Bill Jones Ink: "Chicago’s gaming market to the casual observer may seem like something not simply in decline, rather all but dead. Sure, High Voltage Software is still alive in suburban Hoffman Estates with a newfound mobile focus. Wideload still exists under the ownership of Disney Interactive (though little news has come from the company since 2012’s Avengers Initiative). And NetherRealm still exists to churn out Mortal Kombat titles, while Jellyvision manages to keep our attention with reinventions of You Don’t Know Jack.
"But it is all a far cry from Chicago’s heyday of Midway Games/WB Games and EA Chicago.
"Yet, as anyone who attended this year’s Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo can attest, there is something arguably more interesting than ever going on in the city’s gaming scene. From the ruins of the behemoths, a new breed of indie developers have risen, eager to use their agility and creativity to craft a new wave of games and put Chicago back on the gaming map....
Headquartered in Poland, Elsewhere Entertainment — an all-new internal studio at Activision — is working on a new “narrative-based and genre-defining AAA franchise.” Elsewhere includes developers credited on The Last of Us, Uncharted, Destiny, Cyberpunk, and more. Activision’s new studio announcement comes just a week after its parent company, Microsoft, closed three Bethesda studios. It also follows job postings about a new Activision IP.
The game industry confuses, closing down proven studios only open a new studio?
It would certainly be strange if this news came from Bethesda, but Activision is its on monster.
To be fair, many Activision employees lost their jobs too during the the last few months. So it really is quite odd to see them opening another studio. All I can say is they better not do another mass layoff anytime soon or its just gonna piss everyone off. Studio description reminds me of The Initiative. The only saving grace is that they aren't claiming to be making a AAAA game lol. I guess we will check back in in 5 years to see how everything is going.
Replies(1)
@InUrFoxHole
Well, xbox was pretty adamant that Hi-Fi Rush was special, journalist and gamers seemed to agree and from my own personal experience I would say it was a great game. They also made Ghostwire: Tokyo, and the Evil Within series.
Yeah, then the head/lead of the company left...
No hope for a good Evil within game, ghost wire was not really successful,and HI-FI alone was not enough to keep an entire studio open.
@thesoftware730
I think the fact that this 'wasn't enough' is a problem wouldn't you concede?
Hi-Fi Rush was a great game regardless of who left and according to Aaron Greenberg,
"Hi-Fi RUSH was a break out hit for us and our players in all key measurements and expectations. We couldn’t be happier with what the team at Tango Gameworks delivered with this surprise release."
So of course they rewarded the team for their accomplishment by firing them. They have studios that have contributed much less that they haven't closed. It is going to be very difficult for any game to be successful when it goes straight to gamepass day one.
I think this is just a publicity stunt and that this studio never actually produces a game. Someone at Microsoft was like were getting cooked in the media after they closed these studios and they came up with a plan to create some dummy studio someplace outside of the reach of the English speaking presses reach to distract people.
"Oh hey we're not closing studios we're actually creating studios"
And of course what are they working on... the type of game that gets the most popular public perception a narrative driven story based game... ya know not the thing Activision and Microsoft are known for.
Replies(2)GamingFans6946m ago
They hired a bunch of people and opened a new studio for a publicity stunt?
Yea, they hired people... Who? "Oh, you know, people..." people who worked on TLOU Uncharted and Destiny of course...
It's the same crap they did with The Initiative where they were under fire for buying a bunch of studios and not forming anything except even more sketchy this time. Of course the The Initiative was formed with people mostly poached from PlayStation specifically Naughty Dog, then less than 12 months later almost everyone was back at Sony and The Initiative was rumored to have lost 80% of it's staff and the game they were working on was announced to actually be getting developed by Crystal Dynamics.
The way we need to look at these buzzwords is the same that we see when a sports team brings in the best athletes in their position in hopes to bring them to look like a superteam, only to barely win half of their games or lose in the first round of the playoffs. Sometimes superteams work, but when it doesn't it just makes you question how they can't take advantage of their abilities.
Xbox and EA have recently made baffling moves that define how bleak the future of the gaming industry is with major companies at the helm. Ryan Bates from "Last Word on Gaming" posits in this op-ed that maybe it's not ineptitude, but intention.
Name someone that isn't trying to look us these days maybe cdpr.
Take two, ubi and yes even PlayStation are pushing us to own nothing and be happy with our live service ad injected games on a sub so they can raise prices at will and take access away when they see fit.
If it keeps up I'll be a full time retro gamer and this industry will be crashing hard
As rediculas as it sounds we need government reforms to defend consumer rights
XCOM and Marvel's Midnight Suns director Jake Solomon has founded a new studio to make a life sim game. Here's a new interview with him.
Chicago's gaming industry is way too small considering.
Good ol' Chicago. 5th highest taxing, 11th highest unemployment. Their complete and utter partisanship sure does wonders.
I remember when they made Stubbs the Zombie. Shame that they only put out one "major core" title.