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Sega Is Not Keen On A Second Alpha Protocol

Poor sales and mediocre ratings to blame.

The bad mamba of mediocre reviews coupled with poor sales has blasted the idea of an Alpha Protocol 2 out of publisher Sega's mind for the time being.  
 
In an oddly early and candid chat about Alpha Protocol with CVG, Sega president Mike Hayes dashed all hopes of a sequel. "Let's speak very commercially; the game hasn't sold what we've expected, therefore we won't be doing a sequel," Hayes said. 
 

 Unfortunately for the other guy, Thornton's pistol skill was low.
 Unfortunately for the other guy, Thornton's pistol skill was low.

This decision doesn't discount the fact that the game had some cool ideas. Hayes called the espionage RPG concept of Alpha Protocol "brilliant," before coloring the rest of his comments with a stone cold business reality, namely the effect that Metacritic scores have on sales. "You know, this whole thing with Metacritifc where you have to be in the high 70's- to mid-80's minimum [to have success]--well, with RPGs, you have to be in the late 80's."

== TEASER ==Alpha Protocol did a lot right, for sure. The dialogue and alternate narrative paths were interesting, but the gaggle of technical issues and freaky shooting mechanics were big bummers that sapped the experience. In our review, it was said, "There are brilliant moments in Alpha Protocol, but they're all but muted by poor gunplay and a list of unfortunate technical issues." Now, it looks like Obsidian won't get a chance to try it again. 

173 Comments

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FCKSNAP

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Edited By FCKSNAP
@RE_Player92 said:

"  all I meant was this is a cool news story and I consider Brad N, and the rest of the GB staff, bros "

Excuse me, can I see what's in your bag real quick? 
 Where's Chad?
 Where's Chad?
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Rayeth

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Edited By Rayeth

In other news:  Alpha Protocol not keen on being a good game.

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vitor

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Edited By vitor

Surely the caption on the last image should read 'Fortunately for the other guy, Thorton's pistol skill was low'?

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Bollard

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Edited By Bollard
@tiwi said:
" @RE_Player92 said:
" Cool news story bro "
what the fuck is this supposed to mean? "
BROS ICING BROS
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b33

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Edited By b33

INTERNET 
 
SERIOUS BUSINESS

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Mrskidders

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Edited By Mrskidders

People just sulk and spit their dummies out when it isn't Brad, Jeff, Ryan or Vinny that post a story.  I come here for video game news, this post is video game news.  Happy days.

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KillEm_Dafoe

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Edited By KillEm_Dafoe

I really would've loved to see Obsidian do a sequel while fixing everything wrong with the first and improving upon what it did well. Underneath all the bugs and other issues, AP is a pretty great game that deserves better than what it got.

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alwaysbeclothing

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Edited By alwaysbeclothing

I'm kind of disappointed, the game deserves a sequel.  I viewed Alpha Protocol as sort of a Mass Effect 1 type game and Obsidian sure does have a history of making games with a 2 on the end of it.

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MasterHiggins

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Edited By MasterHiggins
Let's keep garbage negative comments out of our Giant Bombs.
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Icil

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Edited By Icil
@This Article said:

 In our review, it was said, "There are brilliant moments in Alpha Protocol, but they're all but muted by poor gunplay and a list of unfortunate technical issues."    

 
I thought it was Jeff's review.
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ArbitraryWater

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Edited By ArbitraryWater

Not entirely surprised.

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flaminghobo

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Edited By flaminghobo

I'd just like to see Obsidian just hand in the towel, all of the games that I've played which have been developed by the name have been terrible.

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ApolloBob

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Edited By ApolloBob

Was Alpha Protocol shipped before it was ready?  If so, wouldn't SEGA have something to do with that?

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nail1080

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Edited By nail1080
@RE_Player92 said:
" Cool news story bro "
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Roger778

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Edited By Roger778

I am very saddened to see this news report.  Of all the games that I think deserved a sequel, this is one of them.  Alpha Protocol is a brilliant game that has an unfinished quality to it, and if Sega hadn't rushed Obsidian to finish the game, it could have been a critical and commercial success. 
 
Oh, well.  All I can hope for is that someday Obsidian makes an original game that isn't a sequel.
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williamhenry

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Edited By williamhenry
@Icil said:
" @This Article said:

 In our review, it was said, "There are brilliant moments in Alpha Protocol, but they're all but muted by poor gunplay and a list of unfortunate technical issues."    

 I thought it was Jeff's review. "

Thats why he said our and not his.
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demontium

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Edited By demontium

Sweet

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spiceninja

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Edited By spiceninja

Don't you mean fortunately his gun skill was low?

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ravensword

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Edited By ravensword

Shame, I think they had the potential for something good, and maybe a sequel would have fixed it. Like KZ2 fixed KZ1s galaring flaws for the most part.
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detectivepbert

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Edited By detectivepbert

I have never played this game but think that in general RPGs as a genre might be under-appreciated because people lack attention spans.  I could never play this type of game even in high school but now 10 years later I would probably enjoy this more then say, something like Red Dead Redemption. 

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MikkaQ

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Edited By MikkaQ

Y'know that's too bad, the game had a lot of good ideas, and even good execution in some spots. It was at least enough to get me to beat the game, and hope that there would have been a sequel to refine it. Because this game had kindof a neat Deus-Ex vibe to it, and a sequel could have done a lot to flesh out the world and ideas more.

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HarrySound

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Edited By HarrySound

I think Sega should actually put some more effort into releasing things when there not a bug ridden mess?
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CaptainTightPants

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@PlasmaBeam44 said:
" Don't you mean fortunately his gun skill was low? "
This that would have been a great caption.
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JackG100

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Edited By JackG100

What technical issues? Other than the slowly loading textures I haven't noticed anything broken or bugged with the game.
 
Some weapons don't deal enough dmg, only really annoying thing for me in it. (shotgun sucks!)
Other than that the game is freaking awesome.

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ThePhenomenal1

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Edited By ThePhenomenal1

this was a game that could totally use a sequel to refine much of the gameplay mechanics. there was so much about alpha protocol that could've been amazing if they had fixed it.

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TheHT

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Edited By TheHT
@ThePhenomenal1 said:
" this was a game that could totally use a sequel to refine much of the gameplay mechanics. there was so much about alpha protocol that could've been amazing if they had fixed it. "
Absolutely, if the kinks were worked out plentiful as they may be, the complete experience would be hella fun.
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wolf_blitzer85

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Edited By wolf_blitzer85
@Mrskidders said:
" People just sulk and spit their dummies out when it isn't Brad, Jeff, Ryan or Vinny that post a story.  I come here for video game news, this post is video game news.  Happy days. "
They are kind of the reason that most of us came here in the first place. I don't mind the news stuff as much as some people do, but I would like to see some more articles written by the main guys rather than a bunch of pointless news stuff copied from Kotaku.
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beomoose

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Edited By beomoose

The jankeyness really killed this game for me but I was hoping they'd get a second chance. Ah Well.

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bed

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Edited By bed

god dammit

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C0V3RT

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Edited By C0V3RT

Still interested...just waiting for a price drop due to the wonkyness.

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veektarius

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Edited By veektarius

There's a lot of fan love for Obsidian.  I guess it's old PC RPGers who know the pedigree of the people who work there and embrace one of the few dedicated RPG dev teams that are out there.  But here's my take - dissolve the company.  Let their talent go somewhere where it can actually be channeled into finished games that aren't just "If only the publisher hadn't taken advantage of them."  Maybe that's how it all started with LucasArts, but at this point I don't see why any publisher would trust them with total creative freedom or a 'when it's done' timeline with their track record. 

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The_Laughing_Man

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Edited By The_Laughing_Man

The game had great ideas. But was clinkly pulled off. It could have been amazing. Just with a few tweeks 

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gike987

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Edited By gike987
@checcoz said:

"  Seen the results with Mass Effect 2, at the current state of things I'd prefer a lot more to play Alpha Protocol 2 than Mass Effect 3.   I don't care what others say about the bad control or old graphics, the story and the multiple choices are the bomb and AP succeded in that, ME 2 not.   Hell, how much does it cost to make a game nowadays? I'll finance Obsidian by miself if needed :\ "

Too bad most reviewers seems to want Action games when they review RPGs. I don't like this new trend that every RPG need to play like ME 2. ME 2 may be a great game but it is not an RPG it's a Third person shooter with some RPG elements.
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asdfghasdf

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Edited By asdfghasdf

Man, that's a real shame. I'm loving Alpha Protocol right now, and was hoping for more.

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Branthog

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Edited By Branthog

A sequel might have improved on the many massive failings of this game, but I can understand their lack of interest in it. I was looking forward to the game, but found it so damn frustrating to conduct gun fights that after about thirty attempts to finish the guys in the room at the end of the desert level (pretty much the first one you do), I put the disc back in the box and put it back on the shelf. I haven't touched it since.

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captainfish

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Edited By captainfish

Shouldn't the caption on that picture read "Fortunatelyfor the other guy, Thornton's pistol skill was low." I mean you're implying that he's gonna miss at point blank, which is fortunate for the FBI dude, unless he has a death wish. 

Alpha protocol is a great game, it had a bunch of issues, but I'd be afraid they'd turn the sequel into what Jeff wanted: a third person shooter. It's not that it's an RPG, and a pretty great one with extremely great story branching and choice recognition. The issues I had were more performance and bugs and "editing" (a skill that didn't actually change upon upgrade is less a bug, and more something they just missed, like a typo in a paper). Also a sequel wouldn't really make sense story wise unless they made sure it wasn't Thorton in the driver's seat.

Good article.

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JustinHutchens

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Edited By JustinHutchens

I liked the game that is to bad if we won't get a sequel

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deactivated-5d955ffb554b6

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Hey, Sega, you want your fricken game to sell really well?


Try making a decent fucking product, and not the broken crap you put out on the market.

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Claude

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Edited By Claude

If you're going to mention Metacritic, you should talk about how some sites try to break away from the hated, oh so hated 10 point scale or 100, but what's a few decimals among friends. Let's be hardcore and only do a five star scale. Hardcore means read the review, because our review scale is casual.
 
Needless to say, I've seen many games get so-called mediocre scores on Metacritic and still sale well. Probably just a bad game, maybe, word of mouth had more to do with it.

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spaceturtle

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Edited By spaceturtle

No surprise, really. That game turned out to be complete rubish. Total waste of my time. 
 
Well, it actually did have it's moments at the very beginning of the game, but it all got boring so quickly and I just quit the damn thing after about three hours in and never looked back.

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natetodamax

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Edited By natetodamax

Because this totally couldn't have been put in a thread, right? 
 
But a bummer regardless.

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Crono

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Edited By Crono
@Icil said:

" @This Article said:

  In our review, it was said, "There are brilliant moments in Alpha Protocol, but they're all but muted by poor gunplay and a list of unfortunate technical issues."    

 I thought it was Jeff's review. "
And Jeff is under the Giant Bomb banner?  Is that really a hard concept to grasp?
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mazik765

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Edited By mazik765

Sega needs to learn to wait until after a game they produce has run it's commercial course before talking it down. First firing the studio that made Iron Man 2 before the game was released and now this? Do they understand the concept of public perception?

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Norusdog

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Edited By Norusdog

HAH..good..obsidian is a joke.  yes they've made some ok games...I actually liked NWN2..but it's a second-rate company that can't even come up with it's own solid IP.
 
they tried with this and it was nothing but a clunky and shit-filled modern mass effect with espionage.
 
some people should be losing their jobs.

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Icil

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Edited By Icil
@Crono said:
" @Icil said:

" @This Article said:

  In our review, it was said, "There are brilliant moments in Alpha Protocol, but they're all but muted by poor gunplay and a list of unfortunate technical issues."    

 I thought it was Jeff's review. "
And Jeff is under the Giant Bomb banner?  Is that really a hard concept to grasp? "
Two things brought me to Giantbomb: 
 
One is the fact that the reviewers on this site are individuals when they write, each with different tastes and opinions on games. They routinely disagree with each other and their reviews take a personal tone. Reviews written like this are a breath of fresh air (if I want a canned and superficial review, I check Metacritic). By citing Jeff's review as Giantbomb's, it struck a bad tone (if it's a mistake then no harm, no foul).
 
The second thing is that there are less assholes on these forums than in almost most any other. 
 
 
This article (and some others lately) is breaking the first lure. Crono, you break the second.

Just think about it: replace the words Ryan, Jeff, Vinny or Brad with the word 'Giantbomb' (and possessives) and you'll have a fucking boring website where no real discussion is happening. Or at the very least, another  ol' news site.
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spilledmilkfactory

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that sucks. i was hoping for an ap sequel. if the mechanics of the first game were refined it could be a really great game and sell better

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harrisonave

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Edited By harrisonave

That's pretty fucking lame.  Blame poor sales and ratings.  The game had potential!  Instead of giving up on it, how about making A BETTER FUCKING GAME!  Sega really pisses me off with this shit.  Always putting they're most interesting franchises on the backburner, they can eat a dick.  

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DrDarkStryfe

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Edited By DrDarkStryfe

Disappointing, but not unexpected.  The game got pretty beat up in the review rounds, and came out in the same year as a superior product in Mass Effect 2. 
 
I enjoyed the hell out of Alpha Protocol, some of the most fun I had with a game this year.  Hopefully how they handed dialogue bleads into other titles of the genre.

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killroycantkill

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Edited By killroycantkill

Well with the games Sega as been making/publishing I can't blame them for not taking a risk. They've had a few good games this year but they always manage to mess something up, hardcore. If it's not the PS3 Version of Bayonetta or even the cut content from Yakuza 3. I'm losing faith in Sega as a company more and more and I am expecting less and less from them. 
 
Obsidian is a good company and it's shown from their past games. It's too bad SEGA is too shitty of a publisher to either see a good game or keep a good game good without any hicups.