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Games Industry Reacts to Tango Gameworks Closure: "Why?"

I wonder how Spencer's going to explain and apologise himself out of this one.

Still hilarious AND somewhat relevant today. "TLOU won't last forever!":messenger_grinning_squinting:
If Xbox dared to do this so close to their conference they either think they have something to make us forget about it, don't care as they have COD now, or are in so much shit that they had no other choice. Pick your poison.
 

Embearded

Member
I wouldn't even be surprised if Xbox instigated the whole account drama to distract from this news.

Let's not forget that they had this secret Discord (incl DF Bagliatella and certain Gaffers) where they came up with the whole FUD-campaign surrounding the "12Tflops vs 9Tflops" narrative.

It would certainly soften blow a bit.
Anyway, certain people not boycotting MS over this is quite hypocritical, because this is a major blow to a handfull of studios.

It is not even clear how extensive the whole deal is outside of the studios that got closed entirely.

Maybe, but AH and Sony were in talks to make it optional after all for regions outside of PSN territory.

Need more info on that!
 

Klayzer

Member
Not even comparable. Japan studios didn't make a single game that was worth playing in years. Almost a decade in fact.

This studio literally released last year the game that MS considered their biggest success story of Gamepass. The subscription service they pushed for years. This was a huge surprise today.

Sony also didn't close the entire Japan studio. They still managed to salvage the two parts (teams) of the studio that was working properly, Team Asobi (Astro Bot) and xDev Japan.

To even be comparable, Sony would need to close the entirety of Japan studios (including Asobi) one year after they released a huge VR hit (Astro Bot Rescue Mission) which they didn't do.
Hey, don't let facts get in the way of a good ole Sonytoo shindig. Got to incorporate Sony somehow with Xbox bad news.
 
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lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
obsidian:
Scared Kermit The Frog GIF
 

Killer8

Member
Considering everything MS studios makes is Game Pass fodder now, how are they even measuring the success of these studios? The engagement numbers for Hi-Fi was supposedly very good and it scored highly. The whole point of MS buying up these studios was to develop content for the Game Pass service, which Tango did far more than others. I just don't understand the long term plan here of need content -> buy studio -> studio makes content -> close studio. It's going to cost them a massively inflated amount of money for content creation.
 

Skifi28

Member
Considering everything MS studios makes is Game Pass fodder now, how are they even measuring the success of these studios? The engagement numbers for Hi-Fi was supposedly very good and it scored highly. The whole point of MS buying up these studios was to develop content for the Game Pass service, which Tango did far more than others. I just don't understand the long term plan here of need content -> buy studio -> studio makes content -> close studio. It's going to cost them a massively inflated amount of money for content creation.
The plan is there is no plan. They bought a bunch of small studios to bolster gamepass. "Sales don't matter, it's all about engagement." But once it became clear that gamepass stopped growing and they spent 100 billions they had to make back, the new plan is we need sales so whoever doesn't is axed no questions asked. I wonder what the new plan next week will be.
 
Shinji Mikami got out just in time.
Isn't it maybe the other way around? The studio was closed because the major name was lost and took probably also some people with him? There was a functioning relationship between him and Bethesda and possibly also Sony, but once he was on his way even a critical success did not persuade anyone at MS that there is a future with the remaining people.

But why couldn't Microsoft at least sell the studios?
Weird. As though it is a knee jerk move, not even trying to do anything with them.
If there is anyone worth something in CEOing a studio, they could just regroup. If the remaining people are worth something, and have ideas for new games, they should be able to get a publishing deal. Or maybe just follow Mikami to whatever he does now. Or individually get positions at whoever needs them. Redfall on your resume does not help much, but HiFi-Rush should at least not be a problem, quite the opposite.
 

Dick Jones

Gold Member
Yesterday I was angry that Tango got punished for sloppy Xbox marketing.

Today, I'm just laughing at the stupidity of Xbox's decision. It's so fucking stupid. It's not surprising when you have Matt Booty in charge, so the blame is mine for expecting competence from current Xbox leadership.
 

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Here's a few reactions from a couple of Tango Gameworks devs who worked on HiFi Rush courtesy of Automaton West:



Post translation: My work is mostly fun, but working on Hi-Fi Rush was hands down the most enjoyable job I’ve ever had.
It’s a truly interesting game, and I’d like everyone to see how cool the cutscene animations are… I think you’ll be able to feel our passion when you play the game! If you’re feeling sorry for this guy who suddenly lost his job, please give the game a go! Lol

The poster of the tweet above is Yosuke Ishikawa, a 3D artist who until recently worked at Tango Gameworks. A presentation in which he demonstrates his work on The Evil Within 2 can be found on Youtube. More recently, he worked on the 2023 rhythm action game Hi-Fi Rush, which he describes in the tweet above as the most enjoyable job he has ever had. Ishikawa hopes that people who have yet to play the game will pick it up and appreciate all the effort that Tango Gameworks put into the title. Some of Ishikawa’s vibrant character art for Hi-Fi Rush, among other Tango Gameworks games, can be found on his Artstation page.

Another character modeler who worked on Hi-Fi Rush expressed similar sentiments to Ishikawa:



Post translation: Hi-Fi Rush showed up as trending on X but I’m not happy about it at all (lol). But I would like to take this opportunity to encourage anyone who hasn’t played the game yet to give it a try. I really worked hard on it!
Whatever the reason, if you see this tweet, please think of it as some kind of fate and play the game.
 

Loope

Member
Tango?

OK, wtf MS......

No hi fi rush 2? This industry is a Joke and MS are one of the biggest 🤡

How can you buy up half the industry to then close studios.
Don't understand either. This is shitty as fuck. I understand some of the studios, but Tango???

Imagine doing a good job only to get canned.

MS should just leave the industry and stop behaving like they're inserted on a office or windows market.
 

j0hnnix

Member
Typical of a large corporation. The shareholders govern the decisions. Company I just recently left posted earnings that were all positive but layoffs in the 100s if not close to 1000 continue every qtr. Cash cow has to be milked and the employees are the tits getting squeezed until they cant squeeze out any more.
 
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Roxkis_ii

Member
I didn't even think of Microsoft just selling the studio. Surely someone would want to pay something for them after making such a surprise breakout hit. Hi-if rush actually gave Xbox a lot of positive momentum. To think this is how Microsoft repays the studio.

The other Xbox studios morale must be in the absolute dirt right now and I don't envy any of them.
 

eerik9000

Member
BTW, as per VGinsights:

Revenue generated: 16.6 million

Units sold: 722k

This is on steam alone. Game definitely was profitable.
These are useless estimations which can vary wildly.

lXTjx8p.png


All-time peak CCU on Steam was only 6,132. For comparison, Forspoken, which was released the same week and was a complete failure by all metrics, had 12,579 CCU.
 
The plan is there is no plan. They bought a bunch of small studios to bolster gamepass. "Sales don't matter, it's all about engagement." But once it became clear that gamepass stopped growing and they spent 100 billions they had to make back, the new plan is we need sales so whoever doesn't is axed no questions asked. I wonder what the new plan next week will be.
30-minute lunch breaks instead of 1 hour
 

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
Makes me want to replay The Evil Within 1 & 2. I had a great time with those games. Honestly the reason I payed so much attention to Tango was due to Shinji Mikami. Hi-Fi Rush was great too.

Reminds me of when Irrational Games closed their doors. Judas looks amazing, so maybe everyone can land on their feet. You also don’t hear about the men and women who make it all happen. The narrative usually follows the well known people. I hope none of them are homeless because of this. That is what would suck. If you picked up your life, moved, and then the studio gets shut down. There’s no real job security. It’s like an acting gig in Hollywood.
 
These are useless estimations which can vary wildly.

lXTjx8p.png


All-time peak CCU on Steam was only 6,132. For comparison, Forspoken, which was released the same week and was a complete failure by all metrics, had 12,579 CCU.
I remember reading here, VG insights had most accurate predictions that matched with Insomniac’s leak.

But sure, its not a confirmation.
 
I said it in one of the other threads, but gaming is an odd industry. Not only are the people often weird to begin with, but the way studios are amped up like gods or suddenly shut down isnt the kind of thing you get in other industries.

If a car company releases some meh models, I dont think the R&D team who worked on that car all get the axe. And then the company rehires a new R&D team for the next car.

How many industries are there where if a group/dept release meh products (sales, quality or both), the bosses nuke the whole building and rehire from scratch 100+ people?

Most of the games just cost too much to make. Shouldn't be an issue in MS's case, but I've read about some that take out so many loans in the process of completing a game that if the budget isn't recouped it necessitates the sale or closure of the company. That just screams poor planning from the beginning.
 

Famipan

Member
I just wish someone (Sony or Capcom) could get the licenses to the TEW and HFR IP’s and I hope the employees at Tango/ZeniMax lands on their feet
 

DanielG165

Member
I like Xbox, I like their games, Halo and Forza are two of my favorite franchises in gaming… But I absolutely cannot support nor understand this, at all. This was the most brain dead, corporate, money hungry decision I’ve ever seen them do, and it’s no surprise that they’re catching nothing but heat for it. MS don’t care what people like me on a video game forum have to say one bit, but they’re most definitely feeling the ire from the rest of the industry, and they should; it’s deserved.

This to me is simply another giant sign that the video game industry is a massive, suits-led, money focused joke at this point. I thought Sony trying to force people to sign into their proprietary network to play their game on PC, and then locking territories out completely was bad. But this… This is something else, man.
 
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midnightAI

Member
in a certain way it sounds like disney, they bought so much just to burn it all
Well the question is, could they not have sold Tango rather than just shutting them down? (not sure if that is legally possible)

Edit: If I was Sony for example I would have bought them and persuaded Shinji Mikami to come back and work on whatever he wants (no more horrors if that's what he wants).
 
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Filben

Member
Close down studios who create not big sellers but something with creative and cultural value. Aquire Activision that releases nothing of creative value and only the lowest cultural value possible for 75 billion dollar.

It's pretty clear that these companies don't see games as art and something creative but purely as something to print money.

Very sad.
 

Chuck Berry

Gold Member
Ill save you guys the clicks


Today, May 7, Xbox announced it’s shutting down three studios and merging another. This includes Redfall developer Arkane Austin and Mobile Doom studio Alpha Dog Games, while Roundhouse Games is being absorbed into Elder Scrolls Online developer ZeniMax Online Studios. But perhaps most shocking of all is the closure of Tango Gameworks, the team behind The Evil Within series and, most recently, the rhythm action game Hi-Fi Rush.


On top of being one of Xbox’s most celebrated games of probably the last decade, Hi-Fi Rush was a remarkable pivot for Tango Gameworks, which made its name in the horror genre. It seemed like a genuine success story and a promising showcase for the studio under Microsoft’s first-party umbrella. Now, it’s been rewarded with a swift kick out the door and its developers are being forced to polish their resumes in an incredibly volatile job market.

Hi-Fi Rush was a delightful surprise on a few fronts. It was announced and then shadow-dropped all on the same day at the start of 2023, and it started out as a Game Pass offering, meaning millions of subscribers were able to play it immediately. Even if you weren’t a card-carrying Game Pass member, seeing Xbox invest in a new IP that wasn’t derivative of the studio’s old work was exciting. Hi-Fi Rush offered some hope that Xbox’s years of acquisitions, building a first-party stable to rival its competitors, could result in something original, electric, and memorable. Tango Gameworks’ pivot was based in the rhythm genre, but accommodated the rhythmically challenged. Its cast was colorful and won the hearts of many, alongside a soundtrack that was full of bangers, both original and licensed. Overall, I don’t have a ton of complaints about Hi-Fi Rush.

This kind of smaller-scale offering screams “passion project,” and seeing Microsoft let the team put out something like Hi-Fi Rush was heartening after years of anxiety about the video game industry’s continued consolidation. For a while, it seemed like it paid off. When the 2023 Game Awards came around, Hi-Fi Rush was nominated for five awards and took home the win for Best Audio Design. Then, it was one of the games Microsoft decided to bring to PlayStation 5 as part of its multi-platform push, and there are rumors that a Switch launch is imminent. Xbox Games Marketing Vice President Aaron Greenberg was on the record saying that Tango Gameworks reached “all key measurements and expectations” Xbox had for it. He literally said the company “couldn’t be happier” with how it all went down. Well, clearly, they could have been a little bit happier.

The shame of it all is that, even on top of how tragic this is for Tango Gameworks, it says a lot about Xbox’s own priorities after it devoured swaths of the industry like a gaping maw. Xbox doesn’t have a lot of beloved IP that it didn’t buy. The brand has become synonymous with paying for cultural cache without actually producing it and coasting on Game Pass and nostalgic memories of Halo. So, seeing something well-loved like Hi-Fi Rush bringing home trophies from award shows, and, according to Xbox’s own leadership, be financially successful, then be rewarded with a studio closure, is a succinct encapsulation of how well and truly fucked all of this is.

There’s a foolish, ignorant notion that supply and demand are the sole forces that run a capitalistic world. This belief is based on the idea that the things we get are what people want. People will pay money for these things; thus the market demands these are the products, ideas, and practices we should continue to produce. Anything else is not needed and can die out. Well, Hi-Fi Rush checked off that box, so what is the excuse this time? Xbox wants to focus on “high-impact” games, which sounds like making back your money, winning awards, and being loved isn’t enough.

We want all the money in the goddamn world, and a game that can be completed in a weekend doesn’t do that. Hi-Fi Rush was a bright spot in an industry that is eating itself alive. Now, it’s a warning that Xbox is just like every other company in this hellscape: pretending to want better for everyone in the short term, but unwilling to commit in the long term. Miss me with any of your claims that the brand cares about games. Thousands of people are out of jobs, and we’re gearing up for more live-service sludge.
 

Little Chicken

Gold Member
You mean that situation where we still have zero facts?

duZcnpH.gif

https://www.videogameschronicle.com...es-to-microsoft-for-scalebounds-cancellation/

PlatinumGames‘ Hideki Kamiya has apologised to players and Microsoft for the events that led to the cancellation of Scalebound.


“We were working in an environment we weren’t used to. We were developing on the Unreal engine, we also lacked the necessary know-how to build a game based on online features.

“The hurdles we had to overcome were very big. We weren’t experienced enough and couldn’t get over that wall, leading to what happened in the end.

“I’m sorry to the players who looked forward to it, and moreover I’m sorry to Microsoft who had placed their trust in us as a business partner. I want to apologize both as a creator and as a member of PlatinumGames.”
 
https://www.videogameschronicle.com...es-to-microsoft-for-scalebounds-cancellation/

PlatinumGames‘ Hideki Kamiya has apologised to players and Microsoft for the events that led to the cancellation of Scalebound.

“We were working in an environment we weren’t used to. We were developing on the Unreal engine, we also lacked the necessary know-how to build a game based on online features.

“The hurdles we had to overcome were very big. We weren’t experienced enough and couldn’t get over that wall, leading to what happened in the end.

“I’m sorry to the players who looked forward to it, and moreover I’m sorry to Microsoft who had placed their trust in us as a business partner. I want to apologize both as a creator and as a member of PlatinumGames.”


So Kamiya apologising on his side of the failure somehow gives you insight into Microsoft's role?

AEsKqHU.jpeg
 

clarky

Gold Member
How much worse(better) would the industry be if they just shutter every studio and called it a day?

Sure that would be a lot people out of work short term but think of all the new studios and new IP's we'd get in the longer term after all the good people founded new studios or jobs elsewhere.

Put all these IP's to bed, it would be like a soft reset for the industry.

Phil would have to sign a napkin in blood or something vowing never to work again.
 
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