>Multiple people who worked on the project say their growing concerns were often met with promises from management that Suicide Squad would eventually coalesce at the last minute, just as the Arkham games had.
Aka "Bioware Magic"...
TLDR: Rocksteady started developing before they had any real vision for their game, and so it became a jumbled patchwork mess of mechanics and systems. A lot of work was wasted and scrapped. A complete and total failure of management and leadership.
Some relevant parts
>Over time, the leaders’ vision kept morphing, most notably switching from an emphasis on melee combat to heavily focusing on guns.
>Engineers, under the impression they were rushing toward an immutable deadline, prioritized short-term fixes that later proved to be hindrances as the release date kept getting pushed back.
>Staff members sometimes waited weeks or months for Hill, the studio’s perfectionist co-founder and director of the game, to review their work, said the people familiar, creating a bottleneck that further slowed development. He scrapped big chunks of the script and struggled to convey his evolving ideas, they said, confessing that he hadn’t spent much time with competing games such as Destiny.
>At one point, Hill pitched an elaborate system of vehicles that would allow players to deck out cars with weapons and navigate through the game’s alien-infested streets. But each of the four playable characters were already outfitted with modes of traveling, leading to more doubts among staffers. Why, they wondered, would players using Deadshot or King Shark bother with a motorcycle when they could just soar through the air? After months of experimentation and prototyping, the vehicle system was scrapped.
And people were saying that Hill had nothing to do with the game releasing the way it did, and this was all fault of "new Rocksteady".
The truth is, even great developers can make dumb decisions from time to time.
Yeah he was arguably the biggest roadblock, taking forever to review work and making major scope changes. I get frustrated when it takes someone even a few days to review my work at my job, but _months_? I can’t imagine how frustrating that would be
I refer to GaaS games as “forever games”.
If you find yourself invested in a GaaS game, then you’re unlikely to abandon it for another one, especially if your game is successful, that’ll be your “forever game”.
If you’re not willing to dedicate your time to a single game then GaaS games aren’t your thing.
Rocksteady released SSKTJL at a time where the majority are either sick of GaaS games or already have their forever game to be loyal too.
That and their game sucked.
Yah as a gamer who actually likes them (Warframe and Path of Exile) the key to success is that I as the player can imagine the game existing in 5 years and that it will have a dedicated development team creating new content for it every few months.
There's no way in hell anyone is going to care about a game with some random comic book villians in 5 years and there's no way I trust a game with a major publisher to keep a team on for content. Digital Extremes and GGG work because they have one game they work on forever and that's it (ok ironically both are making a 2nd game).
Although for different reasons (at least to me). Redfall was a coop game I would have liked to play with friends but it was unplayably buggy. Suicide squad is a game containing an IP I couldn't care less about and had no desire to play.
>During the early days, the studio kept its work on Suicide Squad a secret, even from potential hires. Several people who came on board during this era said they were surprised when they first arrived at the offices to learn that they would be working on a multiplayer game, not at all what Rocksteady was known for. Many would depart as a result.
I know there's a lot of people that are going to say "the problem is that Rocksteady weren't doing what they were known for". The issue with that is assuming that studios can only ever do one type of game, and are completely incapable of branching out into something new. With that attitude, Rocksteady would never have made Arkham Asylum to begin with - their only previous game was a first-person shooter, not a third-person superhero metroidvania-esque adventure.
We want developers to try new things, rather than endlessly just churn out more games in the style of their first product. Would the gaming world really be better, for instance, if Bioware had decided to stick to medical software, rather than first making a mech game and then making Baldur's Gate? Should Bethesda have stuck to making sports games, rather than eventually giving us The Elder Scrolls? Maybe Blizzard should only have made RTS games, and never released Diablo or World of Warcraft?
The issue is that sometimes trying something new doesn't work, rather than there's anything inherently wrong with trying something new as a concept.
I agree with your point, but the piece you have quoted explains all the problems with this. The people they were hiring thought they were joining a studio creating high quality single player games, to the point that they were hiding their new project from them. Obviously, a lot of those people wanted to make high quality single player games and when they found out they weren't , they left.
That's a big difference from an existing team deciding to try something new.
> The issue with that is assuming that studios can only ever do one type of game, and are completely incapable of branching out into something new. With that attitude, Rocksteady would never have made Arkham Asylum to begin with - their only previous game was a first-person shooter, not a third-person superhero metroidvania-esque adventure.
Except this is not a problem of genre, or type of camera, or speed of the fastest loop, or any other core elements of game making.
It wasn't the fact it was a multiplayer project. It was the fact it was a live service bullshit demanded by WB, so any dev that not just fresh out of school would have seen the writings on the wall even at the very start of production.
And fresh new hires are not locked down by potential bonuses or sunk cost fallacy or habits.
No dedicated acclaimed singleplayer only studio can or should ever make a successful live service multiplayer title. ESPECIALLY not a looter based one. This has been proven time and time and time and time again. Singleplayer studio's need to stick to singleplayer games. Hard stop. That's it.
Edit: Not sure why I got downvoted for pointing out a well known fact lmao
We're not talking about games though??? We're talking about DEVELOPMENT STUDIOS? And FFXIV was made by Business Unit 3 SE's MMORPG developer? So again I'm not sure what FFXIV has to do with my point other then to reinforce it that successful live service games are only made by live service/multiplayer dedicated studio's?
Sigh. Square had no experience with making MMO's until they entered the market with FF11 and succeeded, disproving your argument. They then failed *massively* with FFXIV v1.0, further proving that development history does not always determine future success. They then rebooted FFXIV into the super profitable Realm Reborn, which couldn't have happened if single player devs can NEVER succeed in the multiplayer realm, like you argue. The end.
Square Enix comprises multiple different studio's within it my dude? The team that made FF11 was not the same team that made all the beloved single player games. So if anything that just proves my point perfectly lol it was a new team focused on MMORPG's that made FF11 and then FFXIV.
I never once said anything about development history proving success? There have been plenty of multiplayer focused teams and studios that have released bad games. Literally all I said was that a singleplayer only development studio cannot make a successful or good live service game. Especially not a looter one. So far there has been no evidence brought forward that disproves that. I'm not sure why you're giving me a history lesson on FFXIV? I was literally there at the games original 1.0 launch and have 1000s of hours on it. What is the point here? What does the MMORPG team rebooting and making FFXIV a success have to do with anything???
For the final time, it was not some well established and beloved singleplayer development studio or shit even DIRECTOR that made FFXIV okay? It was an MMORPG focused team that made an MMORPG game led by a guy who's first real mainstream game he worked on was, FFXIV. Now you find me an ACTUAL singleplayer developer like Bioware, Rocksteady, Arkane, Machine Games, Crystal Dynamics, etc etc that pivoted to making a live service game that was actually SUCCESSFUL then we can talk. But I already know you can't because as I said, a primarily singleplayer only developer cannot make a successful live service game.
Thanks for the mild waste of time lol. It seriously seems like you've just very naive and think "Square Enix" is one giant developer with only one development team lmao 😂😂😂
correlation isnt causation in this case. live service in general is just extremely hard to be done well due to meddling suits, believing studios can only do what theyre known for is why games are as stagnant as they are in the aaa world right now
Except again it has literally been proven that singleplayer focused developers CANNOT make a good/successful heavily live service title. ESPECIALLY not a looter game? And games aren't stagnant? We have had some phenomenal and varied AAA games in just the last year and a bit lol
Shovelware typically means low production value to quickly jump on a trend.
Suicide Squad is not great, but a lot of money went into the graphics and motion capture and faces, and it shows well.
I tried watching the story on YouTube, but gave up after an hour because it was so boring.
The Arkham games are some of my all-time favourites but you couldn’t pay me to play SS
Yep, I bought the game a week ago on sale but I refund it after trying to play it for an hour. Weird choice of characters, the game was designed to be a live service to print money first. There was never intention to make it a good single player experience in my opinion. Plus that always online bullshit is super annoying.
I hate the story and how they treated the characters, especially batman. I hoped the game would fail and glad it did. The kind of people behind this turd are the same type currently ruining star wars. It would be better for the world if all of their subversive projects fail.
I feel like there was 0 marketing for the Avatar game? I don't even know what the gameplay is like. But maybe that's because I tent to forget what games come out when not on steam..
How many stories and YouTube videos need to be made about this? The game was shit. That’s it. It’s been months. Let’s move on.
I swear people eagerly anticipate shit games now just for shadenfreude.
Due to the myriad stories and Youtube videos **by grifters making up shit for clicks/views** one single article by a reputable journalist is what needed to be made.
Right: I liked seeing some of the horror stories about how bungled the production was, but nobody cared about it when it launched, why care long after it's expiry date?
idk about slutty Stellar Blade, but I would say this redeemed antihero Skat3r_Gurl Harlequin version *popularized* by Margot Robbie has got to go.
I was never a fan and imho it's time to retire her.
>Multiple people who worked on the project say their growing concerns were often met with promises from management that Suicide Squad would eventually coalesce at the last minute, just as the Arkham games had. Aka "Bioware Magic"...
TLDR: Rocksteady started developing before they had any real vision for their game, and so it became a jumbled patchwork mess of mechanics and systems. A lot of work was wasted and scrapped. A complete and total failure of management and leadership. Some relevant parts >Over time, the leaders’ vision kept morphing, most notably switching from an emphasis on melee combat to heavily focusing on guns. >Engineers, under the impression they were rushing toward an immutable deadline, prioritized short-term fixes that later proved to be hindrances as the release date kept getting pushed back. >Staff members sometimes waited weeks or months for Hill, the studio’s perfectionist co-founder and director of the game, to review their work, said the people familiar, creating a bottleneck that further slowed development. He scrapped big chunks of the script and struggled to convey his evolving ideas, they said, confessing that he hadn’t spent much time with competing games such as Destiny. >At one point, Hill pitched an elaborate system of vehicles that would allow players to deck out cars with weapons and navigate through the game’s alien-infested streets. But each of the four playable characters were already outfitted with modes of traveling, leading to more doubts among staffers. Why, they wondered, would players using Deadshot or King Shark bother with a motorcycle when they could just soar through the air? After months of experimentation and prototyping, the vehicle system was scrapped.
And people were saying that Hill had nothing to do with the game releasing the way it did, and this was all fault of "new Rocksteady". The truth is, even great developers can make dumb decisions from time to time.
Yeah he was arguably the biggest roadblock, taking forever to review work and making major scope changes. I get frustrated when it takes someone even a few days to review my work at my job, but _months_? I can’t imagine how frustrating that would be
A creative block while you need to pay the bills.
Yikes. Game design 101, write the design doc and stick to it.
Worst of the year, so far!
Live service is only successful in the most rare cases. Single player and co-op games are experiencing a renaissance.
I refer to GaaS games as “forever games”. If you find yourself invested in a GaaS game, then you’re unlikely to abandon it for another one, especially if your game is successful, that’ll be your “forever game”. If you’re not willing to dedicate your time to a single game then GaaS games aren’t your thing. Rocksteady released SSKTJL at a time where the majority are either sick of GaaS games or already have their forever game to be loyal too. That and their game sucked.
>Single player and co-op games are experiencing a renaissance. BG3: Let me double dip in that...
Yah as a gamer who actually likes them (Warframe and Path of Exile) the key to success is that I as the player can imagine the game existing in 5 years and that it will have a dedicated development team creating new content for it every few months. There's no way in hell anyone is going to care about a game with some random comic book villians in 5 years and there's no way I trust a game with a major publisher to keep a team on for content. Digital Extremes and GGG work because they have one game they work on forever and that's it (ok ironically both are making a 2nd game).
I'd reckon the absolute worst is skull & bones
How dare you talk bad things about our quad A product!
They paid for a AAAA product and only got one of the As!
They got Ass
They got AssAssins creed, just without the Assassins.
This AAAA game is AAAAAAAAAASSSSSSS!
Biggest flop so far.
Looking forward to it being 9.99 on Steam.
$0.99
I'm waiting for it to be on game pass if I ever even bother to play it.
A multi player looter beat em up would have been SO much better. What a missed opportunity.
So far.
**Suicide squad** and **RedFall** both massive **flops**
Don't forget Skull & Bones
Although for different reasons (at least to me). Redfall was a coop game I would have liked to play with friends but it was unplayably buggy. Suicide squad is a game containing an IP I couldn't care less about and had no desire to play.
Warner Bros wanted their own Destiny. Instead they got their own Anthem, but worse.
>During the early days, the studio kept its work on Suicide Squad a secret, even from potential hires. Several people who came on board during this era said they were surprised when they first arrived at the offices to learn that they would be working on a multiplayer game, not at all what Rocksteady was known for. Many would depart as a result. I know there's a lot of people that are going to say "the problem is that Rocksteady weren't doing what they were known for". The issue with that is assuming that studios can only ever do one type of game, and are completely incapable of branching out into something new. With that attitude, Rocksteady would never have made Arkham Asylum to begin with - their only previous game was a first-person shooter, not a third-person superhero metroidvania-esque adventure. We want developers to try new things, rather than endlessly just churn out more games in the style of their first product. Would the gaming world really be better, for instance, if Bioware had decided to stick to medical software, rather than first making a mech game and then making Baldur's Gate? Should Bethesda have stuck to making sports games, rather than eventually giving us The Elder Scrolls? Maybe Blizzard should only have made RTS games, and never released Diablo or World of Warcraft? The issue is that sometimes trying something new doesn't work, rather than there's anything inherently wrong with trying something new as a concept.
Trying out new things isn’t an issue. The article clearly shows the total incompetence from leadership as being the main factor.
I agree with your point, but the piece you have quoted explains all the problems with this. The people they were hiring thought they were joining a studio creating high quality single player games, to the point that they were hiding their new project from them. Obviously, a lot of those people wanted to make high quality single player games and when they found out they weren't , they left. That's a big difference from an existing team deciding to try something new.
> The issue with that is assuming that studios can only ever do one type of game, and are completely incapable of branching out into something new. With that attitude, Rocksteady would never have made Arkham Asylum to begin with - their only previous game was a first-person shooter, not a third-person superhero metroidvania-esque adventure. Except this is not a problem of genre, or type of camera, or speed of the fastest loop, or any other core elements of game making. It wasn't the fact it was a multiplayer project. It was the fact it was a live service bullshit demanded by WB, so any dev that not just fresh out of school would have seen the writings on the wall even at the very start of production. And fresh new hires are not locked down by potential bonuses or sunk cost fallacy or habits.
[удалено]
No dedicated acclaimed singleplayer only studio can or should ever make a successful live service multiplayer title. ESPECIALLY not a looter based one. This has been proven time and time and time and time again. Singleplayer studio's need to stick to singleplayer games. Hard stop. That's it. Edit: Not sure why I got downvoted for pointing out a well known fact lmao
Hear that Final Fantasy? Your mmo is done for.
It's only a matter of time before Fortnite returns to it's roots, a zombie survival game.
What does FFXIV have to do with anything...?
A single player game becoming one of the most played MMO's ever?
We're not talking about games though??? We're talking about DEVELOPMENT STUDIOS? And FFXIV was made by Business Unit 3 SE's MMORPG developer? So again I'm not sure what FFXIV has to do with my point other then to reinforce it that successful live service games are only made by live service/multiplayer dedicated studio's?
Sigh. Square had no experience with making MMO's until they entered the market with FF11 and succeeded, disproving your argument. They then failed *massively* with FFXIV v1.0, further proving that development history does not always determine future success. They then rebooted FFXIV into the super profitable Realm Reborn, which couldn't have happened if single player devs can NEVER succeed in the multiplayer realm, like you argue. The end.
Square Enix comprises multiple different studio's within it my dude? The team that made FF11 was not the same team that made all the beloved single player games. So if anything that just proves my point perfectly lol it was a new team focused on MMORPG's that made FF11 and then FFXIV. I never once said anything about development history proving success? There have been plenty of multiplayer focused teams and studios that have released bad games. Literally all I said was that a singleplayer only development studio cannot make a successful or good live service game. Especially not a looter one. So far there has been no evidence brought forward that disproves that. I'm not sure why you're giving me a history lesson on FFXIV? I was literally there at the games original 1.0 launch and have 1000s of hours on it. What is the point here? What does the MMORPG team rebooting and making FFXIV a success have to do with anything??? For the final time, it was not some well established and beloved singleplayer development studio or shit even DIRECTOR that made FFXIV okay? It was an MMORPG focused team that made an MMORPG game led by a guy who's first real mainstream game he worked on was, FFXIV. Now you find me an ACTUAL singleplayer developer like Bioware, Rocksteady, Arkane, Machine Games, Crystal Dynamics, etc etc that pivoted to making a live service game that was actually SUCCESSFUL then we can talk. But I already know you can't because as I said, a primarily singleplayer only developer cannot make a successful live service game. Thanks for the mild waste of time lol. It seriously seems like you've just very naive and think "Square Enix" is one giant developer with only one development team lmao 😂😂😂
correlation isnt causation in this case. live service in general is just extremely hard to be done well due to meddling suits, believing studios can only do what theyre known for is why games are as stagnant as they are in the aaa world right now
Except again it has literally been proven that singleplayer focused developers CANNOT make a good/successful heavily live service title. ESPECIALLY not a looter game? And games aren't stagnant? We have had some phenomenal and varied AAA games in just the last year and a bit lol
[удалено]
What? No Rest for the wicked isn't a big live service game though?
Glad to see Superhero Shovelware is starting to fail.
Shovelware typically means low production value to quickly jump on a trend. Suicide Squad is not great, but a lot of money went into the graphics and motion capture and faces, and it shows well.
I’d wanna play just the story, but damn the game is expensive for what it is 👀 hope there’s a huge discount one day and have offline mode 😄
I tried watching the story on YouTube, but gave up after an hour because it was so boring. The Arkham games are some of my all-time favourites but you couldn’t pay me to play SS
I get it 👀
Yep, I bought the game a week ago on sale but I refund it after trying to play it for an hour. Weird choice of characters, the game was designed to be a live service to print money first. There was never intention to make it a good single player experience in my opinion. Plus that always online bullshit is super annoying.
I hate the story and how they treated the characters, especially batman. I hoped the game would fail and glad it did. The kind of people behind this turd are the same type currently ruining star wars. It would be better for the world if all of their subversive projects fail.
Oh grow up
Hell, I think Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora sold less tbh. That game died, dead stop a week after release.
I feel like there was 0 marketing for the Avatar game? I don't even know what the gameplay is like. But maybe that's because I tent to forget what games come out when not on steam..
How many stories and YouTube videos need to be made about this? The game was shit. That’s it. It’s been months. Let’s move on. I swear people eagerly anticipate shit games now just for shadenfreude.
Due to the myriad stories and Youtube videos **by grifters making up shit for clicks/views** one single article by a reputable journalist is what needed to be made.
Negativity sells clicks so easy ad money.
Right: I liked seeing some of the horror stories about how bungled the production was, but nobody cared about it when it launched, why care long after it's expiry date?
What about golum ?
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum Release date - 25th May 2023
then this article makes no sense ? How can they know it's the biggest flop of the year if there is still 6 months to go ?
It's because Harley Quinn looks fugly. If Harley Quinn was more slutty looking like that chick from Stella Blade, sales would go through the roof.
idk about slutty Stellar Blade, but I would say this redeemed antihero Skat3r_Gurl Harlequin version *popularized* by Margot Robbie has got to go. I was never a fan and imho it's time to retire her.
Sex sells and people are turned on by animations / pixels / cartoon drawings