PSLS: "Former Naughty Dog Environment Artist and Multiplayer Level Layout Artist David Ballard has come forward with allegations of sexual harassment. Ballard says that the incident occurred in late 2015, and that his working environment became increasingly toxic due to the harasser being a lead. According to Ballard, when he went to the Sony PlayStation human resources department in February 2016 (after suffering from a mental breakdown), he was fired the next day. Ballard says he was then offered $20,000 to stay quiet about the ordeal, but he declined the offer."
Recent evidence we discovered indicates that the next game in the Just Cause series may have been canceled, potentially two years ago.
Sony's Bend Studio lays off 30 percent of its workforce following the cancellation of its live-service project.
I would even pay 80 bucks for an UE5 based more immersive Days Gone 2 .... or even a new Syphon Filter.
But nah .... rather lay off staff & re-remasters Days Gone i.e Days Gone Reloaded.
Stubborn Sony not wanting to listen to fans is paying the price of its arrogance. They could have let these studios grow and do what they do best and let others like Bungie maybe make gaas for those who want it.
Days Gone 2 is obviously what they should focus on next. We’ve had enough remasters and reeditions of the first one
They were listening to the money that games like Fortnite were pulling in. Market research shows service games when successful make more money. It’s a gamble that Sony was too cocky to worry about. Now ppl are losing their jobs in an economy that’s gonna slow down any minute.
@Profchaos
The workers let go were probably hired for the live service game and released now because it was cancelled
I understand the argument that if fans truly wanted a sequel to Days Gone, they should've supported it at launch at full price. But that perspective misses a lot of important context.
First of all, Days Gone launched in a broken state. It needed several patches just to become stable and playable. For many gamers, paying $60 for something clearly unfinished just wasn’t justifiable. That wasn’t a lack of support—it was a fair response to a product that didn’t meet expectations out of the gate.
Despite that, over 8 million people eventually bought the game. It built a strong, passionate fanbase—proof that the game had value and potential once it was properly patched. A sequel would’ve had a much stronger foundation: a team that had learned from the first game, a loyal audience, and way more hype around a continued story.
But Days Gone also had to contend with another challenge—it was unfairly judged against other first-party PlayStation exclusives. Critics compared it directly to polished, masterful experiences like Uncharted, The Last of Us, and God of War. And while those comparisons might make sense from a branding perspective, they didn’t reflect the reality of the situation.
Studios like Naughty Dog and Santa Monica Studio had years—sometimes decades—of experience working with big teams and high budgets on flagship titles. Days Gone was Sony Bend Studio’s first major AAA console release in a very long time—their last being Syphon Filter back in the PS1 era. Before that, they were mostly focused on handheld games. Expecting them to match the output of the most elite studios in the industry, right out of the gate, was unrealistic and frankly unfair.
The harsh critical reception didn’t reflect the potential Days Gone actually had, and it probably played a big role in Sony's decision not to greenlight a sequel. Instead, they pushed Bend and other talented studios like Bluepoint toward live service projects—chasing trends instead of trusting the kinds of games their fans consistently show up for. Many of those live service games have since been canceled, likely wasting hundreds of millions of dollars and valuable time that could’ve gone toward meaningful single-player experiences.
So when people say, “You should’ve bought Days Gone at launch if you wanted a sequel,” they’re ignoring the bigger picture. Gamers didn’t reject the game—they waited for it to be worth their time. And once it was, they absolutely showed up. That should’ve been seen as a foundation to build on, not a reason to walk away from the franchise
@neutralgamer1992
Has a point. I supported this game day 1. There was either and audio sync issue or a cut scene issue that ruined the game for me early on. I dont blame gamers at all for holding off until it meets their standard.
I seriously wonder who makes these types of decisions. Days Gone was a solid game. It didn't get that much love at first but people eventually saw the diamond in the rough. The ending basically guaranteed a sequel, but someone said "nope, let's pitch a LS game instead". And the yes-men were all "Great idea, sir!!"
Urgh. Jim Ryan’s sh***y GaaS plans still ripple across their studios even today.
Such a shame, they should have just been allowed to make Days Gone 2.
Sony need to truly let go of their live service plans once and for all.
Agreed. I think the live service era is dead. Even titans like Destiny are starting to fall apart. Sony needs to shift their focus back to their single player games.
I don’t think the GaaS overall was a bad idea they’ve seen the success of others, however, forcing all your studios to focus on it was absolutely insane.
Those kind of games are backed by hundreds if not thousands over 1,000 developers working on those games year-round even after release for continuous new content monthly, quarterly, and huge annual or bi-annual updates. It was stupid to expect taking your single-player focused studios and have them become GaaS focused studios when many of them have skipped Multi-player modes the entire last generation (a stepping stone into GaaS).
He was after his Fortnite, Apex, etc… and I feel they could have found that by building a singular new studio dedicated to helping developers like Naughty Dog bring Faction 2.0 to life. At most they should have had:
Factions 2.0 GaaS (PlayStation’s Open World Survival)
Destiny 3 (Bungie needs to revamp Destiny)
Horizon GaaS (PlayStation’s Monster Hunter)
A new AAA IP
That’s it. I mean technically Gran Turismo is a GaaS so that could count, and an Open World InFamous meets DC Universe Online could work with custom hero / villain classes.
"I don’t think the GaaS overall was a bad idea they’ve seen the success of others, however, forcing all your studios to focus on it was absolutely insane."
What's more interesting is that SIE was not actually 'forcing' their studios to make GaaS games. I have to find the article again but it was explained that these studios knew about Jim's plans for GaaS games and typically pitched those types of games to SIE because they would have a better chance of getting greenlit for production. They were chasing dollars instead of their ideal games.
Edit: I found the article. Take it for what it is, lol
https://wccftech.com/playst...
@ra
I don’t think they were forcing all of their studios, however, that initiative didn’t just come out of no where. Jim Ryan’s entire purpose was to make PlayStation more profitable than ever, and a collection of successful GaaS across platforms would have definitely done that. Based on his talk tracks and interviews he is a numbers guy, and he and Herman Hulst ran with this GaaS solution to all the PlayStation teams.
And when your CEO says this is what we’re getting behind and what the company and shareholders want going forward, everyone falls in line and pushes towards it.
Naughty Dog probably wanted Faction 2 with or without influence.
Sony Bend wanted Days Gone 2 and it was shot down, and now more than ever it makes way more sense, since the game, while initial impressions were slightly above average (which at the time wasn’t good enough being compared to God of War, Ghost, TLoUs, etc…), has found a cult following and has ended up selling extremely well across both PS4 and PS5. But instead they were dropped into this GaaS IP that failed and now they’ve wasted years of development when Days Gone 2 could have already been released or releasing.
Sony literally sent Playstation studios into a death trap!
They forced studios into this GaaS bs just cancel their games midway in development and fire thousand of people in the end!
WTF is happening over there? Why those CEOs still got to keep their jobs after billions and billions dollars invested in new studios and games just to so many developers fired and projects canceled in the end?
This is the worst generation of Playstation! Period!
They didn't actually 'force' their studios, per se, but the initiative was certainly there.
https://wccftech.com/playst...
They didn't have a choice lets be honest, a new boss comes in and lays out all these plans....what are any of them going to do? Pitch a single player game with none of the things that guy is asking for? You're just asking to be given less funding, less notice, less resources and the like. or maybe you're scared incase the guy decides to get rid of you for someone who will actually give him things that he wants.
They didn't get brutally forced but they had no choice but to go with the flow or Jim would find someone who would.
@Foxtrot
No, they definitely had a choice but many chose the path of least resistance.
We have plenty of single-player, non-LS games that began development during the LS initiative. Those projects obviously got greenlit for production. These studios just needed to have good ideas for single player games, but most just chose to come up with half-assed LS pitches.
Can't believe Sony has been shooting themselves in the foot this gen. Abandoning what made them great to chase industry trends
Alanah explains the reasons why in this video which goes into more detail: https://www.youtube.com/wat... But its basically down to appeasing their shareholders
IGN : Find out everything you need to know about MindsEye, the upcoming narrative driven single player action thriller with expansive creation tools from developer Build a Rocket Boy in this interview with Leslie Benzies, Founder and Game Director.
It is pretty rare to hear a man saying he is/was being sexually harassed lol, but anyways that is just horrible! He should have sued
"Sigh" This issues really need to address from ND and Sony. Jesus Christ ! This make me angry.
Just been reading about this on twitter - it's bad enough he was harassed , but what HR did was just as bad.
I hope he gets his career back on track, also I hope the harasser + the person who handled the case at HR gets what's coming to them.
It's horrible. If they offered him money is even worse. I hope you have something to say about all this Naughty/Sony. Do something about it or even deny it (and then prove it), but you can't just ignore this.