision?

[jehurey 3,277]

 

[Goukosan 2,258]

44 minutes ago, jehurey said:

 

 

It's sinking quickly.. Lol

[Quad Damage 1,742]

 

 

[jehurey 3,277]

If I'm Salty Nutella, and I see that Phil Spencer can't properly manage their two most-expensive in-house studios that are working on single-player narrative-based IPs, why would I be preparing to assign him control over almost-30 separate studios that they've committed almost $80 billion dollars on?

[FIREPOWER 739]

TLHBFR!

[Remij 4,690]

1 hour ago, jehurey said:

If I'm Salty Nutella, and I see that Phil Spencer can't properly manage their two most-expensive in-house studios that are working on single-player narrative-based IPs, why would I be preparing to assign him control over almost-30 separate studios that they've committed almost $80 billion dollars on?

Phil's getting another raise, confirmed.  

[TLHBO 2,162]

1 hour ago, jehurey said:

If I'm Salty Nutella, and I see that Phil Spencer can't properly manage their two most-expensive in-house studios that are working on single-player narrative-based IPs, why would I be preparing to assign him control over almost-30 separate studios that they've committed almost $80 billion dollars on?

It's obvious that at Microsoft/Xbox, kissing the right ass and lnowing the right people takes you far.

 

This is probably why moral and effort is so low in their studios. They know Phil sucks at his job, they know he killed Xbox to the point of no comeback, yet he still gets to run the show because he's in "the club".