Ah yes, the parents shit the bed, so they throw the kids out. Great management there, shitheads.
They got their patents, they could care less about the meatspace issues.
Since Ubisoft introduced us to the term AAAA game with Skull and Bones, my attempt at giving an actual, solid definition to differentiate a AAA game from a AAAA game has had this as a fundamental aspect:
The game gets stuck in development hell, analagous to a movie that keeps needing reshoots and rewrites, and ends up requiring so much money thrown at chasing the sunk cost fallacy that it negatively impacts not only its own development, but impacts the development of other games by the same studio/publisher, and/or the overall financial solvency / employment headcount of the overarching parent company.
Basically, what a AAAA game actually is, is analagous to a bank or large corporation that is Too Big To Fail… but video game companies largely are not going to be bailed out by the government.
So, by that metric, we’ve got:
Skull and Bones
Concord
Suicide Squad
If you go back further in gaming history, you could probably find more games that fit typical AAA criteria (Large-Huge numbers of actual developers, aiming at a high level of graphical fidelity, financed by a large corporate publisher that controls a plethora of studios, all these measured relative to the timeframe of development)…
… and then also hits the AAAA criteria, that the development drags on forever, a sunk cost fallacy mindset sets in amongst management, management then gets high on its own supply, and the game draws in so many manpower and financial resources that it endangers entire other projects and teams not directly connected to this particular game’s development if this Too Big To Fail game does actually fail.
Star Citizen perhaps?
Although I personally think it’s basically more of an outright scam than a “too big too fail” game.
They’re already getting paid, there is no fail there
Star Citizen is certainly a gigantic ongoing delusion/scam of development hell…
But it doesn’t really meet the sort of ‘internal corporate contagion’ criteria, it won’t directly tank non Star Citizen teams or games.
While they have contracted out development work at various points… its not a giant conglomerate of different studios working on different projects.
If it finally liquidates and goes tits up, it only kills Star Citizen, and maybe Chris has to sell his yacht or w/e.
Star Citizen is its own special kind of nonsense.
So, are they going to learn anything or just do it right again?
According to the article, Rocksteady’s placed back on single player games and WB is planning on focusing on their main moneymaking IPs.
So there’s a chance something good might come out in a few years, but a lot of the old people seem to have left. Decision-making departments might be lacking experienced leaders and this might end up causing hiccups.
I’d say someone did learn something from this, but it might be too little, too late.
Can they even afford to do it again?
