ChorizoPicozo
Member
"I'm genuinely depressed"
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Rocksteady hit by layoffs after Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League underperforms
- Thread starter Topher
- Start date
CuckooBananaNuts
Banned
Suicide Squad sucks, regardless of what form of media it takes.
Mister Wolf
Gold Member
They had to learn the hard way. Couldn't just make the Arkham Universe Batman Beyond or a Justice League.
Bernardougf
Member
You really want the people that touched this game making batman ? .. be careful what you wish for
Arachnid
Member
Dr. Samuel Hayden
Member
Shut down the entire studio
TheAtomicPile
Member
WB seems intent on trying to turn the Suicide Squad franchise into a tentpole. Even as a big DC fan, I just don't think the concept or characters have that type of mass appeal. This is especially true when the most popular character (Harley) has been so watered down over the past 15 years.
Mokus
Member
I doubt most of the employees had any choice on this project. Most likely the leadership forced it on them. WB wanted badly a GaaS game and probably the woke theme idea belongs to them too.
Madserb2023
Member
I have sympathy for anyone who lost their job who didn't want to make the game. I am sure many knew it was a rotten idea from the start. For all those who imposed this on everyone else, you deserve it. Sadly, if it's like any company I have worked for, the ones responsible are rarely the ones who lose their jobs. They normally just pin it on the cleaner.
Dazraell
Member
Yeah, a lot of key devs who worked on these games are no longer there lol???
Am I missing something?
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Rocksteady employees just got their pay stubs frozen.
StereoVsn
Gold Member
Yep, Harley is the only somewhat popular (B tier) character there and the source of popularity was going along Joker’s craziness and her being somewhat hot.
Take away Joker and make the character look meh, and Harley is not a draw of interest anymore. But I am sure WB’s equity consultants told them that modern audience will lap it all up.
Well, except there is no mythical modern audience, lol.
Bernardougf
Member
Oh so they forced them to do this ?
Edit: and even if they were forced, and I dont believe for a second they were, the problem dosent change.
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Bernardougf
Member
Yes..A dev team not fucked by DEI practices.???
Am I missing something?
arkhamguy123
Member
It’s gotta be all at this point right? Who’s even left? Nick Ardunal the composer is still there (for now) but alllll the Arkham writers and gameplay guys and directors are gone to my knowledge
peek
Member
Nah, the entire studio should be closed after that disastrous launch. Or at least just sold off to some other publisher. Complete failure AND it actively hurts the brand. I legit wont buy a game made by them in the future, unless it goes above and beyond like x100.
Mokus
Member
In life often you have to do things you don't like.Oh so they forced them to do this ?
Edit: and even if they were forced, and I dont believe for a second they were, the problem dosent change.
And yes you are right, the problem doesn't change. Rocksteady while is not closed, it's a doomed company. WB will send their own guy to boss around the employees without understanding the video game industry.
CuckooBananaNuts
Banned
Oh so they forced them to do this ?
Edit: and even if they were forced, and I dont believe for a second they were, the problem dosent change.
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Quasicat
Member
I don’t know about this particular state, but Ohio is a Right to Work state which means they can let you go for any reason they want.
I thought this was happening everywhere. I work for a public school and we had 25% of the district let go due to budget cuts. One of the people cut literally had a baby a few days before finding out she was let go. As they mentioned in the article, the remaining staff have to shoulder the rest of the work…it’s not like our enrollment dropped when they cut the staff.
At least in education and the gaming industry, this is happening everywhere.
CherryFalls
Banned
the studio turned into a lgbt activist studio rather than a game company, so its time to shut it down.
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Cyberpunkd
Member
Saiyan-Rox
Member
You mean making a shit game that doesn't sell and that no one wanted has consequences?
No way
No way
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
When you're so adversarial to your audience, why would you expect your game to perform or for people to be sympathetic to the consequences of that?
From top to bottom (not just the DEI angle), this was a mess that felt designed to be actively antagonistic to gamers. Mission accomplished, I guess?
From top to bottom (not just the DEI angle), this was a mess that felt designed to be actively antagonistic to gamers. Mission accomplished, I guess?
Buggy Loop
Member
Fire the nerdy white male cis gender devs
Keep the blue/purple hair LGBTQ^2++
What could go wrong?
Keep the blue/purple hair LGBTQ^2++
What could go wrong?
semiconscious
Member
yep. 'rocksteady' in name only (unfortunately)...
Kenneth Haight
Gold Member
poodaddy
Gold Member
Sucks to hear QA got the big axe first when we know they didn't have a damn bit to do with how bad the general story and vibe turned out. They were more than likely just quiet nerds who were doing their job; the people who deserve to be fired are the writers, scenario designers, combat designers, and all project leads other than art.
I really think the industry needs to scrap the whole “our games is secret, nobody can know about it until we’re 4-5 years deep in dev”. Announce it early and show it early, like they do with films. That way you can gauge interest. If you announce it any everyone screams “THIS IS AN AWFUL IDEA!!!”, you have a chance to rethink before spending the best part of a decade and hundreds of millions.
If the initial announcement is mixed, then you show it off and people are “LMFAO, this looks terrible, what the hell are you thinking with xyz” , but you’re only 2 years deep, you still have time to fix it. Everything I’ve read suggests suicide squad was a troubled development and went through several redo’s along the way anyhow, but all of that was done in complete secrecy, none of those versions met public critique (maybe the public response to one of those would have been better).
Concord is ofcourse another example. If they hadn’t made the whole thing and 8 years in a bubble, and shown it much sooner people outside their bubble could have said “this is terrible, you will lose hundreds of millions if you don’t make big changes”. This would have been blindingly obvious by YouTube dislike rates etc.
Release early, listen to the masses, and put particular weight on the opinions of the core demographics of the genre, not small echo chambers, and people who are a minority demographic for the game you’re trying to make. It’s really not rocket science, but we keep seeing these massive companies making very very similar mistakes in both games and film, and consistently losing vast sums of money.
If the initial announcement is mixed, then you show it off and people are “LMFAO, this looks terrible, what the hell are you thinking with xyz” , but you’re only 2 years deep, you still have time to fix it. Everything I’ve read suggests suicide squad was a troubled development and went through several redo’s along the way anyhow, but all of that was done in complete secrecy, none of those versions met public critique (maybe the public response to one of those would have been better).
Concord is ofcourse another example. If they hadn’t made the whole thing and 8 years in a bubble, and shown it much sooner people outside their bubble could have said “this is terrible, you will lose hundreds of millions if you don’t make big changes”. This would have been blindingly obvious by YouTube dislike rates etc.
Release early, listen to the masses, and put particular weight on the opinions of the core demographics of the genre, not small echo chambers, and people who are a minority demographic for the game you’re trying to make. It’s really not rocket science, but we keep seeing these massive companies making very very similar mistakes in both games and film, and consistently losing vast sums of money.
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SidViscous
Member
Feels like they are missing the point if it's mostly QA, to weed the rot out they should be gutting the writing and design staff.
MacReady13
Member
Belittle your characters. Change your characters into something they originally were NOT created as. Pander to the lowest common denominator. I mean seriously, when will these companies realise that gamers, the LARGE majority of us, are NOT lqbthudbu+ pronouns fuckwits who are just social justice warriors. We just want to play games with good stories, with characters we can appreciate without bullshit thrown in to appease the tiniest of tiny twitter fuckheads who make a big stink over nothing!? When does it all end?
Anyway, fuck all these idiots. I'm sad when anyone loses their job, especially people with families but what did they think was going to happen? Create games we WANT to play. Stop pandering and get back to basics you fucking idiots! Read the room fools. Stop pandering to these idiots and you can make money.
Anyway, fuck all these idiots. I'm sad when anyone loses their job, especially people with families but what did they think was going to happen? Create games we WANT to play. Stop pandering and get back to basics you fucking idiots! Read the room fools. Stop pandering to these idiots and you can make money.
KungFucius
King Snowflake
Because the devs working in the trenches chose to make a GaaS game that nobody wanted? Leadership failed here at every level and most of them are probably going to keep their jobs.
Physiognomonics
Member
Day is still young.
Or even a remaster of their best batman. Or even something unoriginal like Batman arkham Asylum 2 would have been a hit.
Evil Calvin
Afraid of Boobs
She was getting paid either way. She will likely get a severance like everyone else. It's not like she's working anyway....
NoLootBoxDev
Member
coming soon to
