Sega Canceling Games, Cutting Jobs
 

So, this makes a depressing read.

It's a shame that the video game market has, like many other industries, become difficult to survive in. Sega was, at one time, the biggest gaming company in the world, and for them to now be in the situation where they're going to become not just a software developer, but they're downscaling their operation to focus on digital download titles, is quite a sad thing.

Their plan seems to be to continue to produce retail titles for strong IP's like Sonic, Football Manager, Total War and Aliens, but they're going to cancel a lot of other projects in the pipe line and concentrate mainly on delivering content via XBLA and PSN etc.

I think Sega's America devision is going to be hit hardest by this as they're looking to scale that department down purely to localisation and some public relations work, with most marketing and development coming from Europe and Japan, which means a lot of people look set to loose their jobs sadly.

Re: Sega Canceling Games, Cutting Jobs
 

THQ, Obsidian, and now SEGA? Not going particularly well for the gaming industry anywhere. Bit strange to scale down the SEGA North America department, given that it (or so I thought) was considered to be the one with the highest potential income for a new title. Or am I wrong about that?

Re: Sega Canceling Games, Cutting Jobs
 

I hope EA is next! They're still seeing red.

Re: Sega Canceling Games, Cutting Jobs
 

Japan and Europe have always been Sega's strongest markets, America is a larger potential market but Sega have historically never been able to crack it quite in the same way it has with the other territories.

As a result over the evolution of the company, the American devision is the one with the least political power internally and the one least likely to survive any major cutbacks.

Re: Sega Canceling Games, Cutting Jobs
 

Anyone know of some of the cancelled games?

I dont keep tabs on SEGA produced games, but it would be interesting to find out what ones were cancelled.

Re: Sega Canceling Games, Cutting Jobs
 

Some latest news just in;

Also, not sure what the cancelled games are yet, but, if it isn't a Sonic title, Football Manager title, Total War or Aliens title, then it's gone.

Re: Sega Canceling Games, Cutting Jobs
 

Not necessarily all. Binary Domain's PC release is next week, and I'm rather sure cancelling that now would only be negative to SEGA since it's already gold(not unheard of, but still fairly unlikely). Other than Binary Domain, there's Virtua Fighter, Yakuza 5, Anarchy Reigns, Phantasy Star Online 2, and London 2012 from a quick glance. It'd be nice to know which ones are in jeopardy. Could be they're just to be put on hold until they can pick up development again.

Re: Sega Canceling Games, Cutting Jobs
 

Sega cancelling games and cutting jobs, GAME going into administration with Gamestation possibly following, lockout software on next gen so that preowned games can't be played...

This is the Gamers Apocalypse!!! :Panic:

Re: Sega Canceling Games, Cutting Jobs
 

Games in development, not games that have gone gold. =p


It remains to be seen exactly what the casualties are. Things are still developing it seems.



Does feel that way sometimes. :/

Re: Sega Canceling Games, Cutting Jobs
 

I think Gaming (whether it be as we currently have it, or something different) is something of the future; and something that is likely to remain a presence for many years to come.

Sure, we've hit some dark times, and I doubt we're out of the woods yet, but I fully expect the gaming industry to survive whatever is thrown at it.

Re: Sega Canceling Games, Cutting Jobs
 

Whether that means surviving on high quantity, low quality games, or low quantity, but high quality, remains to be seen. I would hope it's the latter, since that's something that seems to be missing from the market right now. There hasn't been a proper, massive blockbuster IP title for quite a while now. Most of the major titles released are either remakes, or sequels to already established games.

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That seems to be the trend as of late, not only with video games, but films too. When was the last original film you saw? Everything we seem to be getting now is either a sequel / prequel or is based on a comic (Batman, Ironman, Avengers), a cartoon (Transformers, Smurfs), board games (Battleship), book (Twilight, 3 Musketeers, Hunger Games) or fairytale (Red Riding Hood, Snow White & The Huntsman).

I'm amazed they've not made a Monopoly film yet. :uhoh:

Re: Sega Canceling Games, Cutting Jobs
 

Ehm, actually...

You're right though. I saw a chart earlier this week, showing the top selling movies. In 2011, only one of the five movies wasn't a sequel or remake. It seems there's a heavy need for innovation on both markets, or people will end up growing tired of the same movies and games.

Re: Sega Canceling Games, Cutting Jobs
 

:facepalm:

Agreed.

Re: Sega Canceling Games, Cutting Jobs
 

And this is bad? The industry needs to crash. Get rid of the crooked businessmen that caused it.

Seriously, my "Gamers Apocalypse" happened years ago. I haven't bought new in months, and I have no interest in future or current new titles. I'm too wary of publishers screwing with the titles (which they always do).

Also, entertainment industry stagnation is due to a fear of failure by the distribution companies during this crap economy. Why take risk on untested IPs? Why not milk the successful ones? Doesn't help that they're wasting money on policing the internet as well.

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Re: Sega Canceling Games, Cutting Jobs
 

There's still people being creative. Video games are just getting movie size budgets now which means the stakes are higher so people are scared to take a chance on anything new. So there's a lot of sequels just like there are in movies. If you're expecting EA or any large publisher to drop $100 million developing anything revolutionary you're probably going to be disappointed.

I think the focus of big budget games is more about creating nice engines/good graphics or something along those lines. Improving in that regard is a pretty safe investment for companies because people are always going to want to play a newer, more powerful engine. But improvement in the way of story telling or pioneering a new genre is more the domain of smaller studios that can afford to take risks and experiment. That's where people should look for innovative games. There are things like kickstarter too, where you can pledge to help develop the games you want.