Free Radical just got dropped

[QUOTE="Zhengi"]

[QUOTE="surrealnumber5"] lol shoveware does not sell well enough to cover the costs associated with HD console game development. the game also would not have taken nearly as long or cost any where near the price if it were on the wii. even if it still flopped chances are they would still be alive. StryderK

I know he's trolling the Wii, but that just shows he has no idea how business is going on in the gaming industry. Shovelware isn't selling on the Wii and even if it were, it would not cover the costs of an HD bomb like Haze. HD development costs are just too high and any model advocating selling 500,000 to 1 million to break even is a bad, broken model. There will certainly be hits like Gears of War, Metal Gear Solid 4, and other games, but then you also get games like Haze, Too Human, Lair, Dead Space, and Mirror's Edge. All those big budget bombs are killing off these devs.

To give you a different perspective on things....

Now lemmings is all about, "OMG!!!! Look at how much million sellers on the X360! OMG! It's the good! OMG, you are earning MASSIVE $$$$! OMG 3rd party are the happy! OMG!!! I'm gonna cum!!!"

but look at it from the flip side, if you know you need to sell 1 million to earn a profit, what would be your reaction, probably something like this:

"Only 46 games sold 1 million out of how many games!!!! HOLY SHYT!!! The chances of success is THAT LOW! You are asking me to spend TAHT much money with no gurantee of success? Why am I doing this?!?!?!?!?"

This is the biggest reason why so many companies are folding! You have to bring that units sold = success lower or else!

Here's something for people to look at who want to blame this entirely on the economy.

Link here

If the economy were the problem, then the first thing to go down would be revenue for companies. Looking at the chart, one can see that the industry is on pace to set a new high in the last few years. We can reasonably conclude that most of the gains are offset by the cost of making these games and thus leading to many devs losing money. No way can this model be sensible.

Maybe a couple of them guys can go back to Rare though being with Rare, they will need to do better then Haze ! :PSecretPolice

The sad thing is that they went out with a wimper not even a bang.finalfantasy94

[QUOTE="EuroMafia"]No more Haze, lol, did you need to mention that?WasntAvailable

TS series > Most FPS games

So many memories (Not really), so many moments (Not really), so many emotions (Not really), so many tears (Not really), so many dam good times (Really).

Shame... I would have loved TS4. To me, TS series was one of the best FPS series in existance.Leejjohno

MarloStanfield

[QUOTE="Leejjohno"]Shame... I would have loved TS4. To me, TS series was one of the best FPS series in existance.gunswordfist

[QUOTE="Leejjohno"]Shame... I would have loved TS4. To me, TS series was one of the best FPS series in existance.gunswordfist

Oh hey... lol. Long time since I last visited any Unions tbh.

[QUOTE="gunswordfist"][QUOTE="Leejjohno"]Shame... I would have loved TS4. To me, TS series was one of the best FPS series in existance.Leejjohno

Oh hey... lol. Long time since I last visited any Unions tbh.

[QUOTE="zaid55"][QUOTE="gunswordfist"] Yes it was. Hey long time no see Lee.gunswordfist

Oh hey... lol. Long time since I last visited any Unions tbh.

Who?

[QUOTE="gunswordfist"] Really? Well I'm glad I found you. I just found another old friend a fe days ago. You wouldn't believe who it is.shadow_hosi

If the economy were the problem, then the first thing to go down would be revenue for companies. Looking at the chart, one can see that the industry is on pace to set a new high in the last few years. We can reasonably conclude that most of the gains are offset by the cost of making these games and thus leading to many devs losing money. No way can this model be sensible.

Zhengi

they make slightly more revenue, their games cost 3-4 times as much to make

[QUOTE="gunswordfist"] Really? Well I'm glad I found you. I just found another old friend a fe days ago. You wouldn't believe who it is.shadow_hosi

FBJ[QUOTE="shadow_hosi"][QUOTE="gunswordfist"] oooo who was it :Pshadow_hosi

Wii-route isn;t some magical solution that fixes this problem.AdrianWerner

bumping this thread because some Timesplitters 4 artwork just got released by one of the former employees. Enjoy!

*clip*

MarloStanfield

Wii-route isn;t some magical solution that fixes this problem. Because not only the costs of development are rising all the time, but so do the costs of marketing and those can be every bit as high on Wii as on HD consoles and second...next-gen Wii2 games will cost more to make than this-gen 360/ps3 ones anyway.AdrianWerner

But the difference here is that the costs of HD development are higher than the costs of Wii development. A flop on the Wii in terms of sales would not impact a company as much as a flop in sales on the HD consoles, given that everything else is equal. Also, there is the fact that the Wii userbase is larger than both the 360 and PS3, and very possibly surpassing both install bases combined next year. There is a lot of opportunity on the Wii right now while the 360 and PS3 are saturated at the moment.

So I'm not saying to abandon the 360 or PS3, but rather, for 3rd parties to diversify and bring good quality games to the Wii as well. It'll help their bottom line and it'll avoid so many devs going out of business.

FBJgunswordfist

Was the last inital Joker or something? I can't remember his name unfortunately.

An employee who wishes to remain anonymous wanted to set things straight to 1up. They said that contrary to reports, "Free Radical has *not* closed. There's still a skeleton crew of guys staying on maintaining business as usual, and nobody's been formally made redundant." It is believed that about 20 staff members are manning the fort in the company's four office buildings in Nottingham, with the remaining 160 or so being asked to stay at home.

The team remain hopeful that a solution can be reached and everything will be back to normal in the new year. Our source repeats, "They're not closed. The intention is, going forwards, that hopefully the skeleton crew can shock things back to life in the new year and things can ramp back up from there. But they are *not* out of business."

Free Radical went into administration on December 18. Administration is a process in the UK that a company which has become insolvent can choose instead of liquidation to continue running the business. The administration company acts in the interest of creditors and attempts to rescue its charge. ReSolve, the administration company tasked with rescuing Free Radical commented that it was "very confident" that a buyer could be found for the business if a decision is made to sell.

Officially, Free Radical Design is currently working on two games--TimeSplitters 4, and a secret LucasArts project rumored to be Star Wars Battlefront III (and also rumored to have been turned over to other UK dev Rebellion instead). However, our source implies that there may be more projects underway which have not yet been announced. They told 1up, "There's a number of cool projects in development--two of which are getting quite a lot of publisher interest already." It is not known if TimeSplitters 4, which the company has been working on for over a year, is one of these.

From the sound of it the fat lady hasn't even gotten out of bed yet for Free Radical, much less started to sing."

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3171987

There's still a shred of hope, guys!

>http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3171987

There's still a shred of hope, guys!

BioShockOwnz

It's damage control mate. Trust me, i'm from the UK and administration basically means it's over

The two founders have left to form a new startup taking 20 people with them. Artists are putting up Timesplitters 4 pictures up on the net and asking for jobs. 140 people have been asked to stay home

no-one will buy them because their games dont sell and their last game sucked. They have a reputation for being impossible to work with and they have alienated a ton of publishers

as for the star wars game, losing that to rebellion was the whole reason they got into this mess

[QUOTE="BioShockOwnz"]>http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3171987

There's still a shred of hope, guys!

MarloStanfield

It's damage control mate. Trust me, i'm from the UK and administration basically means it's over

The two founders have left to form a new startup taking 20 people with them. Artists are putting up Timesplitters 4 pictures up on the net and asking for jobs. 140 people have been asked to stay home

no-one will buy them because their games dont sell and their last game sucked. They have a reputation for being impossible to work with and they have alienated a ton of publishers

as for the star wars game, losing that to rebellion was the whole reason they got into this mess

It certainly doesn't look like an amazing prospect even after that article.

I loved Timesplitters 2+3

I think if Haze was multi platform, Free Radical may have had enough money to be able to release timespliters 4.

Although Timesplitters 4 was looking a bit lame because of the "Parodies" of other games.

They should stick to their own unique humour.

[QUOTE="AdrianWerner"]Wii-route isn;t some magical solution that fixes this problem. Because not only the costs of development are rising all the time, but so do the costs of marketing and those can be every bit as high on Wii as on HD consoles and second...next-gen Wii2 games will cost more to make than this-gen 360/ps3 ones anyway.Zhengi

But the difference here is that the costs of HD development are higher than the costs of Wii development. A flop on the Wii in terms of sales would not impact a company as much as a flop in sales on the HD consoles, given that everything else is equal. Also, there is the fact that the Wii userbase is larger than both the 360 and PS3, and very possibly surpassing both install bases combined next year. There is a lot of opportunity on the Wii right now while the 360 and PS3 are saturated at the moment.

So I'm not saying to abandon the 360 or PS3, but rather, for 3rd parties to diversify and bring good quality games to the Wii as well. It'll help their bottom line and it'll avoid so many devs going out of business.

[QUOTE="Zhengi"][QUOTE="AdrianWerner"]Wii-route isn;t some magical solution that fixes this problem. Because not only the costs of development are rising all the time, but so do the costs of marketing and those can be every bit as high on Wii as on HD consoles and second...next-gen Wii2 games will cost more to make than this-gen 360/ps3 ones anyway.thegoldenpoo

But the difference here is that the costs of HD development are higher than the costs of Wii development. A flop on the Wii in terms of sales would not impact a company as much as a flop in sales on the HD consoles, given that everything else is equal. Also, there is the fact that the Wii userbase is larger than both the 360 and PS3, and very possibly surpassing both install bases combined next year. There is a lot of opportunity on the Wii right now while the 360 and PS3 are saturated at the moment.

So I'm not saying to abandon the 360 or PS3, but rather, for 3rd parties to diversify and bring good quality games to the Wii as well. It'll help their bottom line and it'll avoid so many devs going out of business.

lol I just stole the name from your sig. I have no idea who General what's his name is. Anyway, cool Free Radical sig. Didn't you just have a Resistance sig?gunswordfist

oh, also. making HD games isnt killing devs, if it was PC devs would have all died off 10 years ago

[QUOTE="gunswordfist"]FBJLeejjohno

Was the last inital Joker or something? I can't remember his name unfortunately.

[QUOTE="gunswordfist"] lol I just stole the name from your sig. I have no idea who General what's his name is. Anyway, cool Free Radical sig. Didn't you just have a Resistance sig?shadow_hosi

oh, also. making HD games isnt killing devs, if it was PC devs would have all died off 10 years ago