Ex-Zipper Employee Sends Anonymous Letter To TheRealSOCOM.com

I offer this letter to the SOCOM Community per the author’s request. Our staff has confirmed that this in fact a former Zipper Interactive employee, and we will keep their identity hidden. This letter sheds an interesting light on the internal workings regarding the development of SOCOM 4, and some postmortem insight on Zipper Interactive.

[THC CELL]

First of all Socom has a league of its own and its own culture just like counter strike, cod, and halo so this zipper man should never say never Socom could be passed to naughty dog and it will be epic, not dissing zipper I loved mag and it's a small reason dust514 exsis so we shall see

[TekoIie]

Socom isnt quite what ND "specialises" in (to my knowledge atleast).

I wouldn't expect them to make a good tactical shooter nor would i want them too. Im having too much fun just thinking about how i so desperately want to see more of TLOU.

Btw Dust 514 would still exist even if MAG had never been created. Dust 514's first gameplay reveal was shown just months after MAG and considering how complex EVE makes Dust to develop i would confidently say its been in development for 3-4 years.

[Reverent]

It's been in development since at the very least, 2009. That's when the first ever footage was shown, so if I'd have to make a complete guess, I'd say it started in 2008. So it could easily have been in development for the last 4-even 5 years.

[pixelsword]

Nah, SOCOM is a full-fledged tactical shooter which requires some teamwork and communication; Uncharted is more like "Hey, I have a gun, and there's some guys I can shoot. w00t!"

The best people to make SOCOM were fired by the guys who, according to the letter, apparently destroyed SOCOM.

[Ducky]

^ Would be interesting to know where (if anywhere) those ex-employees ended up.

[HammadTheBeast]

@ FatoldMan

Last I hear, they were working with some random Kickstarter company, and making the next "hardcore realistic shooter".

[PoSTedUP]

slant Six made Great Socom games. the two Best this gen were FTB3 and Confrontations. i couldn't mess with socom4 it was too generic and modernized; not a real socom game imo. Mag, socom4 and Unit 13? ew sorry Zipper but you Didn't stand out, your game ends here. you are the weakest link, goodbye. use to love you, now i hate you, call me a disloyal prick but you havent given me what i wanted so i'm glad sony isn't wasting anymore money on you.

[BattleAxe]

As a Socom "Vet", when I started playing Uncharted 2 during the beta, I felt that Naughty Dog would have been more than capable of making a great Socom game.

At the time of the uncharted 2 beta, it seemed like there was no hope for a descent Socom game on the horizon. Confrontation was a complete joke for the first year, and Slant 6 did not keep the same feel to the game, and instead they decided to put their own stamp on the Socom franchise with turning the game into a sluggish experience. Naughty Dog would be the best candidate for a new Socom game. I would only hope that they stay true to the PS2 Socom games, because anything else would just be uncivilized.

I couldn't believe that Zipper had turned their backs on what made them so successful on the PS2. It still boggles my mind that the management team over at Zipper were that stupid.

[NonApplicable]

No offense, but Naughty Dog has better things to do than tinker with a dying franchise.

[NastyLeftHook0]

you should never call yourself a vet, thats reserved for the real men and women who died in combat.

[xAlmostPro]

Honestly reading this sounded more like a saddened fan who wrote it.

The way it ended suddenly and done nothing but blame Sony.

Sony like all big companies have issues and things not everyone agrees with. However if there's been one thing Sony has been praised for since the start of this gen has been the support they have given to developers interested in the PS3 platform. Which makes this seem a little out of place.

As for his statement saying because Socom couldn't hit the COD popularity they dropped it, doesn't make sense. UC is still living, they maintain servers for Zipper games, Killzone still lives, DUST 514 is due etc.

It's a different genre but Motorstorm hit low numbers with apocalypse and they didn't kick that out the door when there's NFS, GT5, Forza etc.

This is a 'weird' one for me.

[geddesmond]

If Sony wanted elements from other games and yous complied its still your fault for not doing them right. Now I have plated Socom 4 and the cover elements and such were not the only things wrong with Socom 4.

This game had so many bad game mechanics and it offered very little in a tactical way. Something Socom is known for. They say bad developers blame others.

[SilentNegotiator]

Fair enough. Plenty of games put old ideas together and manage to even make masterpieces.

Throwing aside the fact that SOCOM4 didn't follow SOCOM tradition, it still wasn't a very exceptional game.

[DaThreats]

Looks like bad management failed them

[Emilio_Estevez]

Yes and no. They had bad management, but no one wanted to stick their neck out and tell them that and risk their job. I'm sure blame can be spread all around.

[RustInPeace]

Emilio!

[Etseix]

Estevez!

[HebrewHammer]

Not to mention a forecast of stock price below 1000 yen for Sony - that was inevitably going to trickle down into SCE. I think that contributed greatly to Zipper closing and Qore shutting down.

I LOVED MAG! Damn shame to see it close, regardless.

[Nykamari]

MAG is not closed, I still play it daily. Only problem is its hard as hell to get into domination. If Sony makes it totally free to play then it may grow again.

[Kurylo3d]

This is what happens when u have a kiss ass in the office who gets promoted because he kisses ass.. and sucks at his job.

[PAUL-AWOL-]

A day late and a dollar short. Thanks for nothing and I hope everyone who was fired at Zipper learned a valuable lesson, listen to the fans and not the kid who plays Call of Dookie.

If this is a real letter why now is my question, all this tells me is I am so glad I changed my mind on joining the gaming Industry,, all cowards and back stabbers. Just like a Jelly Fish, no back bone.

www.socomfan.com

[Prince_Dim-Lu]

They didn't listen to "kids who play Call of Dookie" Ironic, you say kids playing, and then call it dookie... anyways... they said Sony wanted it to be COD, Killzone, Uncharted and Infamous.

Read before you come in with the even more played out then COD game coming out yearly, and that's the lame COD hate comments that come out daily.

[PAUL-AWOL-]

This is about Socom the last time I checked. If you want to defend COD find a thread about a 13 year old crying he was killed 10 times in a row with a noob tube.

[Prince_Dim-Lu]

So then why did you bring up COD? You were the one who did it. I'm starting to think you're a kid. "Call of Dookie" Talking about "13 year olds crying"

Who does that? Kids do.. I don't hear kids crying. I'm playing in party chat with my Clan.

And again.. YOU brought up COD, and you brought it up in the WRONG way. I was letting you know that you were wrong in what you said. They listened to SONY.. NOT kids who play COD.

SONY said they wanted it a mix of games.. and COD is one of those games they wanted it to be a mix of. Not some "Kids playing Call of Dookie"

LOL.. wow

[NO_FEAR]

It takes a lot of work to make a bad game. Everyone needs to own thier own part. When my boss says make this wiget to fit in this hole...it better fit or it's on me. But is he says put this square peg in this round hole I have to tell him it won't fit or it's still on me, but if he says make it anyway it's on him. Document everything "CYA"

just my .02

[PAUL-AWOL-]

Did anyone at Zipper even play a prior Socom game before making Socom 4. Why have a full staff of people making a game they have never played.. It was obvious the place was full of MAG fans who had COD loaded in their PS3's.

[-Alpha]

"and a publisher which felt that the best thing for S4 was to copy elements from Uncharted, Killzone, CoD and Infamous."

Unsurprisingly, the publisher influences the direction most. I felt this is what Sony did with Killzone, SOCOM, and probably Uncharted 3 MP as well.

It's really disappointing, but not surprising to see publishers bend towards the mainstream. DICE is another one who gutted their game to appease a wider audience, and I can't help but think most the blame falls on the publisher (EA) for trying to open up to a more successful target audience. I can't imagine that all these developers of once-established games wanting to be more like COD, that sounds like something the publisher does

[PirateThom]

If I ever heard a developer say they're going after the CoD audience or similar, I take it for code that "the publisher has ruined the project".

[user5467007]

" I felt this is what Sony did with Killzone, SOCOM, and probably Uncharted 3 MP as well."

Hopefully these things will be fixed in Killzone 4 and Uncharted 4

Go back to what Killzone 2 and Uncharted 2 were like...were it was about skill ND/GG