Evolution Studios closed by Sony

  • Thread starter TonyJZX
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Well that's extremely sad to hear, I wanted to buy this game at some point, but now I'm not going to because it like disappeared into thin air or something, so I'll go trade in my PS4 to Gamestop for like, $20 and waste my eating money on the other plastic box that does the exact same thing, because I can't play Driveclub or anything now for some reason.

No, I'm not going to because that would be stupid.

I wish all the people at Evolution Studios the best, without them there wouldn't be those amazing WRC classics or Motorstorm Pacific Rift (best evar). I hope they take to Kickstarter or some other means of fundraising to get back into the driver's seat of game developing again as fast as possible!

If they had a Kickstarter I'd probably donate, and hopefully you too.
 
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RACECAR
I bought it up because you seem to imply that based on past games, Codemaster will waste talent when Dirt Rally is a good example that they actually haven't.
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A good example that they did not waste talent on one game from their 3 main franchises, most of which are made by individual teams within the studio; not by the whole team in one go. That is why they can release 4 or more games in one year alone.

Grid Autosport: released June 2014.
F1 2014: Released October 2014.
Toybox Turbo's: Released November 2014.
Dirt Rally: Released (early access on PC) April 2015.
F1 2015: July 2015.
 
Jawehawk
Care to share some sales figures along with that statement? What are you basing it on?
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Doing really well is probably a stretch, but they've sold over two million copies and counting as of last year. But we don't know how much the development cost Sony and how much money Driveclub raked in either, taking various discounts and whatnot into consideration.

Still a massively disappointing and poor decision by Sony. They really had something good in their hands. I was looking forward to whatever Evo had up their sleeves for their next game.
 
glassjaw
With all this in mind, I have no idea what Sony is thinking. This may be an unpopular opinion — and I'm not wishing anyone else lose their jobs — but if you want to trim the fat, how about starting with the team that sunk $60 million into a game developed over six years that was a critical flop and performed okay at best on shelves, purely because of the franchise's clout? How about the team that continually makes passion projects with little commercial viability? How about the team that's still developing The Last Guardian, a project so mismanaged the creator fled?

If you look at this practically, it doesn't make sense.
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15mi copies between Prologue and GT5 for a 60mi budget.

Team Ico were <50 peeps with the core having more than a decade of Sony and still belonging to their internal Japan studio, the project was "paused" for two years, and Ueda is "under contract" now.

If you look at this practically, it doesn't make sense.
 
It's certainly a shame no matter which way you spin it, but I also think it's important to realise that in the end, it's a business. And if the game was to continue on as a service, which it seems to have been doing for the last year, and it wasn't able to recoup the investments in new licenses and big new features such as the bikes, then this was the obvious outcome.
 
Ialyrn
A good example that they did not waste talent on one game from their 3 main franchises, most of which are made by individual teams within the studio; not by the whole team in one go. That is why they can release 4 or more games in one year alone.

Grid Autosport: released June 2014.
F1 2014: Released October 2014.
Toybox Turbo's: Released November 2014.
Dirt Rally: Released (early access on PC) April 2015.
F1 2015: July 2015.
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Where exactly did I bring up them having multiple games? My point is that Codemasters isn't necessarily going to waste talent because of what happened with there main franchises prior. It should be noted that they got a new team for F1 2015 (one of which includes someone from iracing). Sure it was wasn't all that great but its the first game on the current gen hardware AND with a new team, its merely a starting point. With Dirt Rally, it obviously goes without saying the job they'e accomplished with it. Again, the assumption they'll waste talent is abit farfeteched after their great work with Dirt Rally, which seems to suggest the opposite. It might be one title for now but remember, none of there games before had that much praise so clearly something has changed.

In any case, I do wish the best of luck to them. They deserve better and the moment they get a kickstarter or something similar going, I'm pitching in.
 
Clearly Sony see no need for another racing game from EVO and there's no need to maintain a studio to produce a couple of cars and tracks. They already laid of 50 of them last year because of that.

PS4 needed a racing game and EVO did a great job with post launch support. Now that the game is full of content Sony see no reason to keep EVO around.

They will outsource the track/car creation instead of paying salaries to a whole studio probably saving tens of millions a year. VR version is probably mostly finished too.

I don't think there's anyone to blame here - there's simply no demand for another arcade racer and you can't keep a studio that does not make games.

I hate PD release schedule but who knows if it's not because of them and lack of GT on PS4 that Driveclub was able to evolve into what it is today.

Anyway - thanks for the best PGR spiritual successor. I couldn't hope for anything better.
 
Jawehawk
Care to share some sales figures along with that statement? What are you basing it on?

According to IGN, the game has sold more than 2 million units, which isn't bad in itself. However, the quick price reduction of the game, combined with the heavy pricetag of licensing exotic super cars, could very well mean that the game was struggling to turn a decent profit. I can't and won't say anything for sure, but I assume that the company was shut down for a reason, and not just because some big shot decided to shut Évo down on a whimp.
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Not to mention how long they worked on the game before release and afterwards...wages must be sky high.
 
UkHardcore23
Not to mention how long they worked on the game before release and afterwards...wages must be sky high.
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GT5 took a lot longer, costing a rumoured $60 million, and sold roughly 4x more. I fail to see the logic in this.
 
C_R5_575TLR
GT5 took a lot longer, costing a rumoured $60 million, and sold roughly 4x more. I fail to see the logic in this.
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GT5 turned in a profit from both Prologue and GT5 itself. And it's price wasn't cut down significantly just a few months after being released.
 
Jawehawk
GT5 turned in a profit from both Prologue and GT5 itself. And it's price wasn't cut down significantly just a few months after being released.
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But it didn't have as much DLC support, and work carried on after release to a greater extent than with DriveClub.
 
C_R5_575TLR
But it didn't have as much DLC support, and work carried on after release to a greater extent than with DriveClub.
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It's entirely possible that all of Driveclubs DLC was the company's undoing. They delivered a lot of great content, but if not enough people bought it, then this is the natural outcome.

Gran Turismo is a bit weird, in the sense that they keep selling really well really fast, regardless of how inept the development team is. In any case, Sony is clearly confident that Gran Turismo will keep turning a profit. Aparently, that wasn't the case with Driveclub and/or Evolution Studios.
 
Jawehawk
It's entirely possible that all of Driveclubs DLC was the company's undoing.
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Well, that and the fact that in 2015 they cut 55 people from the studio, and the last two Motorstorm games (Apocalypse and RC) kinda bombed in terms of sales. (If I remember correctly)
 
Jawehawk
It's entirely possible that all of Driveclubs DLC was the company's undoing. They delivered a lot of great content, but if not enough people bought it, then this is the natural outcome.

Gran Turismo is a bit weird, in the sense that they keep selling really well really fast, regardless of how inept the development team is. In any case, Sony is clearly confident that Gran Turismo will keep turning a profit. Aparently, that wasn't the case with Driveclub and/or Evolution Studios.
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I do agree with you on this. It's a damn shame that they didn't have enough faith for the future of Evo, but it is what it is.
 
cutmeamango
15mi copies between Prologue and GT5 for a 60mi budget.

Team Ico were <50 peeps with the core having more than a decade of Sony and still belonging to their internal Japan studio, the project was "paused" for two years, and Ueda is "under contract" now.

If you look at this practically, it doesn't make sense.
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Yup, great job copy/pasting facts and misrepresenting my argument. Not exactly sure how you italicizing my opinion detracts merit from what I said, but thanks for the snarky reply. 👎
 
glassjaw
Yup, great job copy/pasting facts and misrepresenting my argument. Not exactly sure how you italicizing my opinion detracts merit from what I said, but thanks for the snarky reply. 👎
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Your argument was that there were places with more "fat to trim" and listed two that do not even make sense.

Top down business decisions like cutting 55 employees (almost half of their workforce) last year and now closing the studio hardly occur because they "want to trim fat".
As sad as it is, they axe those that do not offer return or are not worth the monetary risk maintaining.

If you look at this practically, DC was a game that started development likely at late 2011, early 2002, was a high budget entry as a PS4 flagship, that released in late 2014 and had issues at launch and support initially, along with the whole PS+ thing.
And before DC, there was Motorstorm 2 and 3 (Apocalypse) which according to all the sales insiders and lack of numbers, didn't really light the charts up.
They made good games, got fused with other studios, grew, made a good game, but in the end it probably wasn't sustainable.

At some point they end up saying "yes, this is not working as is". For exemple, Lionhead projects were stalled and they unfortunately got axed too by Microsoft. Sony was financing Rime, but supposedly the game wasn't shaping up and still full of problems so Sony sold the IP back to Tequila Works.

Maintaining a high profile studio isn't cheap, so if companies keep floating is either because they do achieve projected returns or because their financers believe the risk may pay off.

The "sunk 60mi budget and six years" studio has sales numbers that only a selected handful of games has even if only counting the last generation. And as any huge franchise, it is one that keeps selling steady in all regions. It hasn't wildly expanded either.

The "passion projects with little commercial viability" is 1) small, 2) partly of Sony Japan dev while they are not working on Team Ico 3) between the first two, are small budget and 4) have some viability since the Ico-SotC HD remake collection sold above 400k in the US alone.
That's probably why they revived Last Guardian on the PS4.

In the end it's not a question of eeny, meeny, miny, moe.
Perhaps they can be happier under their own command, since they can make what they feel it'll be good and not adhere to a publisher's guidance.
 
Such a shame, Driveclub turned into an amazing game and my favourite PS4 title by far. But I can't help but feel like it's my fault for not buying the last few lots of DLC. I just didn't have the money, Sony, I'll get around to it soon!
 
Very very sad news :guilty:

I really appreciate your good job with Driveclub Evolution Studios.. And also liked and played a lot other from your games like MotorStorm or the WRC games..

Screw you 🤬 sony, hopefully the studio stays united and starts like an independent third party with lots of success.
 
This is ridiculous, the launch of DC may have been bad but at least they fixed it and delivered a next gen exclusive racing game for them, unlike that other Sony studio who STILL haven't released a single game on the PS4 over 2 years later.

I'll never forget their WRC games, and judging by the garbage WRC games we get these days they will probably be the best WRC games ever made.
 
I'm sure quite a few of the staff will end up at the studio already founded by former Evolution Studios members.

360x200

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-06-05-evolution-studios-vets-found-new-vr-studio
 
It's sad news and a mistake. Apparently DC will be handled internally by "Sony" whatever that means. The Glroy days of exclusive racing games are long gone. GT doesn't cut it, too far and too few in between. GT Sport doesn't look like a big game at all and that has my interest low.
 
LaBounti
It's sad news and a mistake. Apparently DC will be handled internally by "Sony" whatever that means. The Glroy days of exclusive racing games are long gone. GT doesn't cut it, too far and too few in between. GT Sport doesn't look like a big game at all and that has my interest low.
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It'll probably be "handled" in the same way Sony kept the lights on for the Wipeout servers and did nothing more.
 

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