You guys know Bethesda owns Arkane, so they can make them do whatever they want them to do. During production of Dishonored, Bethesda started to arbitrarily reject milestones. In doing so, the then-independent-Arkane had to find ways to pay their staff since successful milestones are what feeds the bank. Knowing that Arkane wasn't making their milestones on time and potentially going to suffer internally, such as loosing staff, or ultimately shutting down, Bethesda's parent company Zenimax stepped in to help Arkane out by floating them loans during this "quality issue" period. That seemed nice of Zenimax to help out Arkane, right?
Now since Bethesda had been rejecting milestones because they didn't believe Arkane was maintaining the quality they originally promised, Arkane's also severely behind schedule because time has been spent correctly and addressing Bethesda's issues with previously rejected milestones.
Since Zenimax is also the company that's invested in Bethesda, they start telling Arkane they have serious concerns about their ability to finish the Dishonored. Even though they originally floating them loans to keep Arkane running, they now give them an ultimatum: pay back the loans or sell them the studio for some piddly amount. If Arkane doesn't do either, then Zenimax will take them court for breach of contract since they're now so far behind in the project.
Remember, it's because Zenimax's company Bethesda has been rejecting milestones that put Arkane behind in the first place.
The outcome is Arkane reluctantly sold their independence to Zenimax so they could continue the creative work they started and at the very least have public recognition for their efforts.
This is why Bethesda can tell Arkane to do whatever they want them to do now.
What would you do if you were making Prey 2 and started wondering why Bethesda was suddenly treating you differently? You'd start looking at past independent developers Bethesda has had deals with to understand if it's a developer issue or a publisher issue. When you discover Bethesda started to reject milestones at not only Arkane, but Splash Damage and inXile, you start to see a pattern. Knowing the fate of Arkane, if you were the Prey 2 developer would just sit there and see what happens or would you confront the publisher?
Human Head has their own version of idTech. This is the only version that supports open world gameplay. Arkane on the other hand only has experience with Unreal. Because of these differences the project has to be restarted. There's no way it'll ever be what Human Head created, since Bethesda doesn't have source code for Prey 2. Even if they did, it would take them months to decipher it and I can't imagine Human Head cheerfully helping them out.
Also, it's going to cost Bethesda 10x more to have a different company do anything with Prey 2 than let Human Head finish it. The only developer they own which has the man-power and lower costs to make Prey 2 is Arkane Austin. Machine Games might have been a possible candidate but we know they're now working on Wolfenstein. Any other independent developer would either scoff at the low-ball figure Bethesda was offering or simply not have the experience to pull it off after some trial run. With Arkane, they can at least point to similar game mechanics despite being a completely different beast under the hood.
A few years ago Zenimax received a large investment to acquire talent. I think it was $150 million or something. When you have a board of directors that include Jerry Bruckheimer and Donald Trump's brother as well as the original investors who want Zenimax to "acquire talent", then you're going to have members asking why Zenimax isn't making money outside of their core Bethesda studio (Scrolls and Fallout).
Since Zenimax botched Demon's Forge with inXile and Brink with Splash Damage, they had to bank on Arkane's Dishonored and Human Head's Prey 2. Arkane is what is today because of Bethesda. Dishonored is a success because of its original creators. Prey 2 is a strange IP though, since it was Bethesda's only sequel at the time and previously owned by the Radar Group. Doom 4 has had its own issues. Wolfenstein wasn't even known about when Prey 2 started having whatever happened to it.
Both Doom 4 and Wolfenstein's rights were purchased along with iD Software. There's no reverting of ownership after no use. Prey 2 on the other hand could revert back to the Radar Group if it's not used by a certain time or declared cancelled.
It could be Zenimax realized they were caught with their hand in the cookie jar with Human Head from a legal standpoint and it created some sort of stalemate. Zenimax's CEO is Robert Altman who was previously a lawyer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Altman. Maybe there's some period of time they were waiting out to legally do something else with Prey 2. Or they just couldn't find a developer with the talent or time to do something with Prey 2 until now, since they obviously didn't want to work with Human Head anymore
Taken from a NeoGaff thread.
In my own opinion,Bethesda is one of the better publishers out there,but let's not paint the world of business as only black and white.
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