Free Radical Bites the Dust

[CaptHawkeye]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/blogs/rumo ... dized.html

What we heard: To put it politely, Free Radical Design's sci-fi shooter Haze was not what fans were expecting from the studio behind the heralded TimeSplitters franchise. Originally announced by publisher Ubisoft as a multiplatform effort during the 2006 Electronic Entertainment Expo, Haze debuted as a PlayStation 3 exclusive in May suffering from abysmal AI and, perhaps most surprisingly considering the studio's TimeSplitters legacy, uninspired multiplayer.

It now appears as if Free Radical will not be afforded the opportunity of redemption. GamesIndustry.biz, along with several other European outlets, reports today that Free Radical has become the latest victim in a string of high-profile studio closures this year. Citing multiple sources, GI.biz reports that staff were served their walking papers this morning after finding the UK-based studio's doors locked. The layoffs reportedly extend to both rank-and-file staff and senior-level executives.Online reports gave no indication of what would become of TimeSplitters 4, which was officially announced in October 2007. Free Radical was also collaborating with LucasArts on an unnamed game, rumored to be Star Wars: Battlefront III. According to GI.biz's sources, the game is now being handled by fellow UK-based Rebellion, creator of 2007's Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron for the PSP.[UPDATE] Edge Online reports Free Radicals' financial turmoil stems from a breakdown in the aforementioned deal with LucasArts. According to the publication's source, "[Free Radical] was relying on Lucas for further contracts which had been promised in some sort of exclusivity deal. Obviously that all went down the pan." The source also claims that Haze dragged down Free Radical's efforts to find a publisher for TimeSplitters 4. "They had already started working on TimeSplitters 4, and had been for over a year, but due to the failure of Haze and the deal falling through with Lucas, they couldn't get a publisher to back them," said the informant. The official story: As of press time, e-mails sent to several Free Radical employees went either unanswered or were bounced back.Bogus or not bogus?: [UPDATE] The worst has come to pass. This Is Nottingham has confirmed with Cameron Gunn of Resolve Partners, a bankruptcy-resolution firm, that Free Radical has been "placed in to administration yesterday afternoon." We will be spending the next three or four days assessing the financial position of the company but it's business as usual, although we have asked that almost all of the employees apart from a skeleton crew remain at home," said Gunn. "All employees have been paid up until the end of December and we hope to make another announcement before Christmas or very soon thereafter, but we must stress at this stage that it's business as usual." This Is Nottingham reports that Free Radical employs 185 people, and it was unclear how many would be out of work.

Wow, I can't seem to feel bad for them.

For the past 5 years I and apparently many others have been left with a pretty sour taste over this generation. Games, especially from a lot of developers with "street cred" have been getting qualitatively worse and worse. More titles are being released in an unfinished, unplayable state that's little more than an insult to the consumer ever since developers have essentially discovered the Uwe Boll/Epic Movie maneuver.

So our good friends at Free Radical did what so many retard developers love to do. They put all their eggs in a basket, and now they're dirt poor. This has been happening to plenty of developers I hate lately. (Everyone except fucking Crytek) It's leading to lots of defunct companies and ruined reputations, and loss of confidence in video games. I call it "poetic justice". That's what these retards get for trying to bank everything on flashy shovel ware.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Indeed. I think graphics have gotten to the point where a game can afford to have graphics from 2 or 3 years ago and still look pretty good. I keep hearing about how direct download services are going to translate to more success for low budget, high concept games instead of Call of Duty Clone #4,892, now with 50% more normal maps.

[Zixinus]

So this is when people learn the hard way.

I'm wondering just how many people from the development team knew why they were really fired.

Still, I would be curious to hear from them too about this.

[Genii Lodus]

Personally my first thought was poor guys getting laid off before Christmas in a shitty jobs market not good. Remember most of the people that work in a games company don't have much say in what they actually make. Even taking what say Ubisoft as the publishers had in what the game ended up as and when it was released out of the equation Haze's design was a few people in the design team at most.

The TimeSplitters series and Second Sight were great games on the last-gen of consoles so it isn't as if the studio were devoid of talent.

[CaptHawkeye]

So then I wonder if it's becoming clear to many third party developers that being bought out by a larger studio isn't really a good thing?

It seems to me like many third party studios are lured into buyouts with the promise of resources, money, and continuation of their own autonomy. Then they never get any of those things. The scant resources they get end up having strict usage limits and vague "goals" set by the parent company. The money is wasted on developing 10% more nose hairs and lightmaps, and the autonomy is just a completely fabricated lie, instead being replaced by minute to minute micromanagement run by meaningless demographic charts.

So what can our poor third party developer do now? Nothing. The new titles are half assed, derivative crap that don't bring in more sales. If anything, they backfire in the most gruesome manner, scaring off old fans of the studio. Dis-satisfied, the parent company begins to basically cannibalize the old studio for spare parts. They will inevitably shuffle the experienced employees into its own design teams, sell programming hardware that the employees and programmers knew inside and out, and then discontinue the studio.

That's just my theory anyway.

[Genii Lodus]

Independent studios are pretty much at the whim of publishers anyway. In some ways its easier for a publisher to break a contract with a developer than it is for the publisher to shed its own internal teams.

Most independent studios are small businesses maybe only with a couple of big founders who might by now be bored of the business, want to go somewhere else or just want the money. The creative side of the equation doesn't really matter so much. EA buying DICE is the classic example of gutting a company for its IP, closing DICE Canada days after assuring them it wouldn't be. It's par for the course in the games industry that this happens anyway.

Some independents fare well when they get bought over, it really depends on the new owner and what they wanted the business for. Don't think being owned by a publisher is any less or more secure than being independent - especially if you are a third-party for one of the platform companies you are pretty much guaranteed security.

[Starglider]

So our good friends at Free Radical did what so many retard developers love to do. They put all their eggs in a basket, and now they're dirt poor.

To be fair this is very hard to avoid. A small developer has sharply limited development and commercial / business development resources (i.e. not many people, and both making games and finding contracts takes a lot of time). You can be assured that every troubled small company has a string of failed partnerships and investment deals that no one outside the company ever hears about. Gaming is a pretty horrible industry for both companies and individuals, contracts get canceled on a moments notice, money owed is never paid, there are very few 'sure things'.

I'm wondering just how many people from the development team knew why they were really fired.

The ones with a clue who'd been through it all before, probably months in advance. The closed door meetings, raised voices, stressed management, cuts in perks, increase in pep talks, lead staff leaving one by one or at least pre-emptively clearing out their desks....

The antisocial nerd programmers wearing T-shirts with some witty variation on 'fuck off', they probably didn't get it until they realised they couldn't get into the office and there was no sign of the last month's pay in their bank account.

I think graphics have gotten to the point where a game can afford to have graphics from 2 or 3 years ago and still look pretty good.

Graphics quality is rapidly reaching the point of being 'how much of the assets were designed in house for the game and how much were obviously bought from cut-rate 'asset warehouse' web sites'.

So then I wonder if it's becoming clear to many third party developers that being bought out by a larger studio isn't really a good thing?

It's great for the shareholders (usually the founders, for small studios). You get a fat payoff and probably a raise too. As for the peon developers, who cares, they don't have a say and probably want to leave all the 'business stuff' to someone else anyway.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

I'm wondering just how many people from the development team knew why they were really fired.

One of my friends worked for Free Radical. He was laid off a month or two ago for unspecified reasons, but he was able to piece it together after this news came out. The people who were in the company until the end probably were able to notice increasing amounts of layoffs before they, themselves, lost their jobs.

[CaptHawkeye]

To be fair this is very hard to avoid. A small developer has sharply limited development and commercial / business development resources (i.e. not many people, and both making games and finding contracts takes a lot of time). You can be assured that every troubled small company has a string of failed partnerships and investment deals that no one outside the company ever hears about. Gaming is a pretty horrible industry for both companies and individuals, contracts get canceled on a moments notice, money owed is never paid, there are very few 'sure things'.

The thing is, I get the impression that developers force themselves to become strongly reliant on deals because they operate with lots of self-induced overhead. A lot of it resulting from graphical demands by the consumers. It's unfortunately true that most gamers are shallow texture-tools. A poll taken by Cornered Rat Studios (creators of the MMO/Sim hybrid World War II online) found that the biggest reason people wouldn't play their game was because it didn't look as good as other titles. This doesn't surprise me though, 10 years of multi player has taught me and many others that gamers are self-interested douche bags. Some of the dumbest mother fuckers on the planet. Gamers love to bitch about SFX obsession by developers, but they perpetuate those demands openly.

[TheMuffinKing]

Haze was garbage. I'm glad they went under before fucking up my beloved Timesplitters. I'd rather have fond memories than a POS reminicent of that stillbirth Haze.