Perfect Dark Developer The Initiative Is Reportedly Struggling With Staff

I think this project will be cancelled a lot of rumours going around about the studio being shutdown. Obviously just rumours at this point but signs not looking good.

Always sounded like a case of ‘too many cooks’ with this studio. You can’t manufacture a dream team.
What is curious is isn’t the guy who just left the one who pushed to bring crystal dynamics in to the development in the first place?

Just another example that Xbox has a management problem still. Said it before, but I don’t see how buying/making more studios when they can’t properly manage their existing ones, was ever going to work. They need to learn there’s a difference between nurturing a studio and throwing money at it.
Thankfully Bethesda and activision will come with their own management nannying them.

@Chaudy I can’t see the game being cancelled. They’ll just pay crystal dynamics to do it. Either way though it’s a bad look. And it’s very doubtful we’re going to get a good game out of all of this. That’s going to be the biggest shame.

Really hope this game does release and it's great. Xbox could use an FPS with a good single player to compliment MP.

I hope the other studios bought in 2018 are not like this.

@Chaudy I don’t think the game is going to get cancelled. I honestly think the game will be fine; just a lot of Crystal Dynamics.

this end of the business has troubled Microsoft almost since the beginning. they have struggled for YEARS to simply deliver games. right now this project has "Cancelled" or "Comes out in 3 years but isn't very good" written all over it...

@Bleachedsmiles There does appear to be a trend if bad game management going on. 343 probably wins the prize for the worst though.

So a repeat of Halo Infinite's development. Lovely.

What in the world is going on in Microsoft's game studios?

People move around industries all the time. It's usually how you move up and get the position/salary you want. It's just video game development.

Hope they can right the ship, I know many are very excited for this project!

It took over five years for 343 to release Halo Infinite and even then it had issues and lacked features. It's been five years since the latest Forza Motorsport game from Turn10 after having released them every other year. Hellblade II was announced in 2019 and we still don't have a release date from Ninja Theory. Rare doesn't even know what kind of game Everwilds is. Compulsion Games hasn't released a new game since 2018. And now The Initiative is facing issues with its development of Perfect Dark.

Microsoft needs to be more strict with Xbox Game Studios. You need to find a good balance between progression and freedom. They're way too lenient right now with their studios.

The Initiative is full of good artists but that's not enough. The problem might be that there is not a hierarchy in some Xbox Game Studios and they have so much freedom that staffers start to argue with each other. The hierarchy is what makes big teams work fine. Well, it's organisation but organisation needs hierarchy.

@LtSarge
Have said for a long time Microsoft don’t seem to manage their studios that well at all.
They have even more studios to manage now so it will interesting.

If we can all see that there’s clearly a problem with Xbox management and the development of these games then it must be pretty safe to assume MS see it too…right? So maybe it doesn’t matter. I mean Xbox still get to show cgi trailers years in advance of games that don’t actually exist…which in turn still gets gamepass subs. The quality of the game releasing years later maybe doesn’t matter if say they counter that by revealing yet another cgi trailer of another highly anticipated game…keeping a steady stream of people picking up yearly subs.
You’d assume quality matters in order to keep people subscribing but then you look at Netflix…count how many Netflix made movies have been good.
If their studios can keep making a buzz every E3 with cgi trailers does it really matter if these games end up rubbish or canned? They have other more competent publishers bringing out games to balance it out.

Called it almost immediately after the initial announcement, unfortunately.. They created a super-studio made almost exclusively out of individuals wanting to be the core of their employer operation. With an additional workforce, you could spin-off 4-5 different studios by talent behind The Initiative creative.
It's just a proof of more not always being better :/

@LtSarge what would more strict look like from microsoft? Release the game by x timeline no matter what state?

It is generally a best practice to let the developers realise their own visions instead of forcing concepts and deadlines on them. I really dont want them to go the Ubisoft or Square route where they go "hey, live service games are in, so all games are live service now."

Seems like almost all of Xbox's studios are constantly burning through high level staff

@LtSarge Compulsion Games have been around since 2009 and only have two game credit before MS bought them. Not really sure that’s fair to throw in there. Also Motorsport had play-testers, and I can’t fault company for wanting a break from a rigid release schedule. Playgrounds took a break to. Look, I have no issue in questioning these high profile projects, but cherry picking studios?

The problem is with MS trying to compete with “Sony Blockbusters”. Those projects aren’t doing so hot.

@Somebody What's the point in letting studios "realise their own visions" if they can't actually execute them? I've taken a course in project management while I was studying business economics and the thing I've learned from that is that ideas (i.e. visions) is only around 10% of the project, if even that. Then you have the other 90% where you need to actually implement the ideas and fulfill your vision. That's the hardest part of a project and this is where it's important to have good leaders and managers to help drive the project forward. Clearly this is the area that Microsoft is lacking in the most. They have to take notes from other studios and see how they are doing things. Could be a good time for them to learn from the ZeniMax studios, maybe have them share their expertise and culture with Xbox Game Studios.

@mousieone Doesn't matter which studios you remove, it's clear to me and a lot of people that Microsoft has a general problem with managing their studios. If they're being lenient with some studios, then I think it's fair to say that they're being lenient with other studios as well.

@LtSarge It does matter because you're trying to use Complusion Games to make a point about the overall state of the "all the studios", but you aren't actually getting to heart of the problem.

Which is again I state the larger high profile projects.

You can be super lienent on tiny projects because they are meant to be projects of passion. They don't need to adhere to the same standards has a big AAA blockbuster. If you can't see that, I don't think you get passion projects at all.

I also really think Turn 10 is allowed a break given their past rack record but okay let’s COD-up Forza. Pull Double Fine off Psychonauts 2 because Motorsport needed to release in 2020…

@mousieone I genuinely couldn't care less which studios work on passion projects. The point I was making is that Microsoft doesn't manage their studios well in general, so I picked some examples. If you don't like my examples, then feel free to ignore them.

@LtSarge Get cross and gruff with me; that’s fine. You cherry picked and I called you out on it. Yup you’re right I’ll ignore yours points. Let me know when you actually want to discuss the real issue instead of complaining.

You want to discuss the fact that I don’t think MS is good at making big AAA blockbusters like Sony. All for it. But complaining isn’t constructive.

@mousieone Alright, I think we're done here. I'll be blocking you now.

@LtSarge guess we will have to disagree on this. I love that xbox is letting studios do their own thing. I am so glad the days of forcing studios like Lionhead to make crappy Fable games they didnt want to make are gone. I'm glad they dont stick to the safe route anymore of only releasing cut and paste versions of gears, halo, forza.

I wont make assumptions based on job listings. There is really nothing to suggest this game is doomed aside from a couple job listings in a bizarre time for jobs in all industries. Means absolutely nothing.

We can't be sure about The Initiative but, at the very least, 343 Industries is not well organised and needed help from ex-Bungie employees to fix the basic structure of Halo Infinite when the game was supposed to be finished. Also, Craig Duncan is not a good leader for Rare. I say this as a long-time Rare fan that knows people at Rare/Playtonic. So there are at least two studios that could be better with different leaders and managers.

It's not a question of forcing people into doing something, it's a question of having good people managing the studios. That said, I'm only concerned about those two. I haven't seen anything objectively wrong about the others. I never cared about Compulsion Games and I was surprised when Microsoft acquired them so my opinion about them is the same as before.

@Bleachedsmiles That depends on what their plan was going into it. You need the tasks in place and a winning vision for the final product. Crystal Dynamics provides the man-power to implement the tasks. Let's hope they have the right people in place at all studios involved to tackle any coming issues.

The game will be "late", but no reason to think it will be bad at this time. We'll talk again in 2 years. 😉

Q) What do you make of this report?

A) Naturally a level of scepticism is worth having with any report that isn't confirmed by members involved, however the line of "painfully" slow and that they were surprised Microsoft was so lenient regarding the game's progress" does seem to fit my so far perception of Xbox Studios. The lengthy wait for Halo Infinite and the situation with Rare and Everwild (amongst others) do indicate that Microsoft being lenient with their studios is a fairly common thing and, whilst such an approach has it's benefits, it also has it's negatives.

Q) Will Perfect Dark ever release?

A) Microsoft typically gets their projects released in some form (tragic tales of Fable Legends and Scalebound aside) and with the involvement of Crystal Dynamics, I feel this game is safe in releasing. Rough developments doesn't mean a game always gets cancelled and some fantastic games have released despite difficult developments, so even those outcomes are hard to predict.

@Bleachedsmiles I don't think that marketing strategy would work at all. In regard to The Initiative, it's a new team and they haven't made anything together yet. They are being assisted by Crystal Dynamics but we don't know why, it could be that the project is too big for a new studio.

@Banjo- it’s certainly too big for a studio the size of the Initiative. If I recall, they are small even now?

Now we can see why it's always better to buy an established studio rather than try make one from the ground up.
If the game is a success, don't be surprised to see MS buy Crystal Dynamics from Square Enix and merge The Initiative with them.

@mousieone All I know is that they made a dream team and then some people left and other joined. The idea was to make a new studio capable of doing AAA adventure games like Crystal Dynamics and Naughty Dog do (I think that Crystal Dynamics make better games but Naughty Dog is relevant, anyway). The idea makes sense because most of the other Xbox Game Studios are experienced at other genres but the new thing probably needs to mature. If Square Enix don't care much about Crystal Dynamics, Microsoft could try to acquire them, if they agree, and merge the two. If you ignore the questionable stories and scripts of the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy, the games are flawless.

The other kind of game that Xbox is missing is "friendly" and cartoon games. Perhaps Beenox, Vicarious Visions, Toys for Bob and of course Rare (and Playtonic?) could do something to fix that. I know I always say the same thing but it's criminal that there is no Conker, no Banjo and no Viva Piñata.

This reminded me of...

😂

@Banjo- I think The Initiative is like a third of the size of the other big studios. I don’t if it’s possible to make a studio from the ground level that just makes big games. All the that do have be doing games for a while.

Yes, they do need more friendly games for sure. But honestly if they free just Toys for Bob from doing COD that would do it … that’s a thing for later though.

@mousieone The Initiative: 70 people. I can't find the number of employees at Crystal Dynamics and Naughty Dog but they're probably bigger. I'd say that Crystal Dynamics is the biggest without any more data.

@Rural-Bandit And when those leakers are like Jeff Grubb you know the grandmother across the street has the same credibility 😁.

It seems Xbox has a problem with its big studios. However, The Coalition, Playground Games and Turn 10 have been very consistent.

Why does this always seem to happen with Microsoft studios? Nothing ever seems to run smoothly. Is it too much control from Microsoft or too little?? 😟

I believe 'The Initiative' is a small agile prototype studio, they conceptualize a game (gameloop , mechanics, graphics style, global narrative) and then hand it over to a full-blown AAA development team (Crystal D. in the case of Perfect Dark) to finish the product, and then move on to a new concept, so maybe the people moving on from the studio thought their work was done on the 'Perfect Dark prototype' and got a different opportunity in the games industry somewhere else, like people said here, people move around in the gamingindustry alle the time.

@RevGaming It seems like Ninja Theory and Obsidian are in much better shape. Hellblade II's footage so far is a very good sign in that regard.

@KilloWertz I disagree. We only seen HB 2 and it looks well graphically but we haven't seen combat.

@Bleachedsmiles I think part of the whole point of buying Bethesda and Activision was that they came with their own existing corporate and studio culture as well as management. The technology and IPs are also part of it ofc. But having an established and functional system in place is the biggest point I think.