Looks Like Radical Entertainment Shut Down

@CJduke said:

@Manhattan_Project said:

@Xeirus said:

@AngeTheDude said:

I like how Activision complains that their games didn't find an audience yet they didn't even bother to advertise for Prototype 2 AT ALL.

Exactly what I was thinking, how the hell do you expect to sell if no one even knows the damn thing is out?

Not that it was a good game or anything, but jesus man...

Are you guys serious? They ran commercials for the game on everything from ESPN to A&E. In the middle of playoff games and Storage Wars. A shitload of them.

LOL seriously, I was watching a UFC pay per view and it was sponsored by Prototype 2 for gods sake. Not to mention all those live action commercials. And there were ads all over the internet, how did you guys miss all that?

Yup, this doesn't seem so damning for Activision to me. A company made an expensive game that wasn't good and didn't sell well, and so they failed. This isn't out of the norm for any business, and I don't think it's intelligent to simply blame the head honchos for everything.

I can't wait for the day CoD implodes and activision is fucked because it has ZERO new IP.

That's really unfair. Why does an Activision mandate to create a shitty piece of software doom a perfectly good company? No one told you higher-ups to greenlight Prototype 2. Even I could have told you no one was demanding that, let alone executives making $250k+.

Great, so Radical goes down the drain and the PC version isn't even released yet! Sure bodes well for Prototype 2 on PC lemme tell you.

Also, sucks people lost their jobs and shit. Stupid Activision.

@Gremmel said:

1991-2012? Maybe not but all your money into one basket ey...

Who keeps money in a basket...?

@jamesisaacs said:

No more Prototype?

I'll raise you.

@Manhattan_Project said:

@Xeirus said:

@AngeTheDude said:

I like how Activision complains that their games didn't find an audience yet they didn't even bother to advertise for Prototype 2 AT ALL.

Exactly what I was thinking, how the hell do you expect to sell if no one even knows the damn thing is out?

Not that it was a good game or anything, but jesus man...

Are you guys serious? They ran commercials for the game on everything from ESPN to A&E. In the middle of playoff games and Storage Wars. A shitload of them.

LOL seriously, I was watching a UFC pay per view and it was sponsored by Prototype 2 for gods sake. Not to mention all those live action commercials. And there were ads all over the internet, how did you guys miss all that?

Saw this one coming. It should almost be illegal to shut down a developer when the biggest reason why the game sold so poorly is because the company provided basically no marketing on it. Not that I suspect that Prototyp would have sold a whole lot even with marketing behind it. But the way they completely buried that game makes me kind of disgusted that they are jusst throwing the team out.

@Xeirus said:

@AngeTheDude said:

I like how Activision complains that their games didn't find an audience yet they didn't even bother to advertise for Prototype 2 AT ALL.

Exactly what I was thinking, how the hell do you expect to sell if no one even knows the damn thing is out?

Not that it was a good game or anything, but jesus man...

Are you guys serious? They ran commercials for the game on everything from ESPN to A&E. In the middle of playoff games and Storage Wars. A shitload of them.

@AngeTheDude said:

I like how Activision complains that their games didn't find an audience yet they didn't even bother to advertise for Prototype 2 AT ALL.

Exactly what I was thinking, how the hell do you expect to sell if no one even knows the damn thing is out?

Not that it was a good game or anything, but jesus man...

The console gaming model is still massively flawed. 1 million units is now chicken feed compared to the investment needed to get the game done. And games are going to need more investment, not less, when the next consoles hit.

Perhaps it would of helped if they made their lead protagonists even a tiny bit likeable. Still sucks and is weird Activision is just shutting them down outright, they had potential to make something cool, it just wasn't prototype.

Acti strikes again.

I thought the original Prototype was a pretty great. It's always a shame when a sequel fails trump the original and it rarely bodes well for the developer of that franchise.

They made a game that was not good enough to keep the studio open.

As such, some employees will remain working for Radical Entertainment supporting other existing Activision Publishing projects, but the studio will cease development of its own games going forward.

Translation: Another Activision-owned developer forced into Call of Duty Map Pack slavery. God this fucking company is awful. When will the COD Bubble pop? Kotick and co. are quickly destroying everything they have EXCEPT that one franchise - when it falls, they're screwed.

I don't even like Prototype, but Radical was a good studio. Especially when they made stuff like Crash Bandicoot games - Crash Tag Team Racing and Crash of the Titans (believe it or not; quality games). Stuff like Spimpsons Hit and Run, Scarface...even Dark Summit and Mario is Missing were interesting. This company didn't deserve to bite it...especially when Prototype 2 sold over a million units between the 360, PS3 and PC SKUs. Yeah, it didn't sell as well as the first one, but I'm sick of studios shipping million-selling games and getting closed down.

There is something wrong with the industry when that is grounds for shutting a studio down!

I like how Activision complains that their games didn't find an audience yet they didn't even bother to advertise for Prototype 2 AT ALL.

@glyn said:

@WilliamHenry said:

@Zaxex said:

Why does anyone choose to work for Activision, making games? Is there anywhere else in the industry to work, and have less job security?

Anyone care to list the developers closed by Activision? I'm still sore about Bizzare Creations. The presence of Call of Duty has left a growing pile of IPs and developers in its wake, losing a lot of its original developers along the way.

I don't want to undermine my integrity by ignoring the Call of Duty games despite their quality, but they aren't groundbreaking anymore and giving them money seems to come at a greater cost.

I get your point and it does seem that Activision shuts down studios more often than other publishers, but at the same time, if Radical was independent and Prototype sold the same amount, they'd still probably be forced to shut down. I feel for everyone at Radical. Hopefully it will work out for everyone.

They got shut down for a reason. They had two chances to produce a worthy game and they failed.

It is sad that it's AAA or bust for so many developers, it's not good for depth or innovation in the industry either.

@WilliamHenry said:

@Zaxex said:

Why does anyone choose to work for Activision, making games? Is there anywhere else in the industry to work, and have less job security?

Anyone care to list the developers closed by Activision? I'm still sore about Bizzare Creations. The presence of Call of Duty has left a growing pile of IPs and developers in its wake, losing a lot of its original developers along the way.

I don't want to undermine my integrity by ignoring the Call of Duty games despite their quality, but they aren't groundbreaking anymore and giving them money seems to come at a greater cost.

I get your point and it does seem that Activision shuts down studios more often than other publishers, but at the same time, if Radical was independent and Prototype sold the same amount, they'd still probably be forced to shut down. I feel for everyone at Radical. Hopefully it will work out for everyone.

They got shut down for a reason. They had two chances to produce a worthy game and they failed.

They were lucky they got a shot at Prototype 2. Activision would've shuttered most studios after the first flop.

It's a shame, but we know this is what this publisher does.

No more Prototype?

@JazGalaxy said:

@BBAlpert said:

Are game studios getting shuttered left and right lately or has it always been this way and I'm just now noticing?

The industry is becoming more and more based on having "AAA" games that take a bazillion dollars to make. If it doesn't hit... everyone is out of a job.

We're seeing the same thing in films. Studios that have existed for decades are getting shuttered after one bad release.

More than this, the news that Mangled Eye Studios, an indie developer ran by some ex-Ritual Entertainment, Raven Software and Turtle Rock guys recently shut down kinda hit me much harder. Their (in all likelyhood failed - as it's barely 1% founded with only hours to go) Kickstarter is still up, but hasn't gotten a project update since may. Somehow the entire life of that studio flew under the radar even from indie scene coverage, neither their previous game or the kickstarter were marketed at all, nor were the studio's closure mentioned anywhere, they just vanished and suddenly their sites were replaced with "We've closed, thank you for the support all these years" stuff. With guys that have worked on some really memorable games like Star Trek Elite Force 2 and Counter-Strike (though mostly Condition Zero and the Xbox port) it's kinda odd and sad that even as an indie studio they could remain so unrecognized.

This is awful. This is really, really awful.

Would be nice if Activision just shuffled projects around to try to keep these teams working together but just on something other than the franchise that might have not sold as well as the latest CoD game. Hope if this is true, best of luck to everyone from Radical. Must be sucky now to try to find a job in the game industry with so many recent studios shut down by stupid reasons.

@Paindamnation said:

@curlyq101 said:

@TheHBK said:

Hey, it's not personal, it's just BUSINESS.

Oh man....

The fake-ness of this is so ridiculous.

Ah the good ole days.

God dammit.

This industry is such a bummer nowadays.

Still sore about what Activision did to Bizzare Creations.

Fuck Activision

@curlyq101 said:

@TheHBK said:

Hey, it's not personal, it's just BUSINESS.

Oh man....

The fake-ness of this is so ridiculous.

I just finished Prototype 2 and it was a damn fun game. If it doesn't sell 40 million Activision just throws them under the bus.

@TheHBK said:

Hey, it's not personal, it's just BUSINESS.

Oh man....

@BBAlpert said:

Are game studios getting shuttered left and right lately or has it always been this way and I'm just now noticing?

The industry is becoming more and more based on having "AAA" games that take a bazillion dollars to make. If it doesn't hit... everyone is out of a job.

We're seeing the same thing in films. Studios that have existed for decades are getting shuttered after one bad release.

I didn't realize they had so much riding on Prototype 2.

I thought the prototype 2 was badass! It's fun being overpowered and just wrecking shit after a long day of work. Exploding enemies into piles of limbs and body parts, one-shotting helicopters, tanks, jumping city blocks; boo to you guys that didn't like it.

As shitty as it is for those guys to be out of work, ultimately it was on them to build on the handful on interesting ideas from Prototype 1 to make the sequel a resounding success - and they squandered that opportunity to instead release an almost identical game with a swapped protagonist. The games they made didn't sell that well and there was a reason for that. Visceral had an interesting idea for a new IP and Dead Space really nailed it. Prototype was interesting but ultimately the execution was sloppy and they must have known it.

@paulunga said:

Considering their best game (according to this here database) is Battle for Olympus for the NES I'm really not all that sad to see them go. Both Prototype games were also pretty awful past the initial 2-3 hours of fucking around with all the powers.

They developed the Game Boy version.

I fuckin hate game companies closing. Shit.

*knocks over trash can*

Hey, it's not personal, it's just BUSINESS.

Loved Simpsons Hit and Run and that Hulk game...shame their newer games weren't as good. Always sad to see people out of work.

Are game studios getting shuttered left and right lately or has it always been this way and I'm just now noticing?

@Zaxex said:

Why does anyone choose to work for Activision, making games? Is there anywhere else in the industry to work, and have less job security?

Anyone care to list the developers closed by Activision? I'm still sore about Bizzare Creations. The presence of Call of Duty has left a growing pile of IPs and developers in its wake, losing a lot of its original developers along the way.

I don't want to undermine my integrity by ignoring the Call of Duty games despite their quality, but they aren't groundbreaking anymore and giving them money seems to come at a greater cost.

I get your point and it does seem that Activision shuts down studios more often than other publishers, but at the same time, if Radical was independent and Prototype sold the same amount, they'd still probably be forced to shut down. I feel for everyone at Radical. Hopefully it will work out for everyone.

Oh great, another developer assimilated into making Call Of Duty map packs until the day they fucking die.

I did think it was a bit weird how Prototype 2 still hasn't been released for PC.

Going to be interesting to see how it is received when it's out on Steam in a month.

Why does anyone choose to work for Activision, making games? Is there anywhere else in the industry to work, and have less job security?

Anyone care to list the developers closed by Activision? I'm still sore about Bizzare Creations. The presence of Call of Duty has left a growing pile of IPs and developers in its wake, losing a lot of its original developers along the way.

I don't want to undermine my integrity by ignoring the Call of Duty games despite their quality, but they aren't groundbreaking anymore and giving them money seems to come at a greater cost.

Oh no! These guys developed one of my favourite PS1 games: Jackie Chan Stuntmaster....

The prototype games never appealed to me, so vile and hateful. Heard good things about Hulk: Ultimate Destruction though.

Hope everyone lands on their feet.

Fuck. I really liked the Prototype games too.

Making a AAA title is such a gamble anymore. We have seen a lot of studios shut down, or get considerably downsized, because they could not sell enough copies to justify the astronomical budgets.

I loved the Hulk but wasn't down with the ultra violence of Prototype. They should've at least let them have a crack at Spiderman.

1991-2012? Maybe not but all your money into one basket ey...