Blizzard developers Joe Shely and Joseph Piepiora discuss Diablo IV beta learnings and the upcoming server slam weekend.
Zelnick and Slatoff have received a $25m bonus for their management fund after sacking 550 people from Take Two Interactive.
550 probably consultants.
GTA6 is in tweak phase, no need for massive number of people for that.
I really don't even think CEO's should get bonuses. If I were a CEO and I made millions, I would like to think I wouldn't. Or if I had to legally, I would maybe find a way to disperse among the lower tier employees. Take my bonus and turn it into stocks to disperse out to those employees evenly.
That would be the way to do it. Imagine thinking a CEOs "leadership" is worth that much money while the talent makes the product.
Insanity.
I remember when I started working, my department manager used to gift us stuff each year, one year I got a bottle of Scotch, another it was a small basket of treats... But that was also a lot less money than what we're talking about here.
It would be ideal if the CEO could gift a bonus to everyone under them.
CEO's work for shareholders and are shareholders they also rely on share price to receive their multimillion dollar paydays and they will happily fire thousands to protect shares. CEO's are there to extract the most value out of a company and give it to the wealthy few.
That is so god damn fucked up!! Unfortunately...I know damn well I will be still buying their games but shit like this should seriously have some sort of repercussion of some sort. 550 people get their lives totally up-ended and the leadership get a bonus on top of an already high salary. 25M could set those 550 people up with an annual salary each of $45,000. Depending on where you live, that is a very livable salary even...
"It took one trailer for your average Joe Shmoe gamer to know the fate of Concord. Meanwhile, Hulst was at the helm of its development thinking it was about to be "the future of PlayStation." The level of disconnect is tremendous. This isn't just a catastrophically expensive mistake from Hulst, it is an embarrassing one that raises serious questions about whether he is fit for the role he had, let alone the role has has been promoted to. Hulst and co. get paid untold millions to make the exact calls that just cost Sony half-a-billion dollars when they could have gotten a better counsel from the YouTube comments section. Suffice to say, Hulst and any other PlayStation leadership involved in this disaster have serious questions to answer.
'It took one trailer for your average Joe Shmoe gamer to know the fate of Concord.'.
I wonder if the author bought up a load of physical copies and themed controllers in advance of the game being pulled, seen as they have such foresight.
Replies(2)
Everyone knew from the first trailer and if not definitely the beta that this game was dead on arrival.
Probably the most easily predicted flop in media history given it's horrendous reception. People wouldn't even try the free beta.
Hat is obviously way too big for him..
If i were him id step down..
We want Yoshida san back to get those WW back on track.
It’s 100% fair and right to examine Herman Hulst’s judgement, his capability and therefore his suitability to hold the title of CEO.
What happened with Concord? Did it have performance milestones that were missed? It seemed like it was half-baked, Acton and shooting and not much else so did Hulst push ǐt through being so basic because it was his baby? It makes you wonder what games are being greenlit and which ideas are being stopped.
@VenomUK,
It just makes me think of all the games we could have had instead of Concord, I know Sony wasn't interested in allowing a remaster/port/sequel to Wild Arms and Shadow Hearts, or Japan studios to create a new Patapon game, or a Gravity Rush/Ape Escape sequel. I hate to think what games died for this failure to exist.
The trailer did not look great, the demo just confirmed people's suspicions, I had no interest in the game.
Probably should have shown that trailer the year before. Instead of a 5 second teaser that revealed nothing.
He can make it up to us by bringing back killzone. Maybe a reboot? With the plotholes and inconsistencies fixed.
A bit exaggerative. Half a billion? First we went from 200 million, then 400 million, and now its 500 million? In 3 days some blogger is going to claim Concord cost 700 million!
Yes, the game was clearly not going to succeed, nearly everyone knew this in advance, but if Hulst learns his lesson, and focuses on quality single player adventures (additional multiplayer modes are fine too!), then we're okay. If he doesn't learn, then he needs to get the boot.
This is a make-or-break moment for us to believe in him, don't screw it up. The rumored upcoming State of Play with some big announcements should help bring things back in order. I hope.
So basically what you're saying is... wait for E3 for new single player games that will magically appear from Sony.
Herman will, from now on, listen to gamers by releasing Fairgames, Marathon and Horizon gaas.
The rumor State of Play will probably just be remasters of old games and more live service games. There's a disconnect between Herman Hulst and the Playstation fans. I'll be surprised if Hulst ain't fired by next year
I doubt they'd fire him, they'd just say there's "changes in management" or "internal restructuring"
Like Jim Ryan and his "early retirement"
Is it really that difficult to understand? Don't be a bootlicker for Sony leadership.
Who knows, they literally grossed 1 Mil, that's nuts, who knows how much was spent on the game, media and merch for it, marketing, refunding the game for customers... It's going to be bad, costings wise. I honestly can't see where all the development time and money went into this game.
@SimpleDad,
Even if he did change direction, we're not going to see the effects of that for years, possibly 3 to 4 years if anything changed, but I'm not feeling confident.
I don't know, mate.
This is more than, say, an oversight or misstep. Given the budget and life of this game, it's pretty much kiss-of-death worthy (or very close).
They need to move away from the GaaS stuff, but it remains to be seen if they will.
If we blame Hulst for Concord, then we can also thank Hulst for Astro Bot. Its only fair that it has to go both ways.
Let's just see what happens next instead of just demanding that he be fired after only 6 months. Jim Ryan started the GAAS initiative, and its going to take time (literally 1 - 3 years) for things to turn around, that's just how the industry is these days.
Chocoburger,
You're right about that. No disagreement there. I'm not saying I'm not willing to give the guy a chance. He hasn't been in this position long at all.
What I am saying is this was an extraordinary blunder. It's good that Astro Bot succeeded and this failed because it gets the gears turning to figure out what people want.
If it was me, I'd just sell off their live service studios and do what they're good at.
"The rumored upcoming State of Play with some big announcements should help bring things back in order. I hope."
You mean the one in which they would announce remasters and more remasters?! No, thanks.
I doubt there will be anything notable from first party. They usually reveal shortly before release and I doubt they have anything before spring next year. So if they reveal something, it will probably be in februarys state of play. And more by summer.
Didn't he get the job in the midst of the live service strategy? He may still suck, but you'd think it would take about 4 years to see the fruits of new leadership based on how long game development takes...
Colin said it on sacred symbols. Concord was "Herman Hulst baby apparently". Which he was talking about with someone from the Concord team. He had a hand in this.
yeah people think he can just magically turn everything around when he was put in an awful spot.
@ravens thats called marketing, is he supposed to say: "nah it's kinda meh, not really interested in playing"? And it's apparently working because you guys believe every single word that comes out of their mouth, PR or not.
He's been the head of PlayStation Studios, overseeing all game development and all acquisitions, for the last 5 years. It's not like he was some outsider that just joined PlayStation 3 months ago. Yes, Jim Ryan was the guy at the top. But it would be very naive to think that Herman Hulst wasn't also an integral part of all this.
And if it takes 4 years to see the fruits of new leadership then consider that Hulst became the head of PlayStation Studios 5 years ago. Everything we've seen over the past year would be the fruits of his leadership starting to kick in, no?
Sony was partnered with them already for years, THIS is the only game from Firewalk. HERMAN BOUGHT FIREWALK FOR CONCORD.
Man fanboys really are so pathetic aren’t they and to think i was once a PS fanboy. So embarrassing.
Yes this game was in development for 8 years and then it was picked up by Sony half way through when the moron brothers were put in charge Jim Ryan and Herman Hulst. They put money in this thing believing it was the FUTURE of Playstation.. a fucking live service game.. also closing Japanese studios at the same time. Meanwhile one of their Japanese studios just delivered one of the most critically acclaimed and best PS games ever with just 65 people and three years of development.
DO YOU GET IT NOW YOU IDIOTS
Hey guy, if this true not everyone knows that and the article certainly doesn't mention that. First time I've ever heard this.
So you look like a real d-bag calling people idiots who may not have all that facts .
Yes you are right Jack however i don’t care how i look because at this point i have zero tolerance for ignorant corporate boot lickers and fanboys defending this guy and Jim Ryan (at the time lol) when i knew from day one when these two were put in charge of things that it would be a disaster. And you can trace that to Zero Dawn coming to PC in early 2020. I knew even then yup it’s over, Playstation we knew is dead.
Good lord. The Sony defending is ridiculous at this point. People need to realize that defending them is what LEADS to Concord type failures. We NEED to call out stuff like the live service push, stupid PS5 Pro price and bare bones PS5 exclusive line up.
The same stupid defense arguments were made when the reports came out that Sony was doing live service instead of a strong push back from fans and here we are in the thick of it.
The point of the article is the Hulst should have taken one look at the steaming pile of trash and said hell no and moved on, like millions of fans obviously did.
Not pour hundreds of millions into its completion (which could have gone to better PS5 single player exclusives like Astro Bot) or even into a better multiplayer IP like SOCOM, Warhawk, Killzone etc.
He didn't and that's a problem. Playstation leadership is out of touch.
(And please no one reply and say Xbox, they're dead and this point and not even worth comparing to)
Saying that it's not (only) Hermen Hulst who is at fault is not defending sony, it's observing the timeline and using common sense. Playstation's whole strategy with the live service was just a failure, they could maybe have done 1 besides helldivers, but there is no reason to make a scapegoat out of this guy for things when they were greenlit, he could do nothing about.
Ya, this is my exact question. The game was in development for 8 years, what role does Hulst actually have in this?
If anything Jim Ryan was at the helm for a much longer period of time while this game was under development and Jim was the one originally pushing gass.
I don't know anything about this Hulst guy, but is he really the one accountable or just the fall guy?
And isn't there a second sony CEO? I thought there were 2 running the show this time around?
But wasn't he responsible for the game divisions or something, before becoming CEO? Ryan is probably the one to blame though, he must have been responsible for the gaas pivot that has stalled things.
Palworld developer Pocketpair has responded to this morning's dramatic decision by Nintendo to file a patent infringement.
Palworld is better, but Nintendo has$$$$ They can fight it all they want, but will absolutely lose. It is a blatant Pokemon rip off. I do wish them luck though.
The character design is NOT the issue here. Pokemon patented bullsht. You can patent "Throwing an item to capture a virtual character and another action to release an item that releases a combat character onto virtual world" but my god that is vague as fuck and shouldnt hold in any court...and the kicker? it was patented AFTER palworld was made.
If this lawsuit goes through that is literally going to work on every single monster capture game,
Like the other guy said, this has nothing to do with any of the designs. This is Nintendo patent trolling. It's like Rockstar suing another game if they have a guy opening the car door and yanking them out to steal the car because that's why you do in GTA so therefore that game is infringing on GTA's "patent". And that's the reason why Pocketpair is fighting this because if they lose this opens the doors to MORE lawsuits of this kind.
No they weren't. That was proven false. And, again since people don't seem to understand, this is not a copyright lawsuit or about stolen content/assets/designs/etc. It's a patent lawsuit. So far all the possible patents I've seen were filed by Nintendo 4 months *after* Palworld released.
The catching mechanic patent was filed even before Arceus was released, I dont know which ones you have been watching because all the ones I’ve seen were before Palword came out
(Though not all have been approved in the US yet, just in Japan)
The patent for the catching mechanic was filed July 2024 and granted August 2024. It was filed on top of a separate, "parent" patent that had been filed in 2021. Nintendo filed new patents and had them expedited just so they could sue Pocket Pair/Palworld.
it's so dumb. if that patent holds any water in court - any monster capture game is done and gone. cnts.
Source that says it was filed in July? I couldn't find it. And everything I can find states that it typically takes around a year or more for patents to be approved.
People want Nintendo to lose as a big middle finger to the company, but if Nintendo wins then they set a precedent for others to follow which could be bad for Nintendo themselves if they end up infringing on a patent owned by someone else
The one I'm reminded of is, a few years ago Sony patented something to do with AI controlling a characters moments in a game to "help get past difficult or grindy parts" of a game
Mario kart 8 deluxe had a the auto acceleration and auto steering technology implemented, so potentially if that came back for mario kart 9 could possibly open the door for Sony to sue them if it's close enough
