If a studio already has pre-existing issues, it needs to produce a gem in order to stay alive. But when they fall well short, as was the case with Blue Omega's Damnation , that can close the doors for good (pun intended).
According to Develop and citing a recent Tweet by Blue Omega Entertainment programmer Geoff Rowland, the entire staff has been laid off. This officially happened Friday, and Blue Omega confirmed the unfortunate news with Kotaku, further explaining that the team had had former "issues" with Damnation publisher Codemasters. These issues led to a number of lawsuits between the two feuding companies and when the aforementioned game failed to impress critics and consumers alike, that was the last straw. As one added tidbit of information, Blue Omega was also responsible for producing several B-movie horror flicks including "Danika" and "Dark Ride." In the end, the quality of their work wasn't good enough to combat the outside influences weighing down upon them, and now, Blue Omega is no more. We often hear about studios making a gazillion dollars after hitting the jackpot with titles like Grand Theft Auto IV , but in this ultra-competitive marketplace, and with development costs so high, endeavoring to create a video game can be a very risky proposition. Well, unless you're EA or Activision, who can easily survive poor efforts every now and then.
We never like to see game developers go under, but hey, it's part of the daily news. Hopefully, the ex-Blue Omega guys can find positions elsewhere.
Related Game(s): Damnation
Next time make a game that dosent suck. Works wonders.
Good luck out there guys.
In fast food.
I have to agree with killzone100 and the rest of the intelligent world on this one. DON'T MAKE SH*T GAMES!
Would save yourself a whole world of headaches that way.
Wow you think making games is that easy?
I don't know if it was so much that it was sh*t, but it was marketed quite a bit too. I saw a bunch of adds on websites and stuff, but whose mistake is that…..Anyways, it's like any industry. You do a bad job you get fired.
and life goes on…
Do you really think they tried to make a crappy game?
Come on, really?
Seriously?
Have you seen Damnation? At some point, you gotta realize that you work is flawed.
Yeah, but how long do you hold a game back to try and improve it? How many times can you overhaul the engine? Eventually you're going to end up with a Too Human, or worse, a DNF. And ultimately, that's going to lose you far more money and for more time, the latter being a resource that you will never get back.
-Arvis
ffrulez,
You clearly don't realize how the real world works, especially business.
Who has the money and resources to scrap an almost completed product? EA, Activision, and Ubisoft.
Any other smaller publisher would have to release the game and pray it can make some of its money back.
RIP Blue Omega
Cause and Effect: You make a shitty game…U don't get the opportunity to do it again.
I hope that the ppl (that have actual talent) who were let go, find a new home where their talents won't be wasted.
Well lets see someone here make a better game. Until that happends i wouldn't be questioning their game whether it sucks or not at least they tried doing what they were capable of.
Is very unfortunate, then i guess having a career in gaming is risky, almost everyday you hear, studio A has been shut down, studio B lays off 100 workers etc etc. I don't think i'd like to join game devs anymore.
Yeah I bet its not easy making games in this current environment, especially when you are competing with companies who have million dollar budgets.
But then again, its not my career to make games. For the Blue Omega team it was. Hopefully they can join another dev team or maybe they can go make some iphone apps.
I can forgive some flaws in a game, but c'mon.
Damnation should have never been released. Gameplay was boring. Graphics were bland. Something told me to rent this one first, glad i did.
Glad to hear about this, they clearly picked the wrong job. Give money to people that actually deserve it.
They should've taken the opportunity on the PS2 area. Thanks to the "fanboys", developers are really pushing the games, bringing better visuals, gameplay and innovation. Unless you can top that or you have something really deep planned out (like Heavy Rain, Alan Wake). Best not bring a game to try to compete with other Triple AAA titles.
Your forgetting that they used to make films. Since when have films and games have anything in common? Should just stick to what your good at.