Wasted game development talent

While listening to the latest Giant Bombcast and the gang talking about Destiny, I was suddenly struck with the realization that Bungie will likely spend the rest of this decade at least working on the game and its sequels. Now I'm a really big fan of Bungie, mainly because of all the time I've spent with the Halo franchise. Destiny ended up being a big disappointment for me, and if Bungie are going to stick to their vision with the game in the future I'm not sure if I'm going to keep buying the stuff they produce. I'd much rather see the studio work on something entirely different, and simply put I feel like their talent is being wasted working on Destiny.

All this made me wonder if you duders have ever felt like producers or studios you admire are wasting their talents on one project or another. Another example except for Bungie which I can think of right now is Naughty Dog. The Last of Us showed what that company can do when given the chance to work on something new, and I'm really disappointed that they're making another Uncharted game at the moment in stead of something, anything, else.

I don't worry about it too much. I figure if a company is starting to produce garbage, then the most talented developers and artists will move on to other companies and projects, or start doing their own thing.

Rare. I mean, their talent isn't wasted-wasted, it's just wasted on ALL OF YOU!!! And because of YOU I'll never get to play Viva PInata 3.

It might be important to point out that studios as big as Bungie and Naughty Dog are never only working on one game. So sure, some time and effort might be wasted on a game that you/the masses don't like, but that's not the only thing they've got going. And in the case of Destiny, making new content for a pre-existing game is vastly less labor intensive than making the game from scratch. I'd be shocked if they didn't already have another new title at least in the planning stages while they're still making DLC for/tweaking Destiny.

Raven Software used to make great games like Wolfenstein 09 and Singularity... Now they're doomed to work on COD DLC until Activision shuts them down.

Bungie has never been a two game studio and they publicly stated Destiny is a 10 year franchise. Don't expect anything that isn't Destiny related from them for a long ass time.

People are talented, companies are not, so it's a bit inaccurate to say Bungie or Naughty Dog are wasting their talents. The talented people at those companies can leave, and maybe already have.

The people who made Winter Stars are way too talented to be slumming it making a wannabe Olympics minigame collection. Given that they don't own their website anymore I'd bet the company went under and now I wonder what those people are doing now.

It disappoints me knowing that Free Radical, now Crytek UK, has been relegated to working on generic FTP bullshit instead of a new TimeSplitters, or something else really creative that everyone knows they are capable of. A true waste of talent, there.

In the case of Naughty Dog, at least the Uncharted games are still good. I was also bummed to see that Uncharted 4 will be their next game, but I'm also pretty excited for it. Though I would much rather have Jak 4 over anything else. And not just as in "anything from Naughty Dog". I mean I want Jak 4 over literally anything else, period.

Bungie working on destiny and Naughty Dog working on Uncharted are not good examples of wasted game development talent. The reason Destiny is disappointing is that Bungie couldn't get their shit together in time to put a full game out. The new Uncharted is taking notes from TLoU to make the gunplay more exiting and less boiler plate. The stuff they're doing to the climbing seems pretty good too and it'll be on a new console. Get back to me if they do Uncharted 5 after that.

No, talent got wasted when Nintendo stuck Retro on their second unoriginal and boring Donkey Kong game in a row. I bet those games are good platforms but why put the developer known for making innovative games on 2 straight sequels to 20 year old games? Why not inject new life into donkey kong the same they injected new life into metroid prime? Why not put them in pokemon or zelda or mario so they could put new life into tired franchises?

All the developers that work for Activision that are not Blizzard. If you look at their past and their investments and IP's they are doing a bad job at running that company. No matter their profit at the moment, I wager even I would have done a better job. Some talent left when they decided to stop paying their employees when they might get away with it, but there must be some talented people who got left behind.

I don't think talent is the right word when it comes to Bungie. Call it beginner's luck or a one-trick pony with Halo. Halo 1 was good, different and fun to play online. The second they move onto their second IP, their 'talent' starts to show. Keep in mind Destiny was the game they always wanted to make but couldn't due to the oh-so-evil microsoft overlords. I mean, you can say a lot of stuff about Microsoft but at least Microsoft kept them in check and ensured a high level of quality control. They're absolutely nothing without the guiding reins.

Then look at Naughty Dog. Crash Bandicoot, Jak & Daxter, Uncharted, The Last of Us. Pretty varied and all critically acclaimed. Now that's talent. Do I think Uncharted 4 was unnecessary? Yes, totally. This was the perfect opportunity to start a new IP on the PS4 and they missed that chance.

Pretty much Microsoft's (PC-centric) entire first party was wasted on xbox. Ensemble Studios, Digital Anvil...never forget...

Neversoft was stuck in Call of Duty support hell for a while, which was the biggest I could think of.

But currently? Probably Sony Santa Monica not having something to show for so damn long.

Or Chair and god damn Infinity Blade.

@pyrodactyl: have you played the new donkey kong games, out of curiosity? I think they're fun, creative, and pretty tightly constructed platformers, personally. Fair enough if they don't look appealing to you, but you should really give then a shot.

If Destiny was Bungie's best foot forward, I'd hazard a guess and say there isn't a lot of talent to be wasted there.

@csl316 Are they not working on The Order?

Pandemic Studios I always thought they had some awesome talent there, but EA might have ruined them. Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction and The Saboteur are games I often think about.

Not sure about you guys but I'm pretty excited about another Uncharted. I wouldn't say that is wasted talent. And seeing were Destiny goes now is going to be one of the most exciting things to see, since I kinda hate Destiny and am curious what they will do to that series later on. No wasted talent so far.

Omg I have dreams in which copies of Viva Pinata 1 and 2 are as valuable as a few pounds of gold because Rare is now disfunct and none of you "gamers" bought it.

Is Bungie wasting its talents or just using them? Was Irrational Games wasting it time spending forever with Bioshock Infinite, or were they working at the level that could be expected of them.

If you want to know why developers fail read up on articles that talk about why experts so often get predictions wrong. Expertise is correctly, often associated with special abilities and enhanced performance. Yet, there is other side of expertise, that hidden dark side where performance may be degraded, culminating in a lack of flexibility and error.

That is what I think we see sometimes with failed games; developers or producers become such experts they become blinded to a 'perfected method' or way of thinking. They are not intentional doing bad work or putting in less effort, they just are stuck in a mindset that they cannot escape without total failure.

I'd rather ND make another Uncharted if poorly ripping off other games and stories is all they can do beyond that. The Last of us isn't a very good game in my opinion.

But really, no. I don't put my own wants on a developer. I want them to make whatever they want to make. The problem is they have to make what makes them money. If they make a new franchise, no matter how good it is, if no one buys it they're going to go back to that other thing they know people will buy.

That's how business works.

I could not disagree more

I thought Marathon 2: Durandal was a dang good game and so were the Myth games (which should be noted were a completely different genre of games)

fwiw Bungie I think is legit talented, perhaps they've lost their edge, but their studios pedigree is hardly just Halo.

What a negative outlook on things. Jesus people... happy thoughts! Just because Destiny didn't hit the high notes its first time out doesn't mean its a waste of Bungies time. Uncharted being a waste of Naughty Dog..... what? seriously though what? What bigger franchise or more important game could Naughty Dog make than the next Uncharted game.

I'm not sure if I would call Uncharted a waste of talent.

Bungie is doing exactly what they want to be doing. This is basically what they made with a huge budget and complete creative freedom .Maybe they're just not that talented, if you're not into what they're doing.

Intelligent Systems could be making a new Advance Wars right now. Bet they're not and that sucks. Atlus could be making a new Radiant Historia instead of remixing its Persona date sim shit for the millionth time.

Obviously they should be making a sequel to the best game ever made, Yoshi's Cookie.

I don't know if I would necessarily use the word "wasted" given I don't know what's really going on behind the scenes, but I've felt like Yoshinori Ono deserved better. All the shit this mofo does for Capcom and he still has to fight and beg for resources and he's not even really allowed to branch out it seems (he's brought up wanting to bring back other franchises, but apparently the higher ups said fuck that noise). I'm not a big fan of SF4, but even I have to admit what an excellent job they did with it and for all I know maybe Ono loves going into work every day and he's extremely well-paid or something - I dunno, so, again I can't in good conscience flat out say he's wasted. All i know is that in a perfect world, Ono would be able to work on whatever the hell he wanted at a company that didn't seem like they're always one step away from going under.

@babychoochoo: hopefully this collaboration with Sony leads to him leaving Capcom joining Sony and making games for a new studio at Sony.

I can see why people call Uncharted a waste, that series is boring. The Last of Us was profoundly more interesting, I'm disappointed they're going back to making a better looking Uncharted 1.

I don't know how Ono deserves better, he loves Street Fighter and is now working on another Street Fighter. From what he says on Twitter he is extremely happy right now, yeah he didn't get to make another Darkstalkers, but nobody really wants another Darkstalkers. There's no need to go into production on one of those again, they should just drag the (1 or 2) popular characters from that series and dump them into Street Fighter.

I know what you are saying to a degree but Ono seems like he is in a good place. He's responsible for the only franchise Capcom haven't fucked up yet.

To be fair, all of the "talent" at Rare left the company right around the time they started exclusively focusing on Avatar stuff and Kinect games. Why those guys haven't banded together to kickstart "Danjo Dazooie" is another question entirely.

Going way back in time, Tim Follin is perhaps the greatest video game composer I can think of who has never been involved with a good game.

Holy cow man you aren't kidding.

That slammin' track is waaaaaaayyyyy too good for a Pictionary game

Retro

LET THEM MAKE A DAMN ZELDA GAME!

@privodotmenit: Oh, well then, that's cool. I don't use Twitter so I didn't know, but if he's happy then I'm happy for him.