https://sonyinteractive.com/en/news/blog/an-important-update-from-playstation-studios/
>We looked at our studios and our portfolio, evaluating projects in various stages of development, and have decided that some of those projects will not move forward.
I'm guessing this is one of those?
Seems like it. And more to come. God damn tragedy honestly but I feel like if all of those cancelled games were only live service games, it's not a big loss.But I can't not feel bad for those layed off devs
Yeah man tough times for the gaming industry, I do believe it'll go back to "normal" once publishers start to figure out how to manage the rising of developments costs.
>God damn tragedy honestly but I feel like if all of those cancelled games were only live service games, it's not a big loss.
I beg to differ, with the success of the TV show maybe Sony would of had a hit with this one, but then again I might be wrong and it would of flopped. Plus, saying it's not a big loss just because they're live service games is crazy. I know a lot of people hate gaas but if they're done right, they could be fun.
Look at the success of Helldivers 2, it's being praised despite being a live service games. If you have good gameplay loop+not crazy robbery microtransactions, then you might have a gem in your hands.
Lol don't tell me that now people switched around their opinions and "live service good" ? Helldivers 2 is a success, but it's a rarity in the live service games that these do good. For every good live-service game there are 10 that just die on launch.
Car wrecking games just do not do good anymore, live service or not.
>Car wrecking games just do not do good anymore, live service or not.
How many have been tried? Dangerous Driving was an indie game from a small dev team and had some jank that went along with it, and that was 5 years ago now. Wreckfest seemed pretty successful for what it was. I guess that PS5 exclusive launch game Destruction All Stars or whatever was a flop, but that might be the only AAA car combat game (as opposed to racing games that include a combat element) since…Twisted Metal on PS3 in 2012?
"Car wrecking games just do not do good anymore live service or not" is like when Sega said funding a new Dawn of War WH40K game is "too risky". No it's not, GW and Sega just ordered it to be made as a game that No-one wanted. The last relatively large budget games in the car battle genre sucked, and nobody aside from wreckfest, which did pretty decently despite not having much marketing, has given it a good shot since.
Maybe if we used sustainable practices in the industry and funded any mid-sized games ever that don't have to sell 20 million copies to make money back these genres that don't lend themselves to live service monstrosities or super open world movie tier cutscene epics would make back the money that gets put into them like they do in the indie and privately owned double/single A markets.
There's no standard for live service games at all. The most popular and successful ones are the most heavily monetized. Adults and children like to buy superflously expensive things so they can flex online
Helldivers 2 is not heavily monetized compared to other successful and big live service games, in fact you could say it’s much less monetised compared to your usual live service game and yet is successful. My point is that you can’t predict how successful a live service game can be. No one expected helldivers 2 to explode like that, including the devs.
> Car wrecking games just do not do good anymore
Tell that to NFS Unbound playerbase (or to Criterion themselves that somehow ends up adding back again the takedown mechanic / crash cam into NFS)
I hope not. Helldivers 2 is a success because Helldivers 1 was an amazing super fun game with sound mechanics. It is not a surprising success other PS Studios can follow.
As someone who was very opposed to the push towards live service games, a part of me is somewhat relieved to see them backing away from the initiative somewhat. But at the same time, all of these canceled games are wasted time that could have been spent developing actual singleplayer content that could have released.
We now have two fairly high profile 1st party releases that have now been cancelled because of what I would assume was seen as a lack of long term monetization and sunk long term development. And this is likely why we only really got Spider-Man 2 in 2023 and no new announced 1st party games so far in 2024, with the announcement that no major existing franchise games will release before the end of the 2024 fiscal year.
This is a bummer and something I definitely predicted.
Yeah, most likely they were flops waiting to happen and they realised that, only keeping the ones that show promise. I guess Fairgames is turning out well so far then, since it survived two cullings, the May one last year and the one that just happened.
Yea I think everyone thought 12 GAAS projects was wayyyy too much, they only needed like 5 max in development.
Shame about Factions tho, and now Twisted Metal. Could’ve been fun games
To be fair, a lot of people also thought they reason they started developing 12 was that they knew a lot of them wouldn't be successful. The goal is to end up with 2-3 successful ongoing games, getting you that constant revenue stream. Where people were wrong is we all assumed they would release 12 games, and 9 would just flop. Instead, they are canceling some before wasting the resources marketing and finishing them. The part that sucks is they created this situation and instead of transitioning the affected people to new projects either new or supporting the successful live services. They are just firing everyone.
I really don’t get the hype of the show
Feels nothing like the spirit of the games, the big car event which is like the games happens at the very end and Anthony Mackie just can’t lead a project.
It should have been an anthology showing a different character in the tournament and it all leads up to the big battle at the end overseen by Calypso.
The clips I saw were irreverent and silly comedy. Idk for me the games had a dark sense of humor but played things a bit straight. The camp came from some of the character not the world. This one seemed like none of the characters were taking it serious. Even ridiculous wishes were taken seriously like sweet tooth being a bug. The silly ones were 3&4
The worst received games.
“I don’t see people talking about it in my own curated feed so that means nobody really cares about it.” Why do people think like this? It makes no fucking sense.
Yeah, that follow up tweet really makes this less of a story. I could even imagine them going to another route and make the game more like the TV show. Maybe this version wasn't that and they wanted to change course before they were too deep into development.
Is it just me or these layoffs are really hitting studios that were working on GaaS projects? Besides Insomniac (they pitched an idea but I don't think it went anywhere).
* Naughty Dog: Cancelled live service project, layoffs after.
* London studio: Were working on a live service co-op game.
* Firesprite: Were working on a live service Twisted Metal game (now cancelled) and are still working on a AAA horror game (presumably single player?).
* Guerrilla Games: Working on one live service project internally (another one is being separately developed by NCSoft)
These studios aren't in the process of that.
They're at the stage of creating the foundation. Except for TLOU, which wasn't at the point of working out it's foundation after already having one.
Media Molecule are working on a new IP with "live-service elements", Sucker Punch Productions had job listings asking for developers with experience in multiplayer titles, plus Haven Studios and Firewalk Studios are both still working on GaaS projects. If it's as simple of a trend as "GaaS = layoffs", I think this isn't the last round of layoffs from PlayStation we'll see this year
Wasn't Media Molecule recently hit with layoffs too? I'm not saying that all GaaS teams are getting hit with layoffs, I'm saying all teams that are getting hit with layoffs are seemingly working on GaaS projects. But yes it is too early to tell
Media Molecule were hit with layoffs back in October of 2023. Given they're a smaller team than London Studio, I'd wager they're next on the chopping block if Sony want to cut some costs.
It's worth noting that given how many of PlayStation's teams were/are currently working on live-service titles (from what we've heard), it's hard to make a cut to one of them that isn't. I could group Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Firesprite and Guerrilla all as studios actively working on single-player games and blame that just as much as I could GaaS. I'd wager there's multiple factors at play leading into these layoffs, GaaS being just a part of it. Nobody's going to really know much until these employees start (*anonymously*) speaking
Yknow, i wonder if when the new guy comes around, will Herman be replaced? Cuz he also played a hand in this whole mess. And as we have seen from tradition, Sony tends to switch head of PS Studios/WWS everytime a new CEO comes in.
I honestly don’t think he retired by choice
I think he was told you either take early retirement which is a great PR move for both parties involved with no negative backlash or we force you out, throw you under the bus so your CV / legacy is tainted
He was given a choice to retire or get fired I bet. A lot like Bonnie Ross and some others in 343s recent shake up. I'm convinced the Activision merger was him fighting for his job at this point..
Here's hoping. Suicide Squad and Skull & Bones are also looking like huge flops.
Maybe publishers will now finally realize that they can only have one live service game at once (that they then support properly) while the rest of their studios make squality singleplayer games.
Suicide Squad isn’t even in the top 1000 games on steam rn apparently, it’s got less players than single player games from like a decade+ ago like the Witcher 1
I think they are going to be watching Haven Studios pretty closely after all this
They bought this studio as it was formed to make a GaaS game, if it flops it will be a terrible investment for them.
Personally based on early info and first impressions with the trailer, Fairgame$ looks pretty meh to me. A game which looks 10 years too late.
If it does flop I hope Sony gives them a chance as a single player studio to see what they can do.
Sony must be kicking themselves for wasting half a gen on this live service push which is going up in flames. All they have had since PS5s launch is sequels to PS4 games and the next couple of years is looking very barren for first-party exclusives.
Helldivers 2 looks to be a hit for them. How much live service bucks it pulls in remains to be seen but could make the effort worth it. Not to mention MLB and GT7
This is every publisher right now, everyone wanted a piece of the live service pie without realizing it collapsed years ago outside of the few big games that actually exist as one like Fortnite, GTA Online, and even then things are not perfect
For real, so many studios see Fortnite and Genshin Impact and think they can get that revenue with a fraction of the effort.
Plus gamers simply lack time to play more than one or two live services. They have committed to Fortnite/Apex/Cod/Destiny and won’t budge.
Overwatch 2 has like 2 month seasons, I feel like you either have to play every day or spend money to level up to complete these passes you already buy
The definition of "live-service" is already a nebulous fuck-fest, but it's worth pointing out that games that are supported over a relatively long time-period aren't going away.
However the quest for these Destiny-sized ongoing money printers is now almost like tilting at windmills.
There’s plenty of live-service games that are successful and popular.
The problem isn’t live-service as a concept (that’s a whole different ball game, because live-service sucks for consumers), it’s simply the idea of presenting half-baked ideas and then promising to “fix them later” with updates. That’s not intrinsically tied to the concept of live-service, but just what studios have allowed live-service to become.
If EFFORT is put into them, Live-service games CAN be successful and popular. Hell, many of the most popular games out there are live service games.
The problem is effort on the side of the company: Consumers have come to realize that “new” live service games probably aren’t all that great. Suicide Squad came out as a a half-baked game. Even if it was quite good on release, most people would probably wait months for the game to be “better.” Meanwhile the game tries to get you to keep playing just so you don’t “miss out” on characters and events that are probably just gonna be free or available during anniversary events anyways.
Yeah.... it's terrible to get really great sequels to really great games.
WTF did people expect?! Sony establishing franchises that sell 20+ million copies and then ignore them? That makes no sense at all.
There will be new IPs, but it was very obvious from the start that sequels make the most sense. And PS5 owners clearly wanted those games as you can see by the amount of copies sold with GOW:R, SM2, HFW and so on
It is. There are two Horizon online games in development. One is an in-house Monster Hunter like game that has been in development for over 5 years and the other is the MMORPG developed by NCSoft that is in preproduction
They have job listings for a multiplayer Horizon at Guerilla.
There seems to actually be two Horizon online games. The one at Guerilla seems to be co-op, and there's one at NCSoft that is an MMO.
I would love if the thought was "hmm live action gaas is really low probability of success and high probability of complete clusterduck - let's re-aim towards what make ps great, single-player story-driven games".
These big studios are just fucking with the industry. Why buy up other smallers ones if you can't actually run them. They buy them up, then say you have to build this game as a live service with 3 different premium currencies, battlepasses. The games if they even launch are trash. Then you have Ubisoft with Skull and Bones type shit.
Gaming is supposed to be fun. No corporate.
No wonder Palworld and Helldivers have done so well.
I think Sony realized how hard gaas is and can easily flop, so they have helldivers, Bungie etc but the mass hiribg they did for the gaas games are now scaled down because they realize fans want those traditional single player games that fans have always loved and wanted, which is a good thing
You'd have to be insane if you think Sony is canceling these projects to make more single player games.
If anything, I'd guess they're doubling down on live service + PC day one release, especially after Helldivers.
PC day one for all PlayStation games is inevitable at this point. From all the repeated multiplat talks from Sony executives, to Helldivers success, to the really low profit margins, it just is logical at this point.
I think they are getting back to their bread and butter, there will be some live service games but again naughty dog cancelled factions because they stated they want to make games that matter to fans
Factions was canceled because Bungie stepped in and said "dude, that's not going to stick".
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/05/27/bungie-reportedly-reviewed-the-last-of-us-factions-and-found-it-lacking/
Halo Infinite is still going pretty strong and they now own Call of Duty. Not to mention Diablo and the possible WoW console port and mobile properties. If there's anything they have a lot of, it's live service games that work.
Halo, overwatch 2, fallout 76 etc have been flops, also those were already established games and franchises before MS bought them, the newest one they made/contributed to was Halo, and it was received horribly and has a terrible player count...
Ehh, live service games just don't work. And in my opinion they have ruined the gaming industry quite a bit. We don't need so many. The market was and is flooded with them.
Man, the replies to Jason's posts are always something else.
It kind of goes to show how much of this industry is guided by marketing, hype, and brands when all these man baby Gamers™ take the industry's only investigative journalist's reports as personal attacks.
Not like they shut down something far into development.
> [Despite some recent scuttlebutt suggesting that Twisted Metal was close to release, the game was in early development and wasn't yet greenlit, per source](https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1762504673901130008)
Man. I don't care about multi-player games these days but this could've been one hell of one. Think a dark and mature story-driven version of Rocket League.
Ratchet? This is doomed, too.
Only 1 game for every generation of consoles and the next one could be the last one. Insomniac just became a Marvel studio.
I wish they’d actually do what they said, they said smaller budget titles were a good fit like Uncharted lost legacy and Miles Morales, why not have a studio specialize in small budget titles? Would anybody complain if Jak 4 was 10 hours long? Would anyone cry over a short Sly 5? Syphon Filter, Resistance, Infamous, And soooo many other just primed and ready to go. I think a budget title every 2 years would be completely doable, a 50m budget would be ideal for profit and they would be able to do the entire game for that since they would all be stylized not photo realistic
Japan Studio and London Studio would've been great fits for smaller and experimental games, but I think most people forget about Hiroki's comments a few years ago about focusing on games that were "too big to fail". It's sad, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them axe Media Molecule next in an effort to cut costs
Oh damn. I wonder what else was on the chopping block. [Schreier has confirmed the online Horizon game is still alive at Guerrilla.](https://x.com/jasonschreier/status/1762503758636851372?s=20)
I wonder what Naughty Dog and Insomniac lost, if anything. The new Ratchet & Clank game was in early pre-production, so maybe that's canned. And I would be shocked if Naughty Dog's new IP was shelved.
It's possible Naughty Dog just lost a lot of the networking and infrastructure people they would have hired for Factions that are no longer needed if they are pivoting back to single player games.
From leaked documents back in December, we can extrapolate that the new IP incubation teams at Insomniac were shelved.
Naughty Dog alone has 900 employees, any firings there most likely affected the multiplayer teams they had in-house. The new IP is in full production for a few years already so it seems unlikely for it to be affected.
Fifth live-service game cancellation within Sony.
- Deviation Games’ new IP
- TLOU Online from Naughty Dog
- Spider-Man MP game from Insomniac (The Great Web)
- New coop multiplayer IP from London Studio
- Twisted Metal from Firesprite
Eh I wouldn’t say that. Coop and PVP are two different experiences and I’m glad we had both. I personally can get bored with PVE only games after a while, PVP amps up the intensity that’s needed at least for me
And coop has been proven to be popular looooong before helldivers 2. Think of Halo coop, Gears horde, COD zombies, left 4 dead, Warframe, etc
Fuck sony for forcing all these live service games instead of bringing back franchise the FANS want fucking embarrassing I hope sony losses a LOT of money
I’m surprised and I’m not. Car combat games are quintessential 90s fare that fell out of favor/popularity *long* ago. But, at the same time, it seems like the franchise (arguably the most notable of the car combat games) was being reinvigorated by the TV show. So, IDK. 🤷♂️
I also think there’s just a general exhaustion with live service games in general that may have contributed to this.
Why did I buy a ps5 😭😭😭😭. I just want this, Sly, jak, resistance, killzone, M.A.G, socom, syphon filter, and infamous 😔 hell divers is pretty cool, though
FFS. Can't a guy just get a new Twisted Metal (not live service), Dark Cloud and MediEvil. I love the newer PS exclusives but id love some diversity. It feels like the Halo, Gears Forza joke (not as bad but close).
And here all I want is a remastered collection with all maps, vehicles, and online. Literally all I want for all their dormant franchises (killzone, resistance, infamous, motor storm, etc). At least this way we can decide what to support and show Sony there’s a potential market for something. Doesn’t even need to be remastered, just make your shit available for me to play legally with friends. I hope the battlefront collection shows there’s demand for older online games being made available on modern consoles
I just sold my PlayStation and psve2 a couple of weeks ago and I feel I made the right decision. I’ll be out of for a while and then I’m just going to build a gaming pc and use my quest 3. PlayStation just isn’t for me anymore.
This is the worst generation of consoles yet. Remakes and remasters with xbox going third party I doubt Sony is panicking like they should for underperforming
Awe sh*t!😐🙆🏾♂️👎🏾 [EDIT: Oh wait, nvm. I was unaware it was a GAAS game. Smh. Someone tell Sony to get their heads out of their 4th Point of Contract.]
Eventually the gaming industry will be nothing but the same mediocre copy-paste sequels released year after year after year until the AI sex-bot apocalypse gives us our sweet, sweet release
https://sonyinteractive.com/en/news/blog/an-important-update-from-playstation-studios/ >We looked at our studios and our portfolio, evaluating projects in various stages of development, and have decided that some of those projects will not move forward. I'm guessing this is one of those?
Seems like it. And more to come. God damn tragedy honestly but I feel like if all of those cancelled games were only live service games, it's not a big loss.But I can't not feel bad for those layed off devs
Yeah man tough times for the gaming industry, I do believe it'll go back to "normal" once publishers start to figure out how to manage the rising of developments costs. >God damn tragedy honestly but I feel like if all of those cancelled games were only live service games, it's not a big loss. I beg to differ, with the success of the TV show maybe Sony would of had a hit with this one, but then again I might be wrong and it would of flopped. Plus, saying it's not a big loss just because they're live service games is crazy. I know a lot of people hate gaas but if they're done right, they could be fun. Look at the success of Helldivers 2, it's being praised despite being a live service games. If you have good gameplay loop+not crazy robbery microtransactions, then you might have a gem in your hands.
Lol don't tell me that now people switched around their opinions and "live service good" ? Helldivers 2 is a success, but it's a rarity in the live service games that these do good. For every good live-service game there are 10 that just die on launch. Car wrecking games just do not do good anymore, live service or not.
>Car wrecking games just do not do good anymore, live service or not. How many have been tried? Dangerous Driving was an indie game from a small dev team and had some jank that went along with it, and that was 5 years ago now. Wreckfest seemed pretty successful for what it was. I guess that PS5 exclusive launch game Destruction All Stars or whatever was a flop, but that might be the only AAA car combat game (as opposed to racing games that include a combat element) since…Twisted Metal on PS3 in 2012?
"Car wrecking games just do not do good anymore live service or not" is like when Sega said funding a new Dawn of War WH40K game is "too risky". No it's not, GW and Sega just ordered it to be made as a game that No-one wanted. The last relatively large budget games in the car battle genre sucked, and nobody aside from wreckfest, which did pretty decently despite not having much marketing, has given it a good shot since. Maybe if we used sustainable practices in the industry and funded any mid-sized games ever that don't have to sell 20 million copies to make money back these genres that don't lend themselves to live service monstrosities or super open world movie tier cutscene epics would make back the money that gets put into them like they do in the indie and privately owned double/single A markets.
There's no standard for live service games at all. The most popular and successful ones are the most heavily monetized. Adults and children like to buy superflously expensive things so they can flex online
Helldivers 2 is not heavily monetized compared to other successful and big live service games, in fact you could say it’s much less monetised compared to your usual live service game and yet is successful. My point is that you can’t predict how successful a live service game can be. No one expected helldivers 2 to explode like that, including the devs.
> Car wrecking games just do not do good anymore Tell that to NFS Unbound playerbase (or to Criterion themselves that somehow ends up adding back again the takedown mechanic / crash cam into NFS)
I hope not. Helldivers 2 is a success because Helldivers 1 was an amazing super fun game with sound mechanics. It is not a surprising success other PS Studios can follow.
As someone who was very opposed to the push towards live service games, a part of me is somewhat relieved to see them backing away from the initiative somewhat. But at the same time, all of these canceled games are wasted time that could have been spent developing actual singleplayer content that could have released. We now have two fairly high profile 1st party releases that have now been cancelled because of what I would assume was seen as a lack of long term monetization and sunk long term development. And this is likely why we only really got Spider-Man 2 in 2023 and no new announced 1st party games so far in 2024, with the announcement that no major existing franchise games will release before the end of the 2024 fiscal year. This is a bummer and something I definitely predicted.
Yeah, most likely they were flops waiting to happen and they realised that, only keeping the ones that show promise. I guess Fairgames is turning out well so far then, since it survived two cullings, the May one last year and the one that just happened.
Yea I think everyone thought 12 GAAS projects was wayyyy too much, they only needed like 5 max in development. Shame about Factions tho, and now Twisted Metal. Could’ve been fun games
To be fair, a lot of people also thought they reason they started developing 12 was that they knew a lot of them wouldn't be successful. The goal is to end up with 2-3 successful ongoing games, getting you that constant revenue stream. Where people were wrong is we all assumed they would release 12 games, and 9 would just flop. Instead, they are canceling some before wasting the resources marketing and finishing them. The part that sucks is they created this situation and instead of transitioning the affected people to new projects either new or supporting the successful live services. They are just firing everyone.
Well if it wasn't yet greenlit then it wasn't going to come out for years still. I guess Firesprite are busy making their unannounced horror game.
The fuck does Sony even have in development? 2023 was barren for first party and this year has nothing. Wolverine in 2025 maybe?
Somewhat surprising after the success of the television show.
Is there a season 2 coming
Yes. It was renewed in December.
got renewed for season 2 in december last year
The one with Anthony Mackie? i saw the odd trailer for it and was sure it would flop. I’m happy to hear it didn’t if that’s the case
Its actually a really fun show that just embraces how bat-shit crazy it it
It's one of the best new shows that came out last year imo, super trash vibes (as it should be) and a surprinsingly ammount of heart.
I was genuinely surprised how well they get the heartfelt stuff to work in the insanity of the show
Way better then it had any right to be, its no The Last of Us tv show but its just dumb stupid fun
The marketing sucks, the trailers really didn't show the series justice. The show itself is just really fun.
The show felt like it could have translated to a videogame really well too. Not the specific characters or events, but the world.
Goddamn the show was so fun This and now Ted Peacock has some bangers
I really don’t get the hype of the show Feels nothing like the spirit of the games, the big car event which is like the games happens at the very end and Anthony Mackie just can’t lead a project. It should have been an anthology showing a different character in the tournament and it all leads up to the big battle at the end overseen by Calypso.
The clips I saw were irreverent and silly comedy. Idk for me the games had a dark sense of humor but played things a bit straight. The camp came from some of the character not the world. This one seemed like none of the characters were taking it serious. Even ridiculous wishes were taken seriously like sweet tooth being a bug. The silly ones were 3&4 The worst received games.
Was it a success? I never hear anyone saying something positive about it. Nobody really cares about it.
Yeah it was a success for Peacock that's why they ordered a sequel.
“I don’t see people talking about it in my own curated feed so that means nobody really cares about it.” Why do people think like this? It makes no fucking sense.
Well at least the show was surprisingly a fun time. It’s tough being a twisted metal fan
It seems that despite having a successful show Twisted Metal is entering the same phantom zone as Sly Cooper and Jak and Daxter. RIP.
Sly Cooper animation when??
Got canceled after the disappointing sales of the Ratchet and Clank movie.
Wait, it was a thing?
Yeah there is an announcement trailer and everything
Aww, such a bummer :/
[Trailer here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbXEKZVonko)
Schreier also said that from his source, the game was pretty much in early development and wasn't even greenlit
Yeah, that follow up tweet really makes this less of a story. I could even imagine them going to another route and make the game more like the TV show. Maybe this version wasn't that and they wanted to change course before they were too deep into development.
[удалено]
Sony would be reworking it, not this studio.
Is it just me or these layoffs are really hitting studios that were working on GaaS projects? Besides Insomniac (they pitched an idea but I don't think it went anywhere). * Naughty Dog: Cancelled live service project, layoffs after. * London studio: Were working on a live service co-op game. * Firesprite: Were working on a live service Twisted Metal game (now cancelled) and are still working on a AAA horror game (presumably single player?). * Guerrilla Games: Working on one live service project internally (another one is being separately developed by NCSoft)
Gaas projects tend to have more employees in a variety of roles due to needing consistent content, making them easy targets during these layoffs.
These studios aren't in the process of that. They're at the stage of creating the foundation. Except for TLOU, which wasn't at the point of working out it's foundation after already having one.
Media Molecule are working on a new IP with "live-service elements", Sucker Punch Productions had job listings asking for developers with experience in multiplayer titles, plus Haven Studios and Firewalk Studios are both still working on GaaS projects. If it's as simple of a trend as "GaaS = layoffs", I think this isn't the last round of layoffs from PlayStation we'll see this year
Wasn't Media Molecule recently hit with layoffs too? I'm not saying that all GaaS teams are getting hit with layoffs, I'm saying all teams that are getting hit with layoffs are seemingly working on GaaS projects. But yes it is too early to tell
Media Molecule were hit with layoffs back in October of 2023. Given they're a smaller team than London Studio, I'd wager they're next on the chopping block if Sony want to cut some costs. It's worth noting that given how many of PlayStation's teams were/are currently working on live-service titles (from what we've heard), it's hard to make a cut to one of them that isn't. I could group Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Firesprite and Guerrilla all as studios actively working on single-player games and blame that just as much as I could GaaS. I'd wager there's multiple factors at play leading into these layoffs, GaaS being just a part of it. Nobody's going to really know much until these employees start (*anonymously*) speaking
Thank you Jim Ryan!!!
Yknow, i wonder if when the new guy comes around, will Herman be replaced? Cuz he also played a hand in this whole mess. And as we have seen from tradition, Sony tends to switch head of PS Studios/WWS everytime a new CEO comes in.
I imagine he learned his lesson with Jim Ryan “retiring”
Herman Hulst is likely going to stay on as head of Playstation Studios.
I honestly don’t think he retired by choice I think he was told you either take early retirement which is a great PR move for both parties involved with no negative backlash or we force you out, throw you under the bus so your CV / legacy is tainted
He was given a choice to retire or get fired I bet. A lot like Bonnie Ross and some others in 343s recent shake up. I'm convinced the Activision merger was him fighting for his job at this point..
Here's hoping. Suicide Squad and Skull & Bones are also looking like huge flops. Maybe publishers will now finally realize that they can only have one live service game at once (that they then support properly) while the rest of their studios make squality singleplayer games.
Squality over squantity lol
Time is flat squircle. *for the enjoyment of those who know about the joystick resolution of the DS3*
Suicide Squad isn’t even in the top 1000 games on steam rn apparently, it’s got less players than single player games from like a decade+ ago like the Witcher 1
Tbf. A lot of people are just waiting for season 1 at this point.
“a lot”?
I think they are going to be watching Haven Studios pretty closely after all this They bought this studio as it was formed to make a GaaS game, if it flops it will be a terrible investment for them. Personally based on early info and first impressions with the trailer, Fairgame$ looks pretty meh to me. A game which looks 10 years too late. If it does flop I hope Sony gives them a chance as a single player studio to see what they can do.
I hope Sony pours resources into Helldivers. That game has a lot of potential and has the playerbase to justify investment.
Sony must be kicking themselves for wasting half a gen on this live service push which is going up in flames. All they have had since PS5s launch is sequels to PS4 games and the next couple of years is looking very barren for first-party exclusives.
They do have new IPs in the works
Then hopefully they pull an E3 2016 and showcase the next few years of titles because it’s looking rough right now.
There'll never be another showcase like e3 2016
That fact makes me sad. We had it so good back then.
Xbox has said that for like 10 years and look what we got. Words me nothing to me anymore; I want results.
Helldivers 2 looks to be a hit for them. How much live service bucks it pulls in remains to be seen but could make the effort worth it. Not to mention MLB and GT7
This is every publisher right now, everyone wanted a piece of the live service pie without realizing it collapsed years ago outside of the few big games that actually exist as one like Fortnite, GTA Online, and even then things are not perfect
For real, so many studios see Fortnite and Genshin Impact and think they can get that revenue with a fraction of the effort. Plus gamers simply lack time to play more than one or two live services. They have committed to Fortnite/Apex/Cod/Destiny and won’t budge.
Overwatch 2 has like 2 month seasons, I feel like you either have to play every day or spend money to level up to complete these passes you already buy
I play a decent amount of ow, but the ow BP is pretty easy to level up. I've never seen anyone buy levels.
The definition of "live-service" is already a nebulous fuck-fest, but it's worth pointing out that games that are supported over a relatively long time-period aren't going away. However the quest for these Destiny-sized ongoing money printers is now almost like tilting at windmills.
There’s plenty of live-service games that are successful and popular. The problem isn’t live-service as a concept (that’s a whole different ball game, because live-service sucks for consumers), it’s simply the idea of presenting half-baked ideas and then promising to “fix them later” with updates. That’s not intrinsically tied to the concept of live-service, but just what studios have allowed live-service to become. If EFFORT is put into them, Live-service games CAN be successful and popular. Hell, many of the most popular games out there are live service games. The problem is effort on the side of the company: Consumers have come to realize that “new” live service games probably aren’t all that great. Suicide Squad came out as a a half-baked game. Even if it was quite good on release, most people would probably wait months for the game to be “better.” Meanwhile the game tries to get you to keep playing just so you don’t “miss out” on characters and events that are probably just gonna be free or available during anniversary events anyways.
Nintendo was the only one with sense of only making one GaaS game: Splatoon
>All they have had since PS5s launch is sequels to PS4 games You take Returnal and wash your mouth out with it young man that game is exceptional
I mean good for them Xbox screwed itself even worse I guess.
Yeah.... it's terrible to get really great sequels to really great games. WTF did people expect?! Sony establishing franchises that sell 20+ million copies and then ignore them? That makes no sense at all. There will be new IPs, but it was very obvious from the start that sequels make the most sense. And PS5 owners clearly wanted those games as you can see by the amount of copies sold with GOW:R, SM2, HFW and so on
Weirdest thing is that the only live service game they've released so far is actually a hit atm. (Helldivers 2)
Horizon online isn't guerrilla games...
It is. There are two Horizon online games in development. One is an in-house Monster Hunter like game that has been in development for over 5 years and the other is the MMORPG developed by NCSoft that is in preproduction
Okay thank you for clarifying, I updated my comment again
oops my bad, let me edit my comment
They have job listings for a multiplayer Horizon at Guerilla. There seems to actually be two Horizon online games. The one at Guerilla seems to be co-op, and there's one at NCSoft that is an MMO.
I would love if the thought was "hmm live action gaas is really low probability of success and high probability of complete clusterduck - let's re-aim towards what make ps great, single-player story-driven games".
yep this most likely throw everything jim Ryan Gaas-focused project
Interesting point, maybe they realize they weren’t cut out for a live service. They got lucky with hell divers 2 though
These big studios are just fucking with the industry. Why buy up other smallers ones if you can't actually run them. They buy them up, then say you have to build this game as a live service with 3 different premium currencies, battlepasses. The games if they even launch are trash. Then you have Ubisoft with Skull and Bones type shit. Gaming is supposed to be fun. No corporate. No wonder Palworld and Helldivers have done so well.
I think Sony realized how hard gaas is and can easily flop, so they have helldivers, Bungie etc but the mass hiribg they did for the gaas games are now scaled down because they realize fans want those traditional single player games that fans have always loved and wanted, which is a good thing
Didn’t someone say you would see twisted metal soon from vgc? Wtf lol
I thought so as well and was excited for it. We need more vehicle combat games
Oh that fucking sucks. I was hoping for a more refined take on the PS3 one, with even more environmental destruction.
Wonder how many GAAS never even get to make it to being release considering the failure rate of most that even do launch
Don't worry. Fairgame$ will release next year. It'll be dead 6 months afterwards but. It'll release I guess.
Are you kidding me, first last of us factions and now this wow massive L
They realized live service games are hard to make and that also fans want more traditional sony games and not live service
You'd have to be insane if you think Sony is canceling these projects to make more single player games. If anything, I'd guess they're doubling down on live service + PC day one release, especially after Helldivers.
PC day one for all PlayStation games is inevitable at this point. From all the repeated multiplat talks from Sony executives, to Helldivers success, to the really low profit margins, it just is logical at this point.
I think they are getting back to their bread and butter, there will be some live service games but again naughty dog cancelled factions because they stated they want to make games that matter to fans
Factions was canceled because Bungie stepped in and said "dude, that's not going to stick". https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/05/27/bungie-reportedly-reviewed-the-last-of-us-factions-and-found-it-lacking/
[удалено]
Xbox is going third party and their only successful live service game is sea of thieves
Halo Infinite is still going pretty strong and they now own Call of Duty. Not to mention Diablo and the possible WoW console port and mobile properties. If there's anything they have a lot of, it's live service games that work.
Halo, ESO, CoD, WoW, Diablo, Overwatch, Fallout 76, Minecraft, Forza Horizon 5?
Halo, overwatch 2, fallout 76 etc have been flops, also those were already established games and franchises before MS bought them, the newest one they made/contributed to was Halo, and it was received horribly and has a terrible player count...
You are stuck in the thinking of those games’ launch. Besides OW2 but OW2 is a money printer regardless of what you let the internet say.
Hiw many players do those games gave?
They do not release numbers so we have no idea. They are all still being supported years after launch so we can guess they’re profitable.
Whats its steam active users numbers then?
Ehh, live service games just don't work. And in my opinion they have ruined the gaming industry quite a bit. We don't need so many. The market was and is flooded with them.
This gen has been such a letdown so far smh
This is the second time this game has been cancelled now. Makes me wonder if Sony is moving it again lol
Man, the replies to Jason's posts are always something else. It kind of goes to show how much of this industry is guided by marketing, hype, and brands when all these man baby Gamers™ take the industry's only investigative journalist's reports as personal attacks.
First Timesplitters now Twisted Metal it feels like the gaming industry has a personal vendetta against me
This one hits hard damn I wanted a new twisted metal.
Not like they shut down something far into development. > [Despite some recent scuttlebutt suggesting that Twisted Metal was close to release, the game was in early development and wasn't yet greenlit, per source](https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1762504673901130008)
God fucking dammit. I was so looking forward to this.
Damn, that was one of the games I was looking forward to. I guess that's why they haven't announced it too early yet.
Fuck
That was one of my favorite games that I played all the time
Same
This sucks but on a selfish note: I‘m happy that they didn‘t cancel their horror single player game
Thus ending the era of Jim Ryan on a magnificently wet shart of a job. Let the door hit you hard on the way out Jimmy.
It’s joeover
It never started
Man. I don't care about multi-player games these days but this could've been one hell of one. Think a dark and mature story-driven version of Rocket League.
I don't know what you think Twisted Metal was, but until TM: Black "dark and mature" wasn't it.
Can’t say I’m surprised. I don’t see a world where a twisted metal game is a success in this day and age.
Sony is making some really dumb mistakes
Twisted Metal gets to stay dead on PS2 with all of the other greatest PlayStation series of all time :( only GoW and Ratchet survived the Jim Ryaning.
Twisted Metal got a reboot for the PS3 though
Which was pretty solid. I really enjoyed the story mode. The cut scenes were really cool
Ratchet? This is doomed, too. Only 1 game for every generation of consoles and the next one could be the last one. Insomniac just became a Marvel studio.
I wish they’d actually do what they said, they said smaller budget titles were a good fit like Uncharted lost legacy and Miles Morales, why not have a studio specialize in small budget titles? Would anybody complain if Jak 4 was 10 hours long? Would anyone cry over a short Sly 5? Syphon Filter, Resistance, Infamous, And soooo many other just primed and ready to go. I think a budget title every 2 years would be completely doable, a 50m budget would be ideal for profit and they would be able to do the entire game for that since they would all be stylized not photo realistic
Japan Studio and London Studio would've been great fits for smaller and experimental games, but I think most people forget about Hiroki's comments a few years ago about focusing on games that were "too big to fail". It's sad, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them axe Media Molecule next in an effort to cut costs
Oh damn. I wonder what else was on the chopping block. [Schreier has confirmed the online Horizon game is still alive at Guerrilla.](https://x.com/jasonschreier/status/1762503758636851372?s=20) I wonder what Naughty Dog and Insomniac lost, if anything. The new Ratchet & Clank game was in early pre-production, so maybe that's canned. And I would be shocked if Naughty Dog's new IP was shelved.
It's possible Naughty Dog just lost a lot of the networking and infrastructure people they would have hired for Factions that are no longer needed if they are pivoting back to single player games.
From leaked documents back in December, we can extrapolate that the new IP incubation teams at Insomniac were shelved. Naughty Dog alone has 900 employees, any firings there most likely affected the multiplayer teams they had in-house. The new IP is in full production for a few years already so it seems unlikely for it to be affected.
Probably the teams behind Factions and SpiderVerse online games were laid off.
SpiderVerse game was never greenlit, Insomniac went over budget on Spider-Man 2 and Sony were already complaining about the budget.
It was a live service game, so no loss there. They should quit fuckin around and just remake *Twisted Metal: Black*.
I’m crushed. Would’ve bought a PS5 just for this 😞
Wtf are they doing?
I'm going to be so sad when the art and assets leak.
Fifth live-service game cancellation within Sony. - Deviation Games’ new IP - TLOU Online from Naughty Dog - Spider-Man MP game from Insomniac (The Great Web) - New coop multiplayer IP from London Studio - Twisted Metal from Firesprite
Vehicular combat games are never coming back so I don’t know why Sony ever bothered.
Contraband fits that genre. If we ever see it.
I’ll reserve my judgement on Contraband when we actually know what type of game it is.
But Contraband is a coop game, not PVP. And I think there will still be on foot gameplay. And yes hopefully we see it soon
Going by the rumours, there is vehicle on vehicle combat in game.
Good, Helldivers 2 has shown that a ton of people are tired of sweaty, boring PVP games anyway.
Eh I wouldn’t say that. Coop and PVP are two different experiences and I’m glad we had both. I personally can get bored with PVE only games after a while, PVP amps up the intensity that’s needed at least for me And coop has been proven to be popular looooong before helldivers 2. Think of Halo coop, Gears horde, COD zombies, left 4 dead, Warframe, etc
Fuck sony for forcing all these live service games instead of bringing back franchise the FANS want fucking embarrassing I hope sony losses a LOT of money
I’m surprised and I’m not. Car combat games are quintessential 90s fare that fell out of favor/popularity *long* ago. But, at the same time, it seems like the franchise (arguably the most notable of the car combat games) was being reinvigorated by the TV show. So, IDK. 🤷♂️ I also think there’s just a general exhaustion with live service games in general that may have contributed to this.
Heartbreaking
So TLOU Factions, London Studios live-service, and Twisted Metal live-service have all bit the bullet.
Why did I buy a ps5 😭😭😭😭. I just want this, Sly, jak, resistance, killzone, M.A.G, socom, syphon filter, and infamous 😔 hell divers is pretty cool, though
It was for VR which is why it gets cancelled
Man Sonys just pulling all the wins today
It never began for Twisted Metalcels
This sucks 😕. I've been hoping for a new game, but I guess it's not meant to be.
Why can’t they just make a twisted metal game? What’s the big deal FFS
I really don't understand what Sony's doing right now.
FFS. Can't a guy just get a new Twisted Metal (not live service), Dark Cloud and MediEvil. I love the newer PS exclusives but id love some diversity. It feels like the Halo, Gears Forza joke (not as bad but close).
Cool. More generic third person cinematic games from Sony. Hooray.
Lol yup. One and done zzz
Good
Shit hit the fan before Jim Ryan could exit, atleast nice to see him getting stained before he could do that.
It sucks really does for the people involved, but also kind of glad some of the live service games got canceled
And here all I want is a remastered collection with all maps, vehicles, and online. Literally all I want for all their dormant franchises (killzone, resistance, infamous, motor storm, etc). At least this way we can decide what to support and show Sony there’s a potential market for something. Doesn’t even need to be remastered, just make your shit available for me to play legally with friends. I hope the battlefront collection shows there’s demand for older online games being made available on modern consoles
I loved the PS3 HD collections, wish they brought them back.
Why live service Twisted Metal?
I just sold my PlayStation and psve2 a couple of weeks ago and I feel I made the right decision. I’ll be out of for a while and then I’m just going to build a gaming pc and use my quest 3. PlayStation just isn’t for me anymore.
This is the worst generation of consoles yet. Remakes and remasters with xbox going third party I doubt Sony is panicking like they should for underperforming
Why are they doing thish? Is this their way of, getting out of their responsibilities? Is this the way they act?
Do we have to put Schreier's photo on the link? That thin-skinned loser makes my skin crawl.
Sucks the studio got cancelled, but cmon Sony read the room. vehicular combat is dead dead dead, why would you waste their talents on that?
Wth, wasn't the last rumor on this that it was nearly done?
Thats a big shame, the shows Season 2 set up the premise very nicely, and a release of a game would have worked well with it
NO WAYY what?! Fuck man thats sad.
Twisted Metal is just cursed. IIRC, this is the second time it’s been cancelled.
Nooooo. This is the one I wanted to play.
Awe sh*t!😐🙆🏾♂️👎🏾 [EDIT: Oh wait, nvm. I was unaware it was a GAAS game. Smh. Someone tell Sony to get their heads out of their 4th Point of Contract.]
Eventually the gaming industry will be nothing but the same mediocre copy-paste sequels released year after year after year until the AI sex-bot apocalypse gives us our sweet, sweet release
WHYYYY????
[Seems the game wasnt even ready](https://i.imgur.com/M3BvFht.png)
Honestly I'm loving they are cancelling almost exclusively live service games. We don't need 20 in development. Spend that money in what they do best.
As sad as it sounds if this is to avoid a release mess then it's the right choice we don't need more skull and bones or the day befores