Kotaku: Naughty Dog Laying Off Developers and Factions is shelved

Johnic

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Is that what happens when you make a SP studio work on a GaaS? ND needs new management and Sony needs to cut the GaaS crap and a MUCH bigger PR team.
 
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AllBizness

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Should have let Bungie and other MP oriented acquisitions to work on GaaS. And naughty dog to continue with single player games. Either linear cinematic or maybe pivot to an RPG.

I am sure this is all on druckmann. He must have thought he could do no wrong. But only few studios can master GaaS.
Druckmann said he has nothing to do with Factions 2, he even threw a little shade at it earlier this year at the game when he was being interviewed by the press regarding the TV show. He was adamant to make his point clear he did not work on the game. Ofcourse the idiotic gaming press did not pick up on it.
 
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Kokoloko

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Lol it's funny how you people have moved on to calling everything fake news. Even though Jason leaked TLOU remake before it came out and now this. He has legit sources in ND. Jim Ryan wasted years on turning TLOU into a failed GAAS game and have nothing to show for it. Sad to see this fanbase become just as delusional as Xbots when it comes to facing reality.

Jim Ryan didnt make ND do anything lol. It was the multiplayer team and ND wanted to make something more of Factions. TLOU2 came out, Id rather a Gaas version of TLOU ala RDR/GTA online or Destiny then TLOU3.

Some people get things right, Jason has sometimes but he also gets things wrong.

Why is it delusional to want to wait for official news instead of rumours that happen everyday? So we should jump on FF7 R coming to Gamepass?
Comparing it to Xbots who deny what is actually officially happening and following the lies of Phil Spencer isnt comparable to believing Kotaku rumour…
 

Bryank75

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Is that what happens when you make a SP studio work on a GaaS? ND needs new management and Soy need to cut the GaaS crap and a MUCH bigger PR team.

They always shoulda been kept separate... they had a great machine working away making blockbuster single player games and now they fucked up the momentum. They've cast doubt on the whole studio and morale is probably lower than it was before Factions got put on ice.

They should have never made a big announcement of 12 GAAS games in development, it set them up to look foolish when any of them fell through or failed.

Also the weird acquisitions and second party projects were more like gambling than a concrete thing that was definitely going to produce results....
Haven, Foresprite, Deviation and all the other projects of that ilk are things that don't excite me so far (from what ive seen) and have no strong history or culture that elevates PSStudios....

Two quality acquisitions would have been far better.... Bungie was quality and then add Square Enix, job done.

They would have had many GAAS from those two studios and also single player games with lots of culture and influence.

ND would have been untouched and free to make what they are good at.... but here we are.
 

Kokoloko

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That would be very reassuring to me, personally.

I need a few key changes and I have outlined them clearly before many times. (cancel PC ports, a strong single player focused acquisition, more single player exclusives, a focus on 3-4 GAAS rather than 10-12, better communication, better showcases and possibly a PSX event and a few other smaller things)

I agree. I dont think the 1st party is making 10-12 Gaas games though, hopefully not anyway. Maybe games like Helldivers 2 is included which isnt 1st party.
Personally, Id want one of ND teams to do a Gaas game, the best in action scenes, story telling and the gameplay in TLOU2 was fantastic, plus they made decent PVP modes.

Why not have one of your best on the genre. Look at what GTA online has done for Rockstar seriously. Now add ND’s story telling and attention to detail, better gunplay and more interesting universe in TLOU. ND hasnt failed me in a game before, I hope it works out and doesnt get the can
 
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Johnic

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Fucking up momentum is a perfect term to describe it. Once a great studio, screwed up by making shit, on top of having several studios dedicated to making nothing but that same shit.

PS needs new management. Get rid of Hulst too.
 
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Bryank75

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Fucking up momentum is a perfect term to describe it. Once a great studio, screwed up by making shit, on top of having several studios dedicated to making nothing but that same shit.

PS needs new management. Get rid of Hulst too.

He is a huge part of the problem too. I think he has very little interest in PlayStation and is more interested in pushing Guerrilla to the front of the line and getting deals for his friends at other studios in europe.

The amount of Horizon projects is getting to be a bit silly. (well it's on its way there)
 

Vertigo

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I am late on this, wtf happenened?

Doesn’t seem like we have much to go on at this moment.

I would expect Naughty Dog to have to address this drama on Twitter sooner than later. They should do it like … now tbh.
 
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Thunderstorm__

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I agree. I dont think the 1st party is making 10-12 Gaas games though, hopefully not anyway. Maybe games like Helldivers 2 is included which isnt 1st party.
Personally, Id want one of ND teams to do a Gaas game, the best in action scenes, story telling and the gameplay in TLOU2 was fantastic, plus they made decent PVP modes.

Why not have one of your best on the genre. Look at what GTA online has done for Rockstar seriously. Now add ND’s story telling and attention to detail, better gunplay and more interesting universe in TLOU. ND hasnt failed me in a game before, I hope it works out and doesnt get the can
And now look what happened to Rockstar. One game, onneeeeeee game, they only managed to make one god damn game last gen. No sequel to GTA for 10 years, no new IPs. The only thing that Rockstar games have left in them atm is their technicality. And while I can't deny that being technically marvel is still a huge achievement, game needs to be played, not just to be looked at. RDR2 shows how out of touch Rockstar is when it comes to game design. You can not have the best of both worlds.
 
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Calverz

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Disappointing
 
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ksdixon

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Make-up game: release MP as standalone digital game so we can keep just installed rather than full ps4 remastered game. Add locations from main game and dlc locations, and day/night variations. Gank the Player vs Player vs Infected AI learned from TLOU2 for new modes. Maybe do a final balance to perk costs and stuff. That's without just throwing more taunts and cosmetics in there each TLOU Day, or more guns/abilities.

As long as theres some way to do the classic 4v4 supply raid/survivor/interrogation modes, I don't understand why you cant have a division style overworld and just plonk compartmentalized story missions there. Call them Factions Stories or some shit, with Joel and Tommy narrating the intros about stories relayed to them from their hunter/firefly past, so that we have 4 customizable goobers. What is so advanced about what ND are doing coop/narratively for Factions Online, the first Factions still needs its support.
 

Kokoloko

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And now look what happened to Rockstar. One game, onneeeeeee game, they only managed to make one god damn game last gen. No sequel to GTA for 10 years, no new IPs. The only thing that Rockstar games have left in them atm is their technicality. And while I can't deny that being technically marvel is still a huge achievement, game needs to be played, not just to be looked at. RDR2 shows how out of touch Rockstar is when it comes to game design. You can not have the best of both worlds.

Just because Rockstar is successful with GTA and only made one in 10 years, doesn't mean ND or Sony would be the same about it.
There not the same company or work business the same.

RDR2 sold 50 million and rated well. Yes starting missions and such is out of touch but its more advanced in open world mechanics, NPC, attention to detail and voice acting etc than Horizon 2, Assassins Creed, or any open world game.

I dont know what shitting on Rockstar has to be with my point of them being successful anyway
 
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Imo, Last Guardian turned out fine for what it was.

It did, but you could also tell it was very much a game maligned with storied development history.

A lot of people are saying that. I'm hoping Jim and Herman also have someone outside Bungie looking at this to make sure they are not corrupted.

They were with Microsoft before afterall 😒

If that turns out to be the case, Sony could sue the ever-living crap out of Microsoft for corporate espionage and deceitful financial destabilization. Pretty sure those are crimes punishable by law.

So for Microsoft's case, they had hopefully better not done such a thing or been involved in it. I strongly doubt that's what has happened here, though.
 
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Gods&Monsters

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Yes. He was the only interesting part of TLoU.
I really liked Joel and Ellie. Best duo in gaming history. Now it's a big media franchise because people love these characters but they had to ruin it.

1 game. That's all we'll get 😭
 
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Factions 2 should've stayed part of the main game as a multiplayer mode. It was a mistake to try and make a full blown game out of it. It's not appealing to most of the audience, I never even touched the Factions mode in the 1st game.

Factions 2 should've stayed part of the main game as a multiplayer mode.

I never even touched the Factions mode in the 1st game.

Now keep reading those parts back to back.

You can probably start to see why ND maybe considered doing Factions 2 as a GaaS, IJS.

Again, of all the GaaS from Sony I expected to either be cancelled or severely put back, Factions 2 was at the bottom of that list. Seemed the most surefire to release somewhat soon (within a year from now), in time for Season 2 of the show.

That would be very reassuring to me, personally.

I need a few key changes and I have outlined them clearly before many times. (cancel PC ports, a strong single player focused acquisition, more single player exclusives, a focus on 3-4 GAAS rather than 10-12, better communication, better showcases and possibly a PSX event and a few other smaller things)

This would be the ideal strategy, alongside more 1P AA-sized games and leveraging legacy IP better.

Let's see what early 2024 brings.
 
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Loved Factions. Loved the idea of a bigger Factions. The gameplay loop is addictive and good enough to be supportive of a GAAS model game.

However, a GAAS structured game is foremost made to serve a transaction model akin to gambling.... preying on its addiction.....where the game is dissected and sectioned off into parts to serve this greater aim. If you don't start from the get go with this in mind, transforming a traditional MP game mode, like Factions into something akin to Destiny is gonna bring a lot of headaches and leech immense dev resources. Specially when it's not an add-on to a title, like all previous ND games, and instead a stand-alone game. Just look at the dev sizes for Bungie's Destiny team, or COD Warzone's team. ND pales in that manpower battle.

Unfortunate to hear. Mind you gossip about ND's "poor fortunes" has always been profitable clickbait for sites.
 
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nongkris

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Jim Ryan created this mess. Can we finally say he has been fired for good, not just retired? He is the ultimate boss of the company, I don‘t care if the stupid PC ports and GAAS have been lit before him, the fact that he embraced and pushed and these policies even further is telling enough. Here hoping the next CEO can disregard all the bullshits under Jim Ryan. The repercussion will not reveal itself until later this gen if the first party output remains atrocious while GAAS games keep coming out and get poor review. Similar to how Xbox 360 still sold even when the focus shifted to Kinect (albeit with less momentum). If the next CEO is not Japanese, we fans may be doomed and need to embrace Playstation’s dark age.
I'm pretty sure a Japanese CEO got us the trainwreck that is ps3 and the western CEO's brought us PS4, so I don't think the next CEO needs to be a specific nationality. They just need a CEO who is more game focused than hardware/port focused like Jim was. If they wanted more GAAS than bungie than they should've acquired more, not made their first party make that nonsense.
 

Danja

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I think Bruce Straley was probably the important element there, he was probably massively underrated / underappreciated.

He definitely had a positive influence on Druckmans writing for the first game.
Druckmann is all about Shock value and shallow use of it by using death.

Again same guy who wanted to kill Elena in Uncharted 2 until Amy Hennig had to step in and disagree.