Uncharted Game director Leaves N.D.

Mcmasters

Mcmasters

Say my name...
Sep 11, 2013
9,799
2,234
2,720
SEATTLE
www.inkjrop.com
Not sure what to make of this but I suppose some of you mates would want to know about it...

Justin Richmond, who was working on Uncharted PS4 as game director, has left developer Naughty Dog.
Click to expand...

WTH is going on with Sony developers packing up and leaving shop? More at the link below:


http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/03/27/uncharted-4-game-director-justin-richmond-leaves-naughty-dog

EDIT: Not trolling either, you bastards! I genuinely thought some of you would want to get the inside scoop on some of your favorite developers and the latest news.... Thanks. :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: starlight777
Mcmasters said:
WTH is going on with Sony developers packing up and leaving shop?
Click to expand...

Obviously he was really laid off and they're just covering his tracks. I wouldn't be surprised to see Sony selling off more buildings soon.

Oh wait, wrong gen. The PS4 is doing great. My bad. :D
 
seems a lot of folk are leaving company's. that one dude who worked on the xbox brand lift. I guess it maybe time for contracts to be renewed and folks not getting as much money as they want.

The lay off's are just why pay people full time if you don't have work for them to do.
 
Naughty Dog had Amy Hennig (sp?) leave recently, too. I hope they don't lose too much of their major talent.
 
Mcmasters said:
Not sure what to make of this but I suppose some of you mates would want to know about it...



WTH is going on with Sony developers packing up and leaving shop? More at the link below:


http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/03/27/uncharted-4-game-director-justin-richmond-leaves-naughty-dog

EDIT: Not trolling either, you bastards! I genuinely thought some of you would want to get the inside scoop on some of your favorite developers and the latest news.... Thanks. :)
Click to expand...


Want to know what's going down ? This is what's going down....

Stig and his team spent almost 100 million dollars on a game that failed every QA test that took. The game sucked. They s***canned the game and a lot of the people involved. They offered Stig a spot on barlog’s project – he didn’t want to go from game director to something lesser so he quit.

This makes sense, right? s***ty game, money wasted, people fired, head guy leaves out of ego? I mean that all makes sense.

Amy Hennig has creative differences about the direction that UC4 should go in. Egos swell, she leaves. She’s happy, she will make another studio much better when she gets there. Justin Richmond, an ally of Hennig’s, gets an offer he can’t refuse from Riot. He leaves.

These things happen. Naughty Dog is going to be fine. UC4 will still be awesome. Riot will be better with the pickup of Richmond and whoever gets Hennig will be better off. The sky isn’t falling.

Guerilla Cambridge is working on a vita game that is s*** and won’t sell. They slim down as they retool for another project.

Again – this isn’t new. This happens a lot.

The director of Driveclub doesn’t deliver the game on time. Given more time the game still needs work. He is replaced.

Wouldn’t you replace him? Wouldn’t you s***can stig’s project that cost them almost 100 mil and had nothing of value to show for it? In fact they should have done it two years ago. The fact they let it go this far is a testament to how much they believed in him after GoW 3.

And all of this is happening before the fiscal year ends. Is sony trimming fat? Of course. Sony corporation is not in a great spot. So they are tightening up a bit. But a lot of people are connecting dots that don’t need to be connected. Hennig/Richmond is about creative differences and ego. Stig is about wasted money and time. Col Rogers (driveclub) is about failing to deliver. Taken on their own they all make sense. Combine them together and you get glenn beck with a chalkboard.

And Jack Tretton was about money and inability to move up. He will make more money and have more power somewhere else – something Sony simply could not offer him. s*** happens.

It’s the same with the xbox department guys. People move around. People leave for other companies. s*** happens.
 
Viktor said:
Man Intelli has been slacking lately.
Click to expand...

So good. How could he miss a negative Sony story like this? Uncharted is the flagship franchise of the PS brand and the biggest hater is nowhere to be found when the director leaves? Maybe he bought a PS4 or something.
 
More info on Stig's game

I heard various numbers between 75mil and 90 mil for Stig’s game. I said “almost 100″ because, well, both are almost 100 mil. They restarted the game, from scratch, THREE TIMES! And it sucked every time. The whole “it was too much like destiny” thing is bulls***. It was more horror-ish and like Dead Space than Destiny. That whole thing was sony jumping on the grenade to help stig save face. And help themselves save face as they wasted a f***ing TON of money.

They started concept on it before GoW 3 shipped. Once GoW 3 shipped the moved to Darkside. They didn’t have online or DLC or s*** like that to worry about. They jumped right into the next project.

The game initially was supposed to be out this year. It’s been clear for a couple years now that wasn’t gonna happen… but it does explain the giant hole in their fall lineup. Thankfully for them… Driveclub will be there to attempt to fill it, a bit.

Sony insider@Neogaf
 
Last edited:
Wow. All these people leaving Sony doesn't look good. No doubt, there's something deep rooted making them leave. I highly doubt it's pure luck that all these people are leaving in the past month on their own just for the heck of it.... excluding the people that were formally laid off.

It's especially fishy when they don't have a new company to go directly to like this guy going directly to Riot Games..... offered a new job.
 
Intellivision said:
Wow. All these people leaving Sony doesn't look good. No doubt, there's something deep rooted making them leave. I highly doubt it's pure luck that all these people are leaving in the past month on their own just for the heck of it.... excluding the people that were formally laid off.

It's especially fishy when they don't have a new company to go directly to like this guy going directly to Riot Games..... offered a new job.
Click to expand...

There's something in the water at Sony corp. That or they're just realizing they can do better. Every executive or developer should strive to one day work for the mighty Microsoft. Everyone knows Sony is just a starting point. They're like the McD's of the gaming industry. Who'd want to work there?
 
Intellivision said:
Wow. All these people leaving Sony doesn't look good. No doubt, there's something deep rooted making them leave. I highly doubt it's pure luck that all these people are leaving in the past month on their own just for the heck of it.... excluding the people that were formally laid off.

It's especially fishy when they don't have a new company to go directly to like this guy going directly to Riot Games..... offered a new job.
Click to expand...
People shuffle around in the game dev world all the time, it is practically normal. If Microsoft actually had any studios, they would be going through the same thing.
 
Repetae said:
More info on Stig's game

I heard various numbers between 75mil and 90 mil for Stig’s game. I said “almost 100″ because, well, both are almost 100 mil. They restarted the game, from scratch, THREE TIMES! And it sucked every time. The whole “it was too much like destiny” thing is bulls***. It was more horror-ish and like Dead Space than Destiny. That whole thing was sony jumping on the grenade to help stig save face. And help themselves save face as they wasted a f***ing TON of money.

They started concept on it before GoW 3 shipped. Once GoW 3 shipped the moved to Darkside. They didn’t have online or DLC or s*** like that to worry about. They jumped right into the next project.

The game initially was supposed to be out this year. It’s been clear for a couple years now that wasn’t gonna happen… but it does explain the giant hole in their fall lineup. Thankfully for them… Driveclub will be there to attempt to fill it, a bit.

Sony insider@Neogaf
Click to expand...
This is exactly what I guessed before with Stig, he was a nobody that got promoted after 2 others had left (oh no intelly) those guys left in the past, must have been some real stuff going down then too!

Anyways, as I thought (god of war team) just makes static on rails games. Combat is pretty good, visuals are great, but it isn't like they know how to make a open ended game. So when the game was canned I was not surprised. We hardly ever saw them make another game outside of being so strict on rails (the racing game they made, god of war)

So, stig not being able to drive that team for something else is no surprise, they need a restructure to do something like that and Sony saw they couldn't do anything other than GOW. It's a good thing what happened IMO It sucks to find your talent can only do one thing well, but whatever.. their talent was never that great to begin with.

As far as ND, yeah... probably nothing as well
 
Jackie_Fhan said:
This is exactly what I guessed before with Stig, he was a nobody that got promoted after 2 others had left (oh no intelly) those guys left in the past, must have been some real stuff going down then too!

Anyways, as I thought (god of war team) just makes static on rails games. Combat is pretty good, visuals are great, but it isn't like they know how to make a open ended game. So when the game was canned I was not surprised. We hardly ever saw them make another game outside of being so strict on rails (the racing game they made, god of war)

So, stig not being able to drive that team for something else is no surprise, they need a restructure to do something like that and Sony saw they couldn't do anything other than GOW. It's a good thing what happened IMO It sucks to find your talent can only do one thing well, but whatever.. their talent was never that great to begin with.

As far as ND, yeah... probably nothing as well
Click to expand...
Want that great?! This guy had hands on with one of the most successful franchises of the last generation. Its doesnt come down to just one individual when you're working on a team of people.

Either way, Im sure he'll turn up elsewheres....
 
Not worried about stig at all, whatever that guys name is that worked on gow2 seems a lot better to me. Cory balrog? And he is back at sony, so.. that sort of makes sense in some ways. Bring in talent, take out the worse talent. Just imo, I'm not trying to make pro news of it. If stig came back and cory was out, I'd still feel the same about their talent.

Just like people were making a lot of things about halo losing a lot of memebers, since halo 4 wasn't that great. Probably for the better.
 
Sony's internal studios underwent reviews before the new fiscal year for SCEWWS wich starts in april. :-/
Main shake-up were reportedly 2 internal unanounced games in the making wich got canned, and probably also alot of people lost their job from rearangement from different skillset requirement for PS3=>PS4 games.

One of the two games wich didn't make it out of those revisions, were Stig Asmussen's game - both he and his team of roughly 50 people - lost their jobs.
There could be plenty of reason why it didn't pan out, but to blame it all on Stig is dumb.
You don't get to be lead enviromental artist on God of War 3 - by beeing a nobody as suggested earlier in the thread - and you don't get put in charge of a projects that big without some kind of leadership-abilities, or support from your teams either - that's like less likely than winning the lottery. :-/
The God of War-team is still making a triple A game, wich most people can probably guess what is, and the Santa Monica Studios external support group (US XDev-like team, wich help third parties and indies) are still intact.

As for some of the other high-profile people.
Justin Richmond went to League of Legends-makers, Riot games. Not into MOBA's, so don't really follow Riot.
Col Rodgers started a new indie studio in cambridge two months ago.
Amy Hennig and Jaime Griesemer is currently unknown what they'll do next, but both of them will probably be highly sought after by most other devs if someone want better characthers written or great combat-design mechanics. :-/
Personally, I hope Bethesda snaps up Hennig, I'd love more western RPG's with more memorable and better written characthers, and that's one of the area's she excel at.. :)
 
Last edited:
I can only think of one thing when going from ND to Riot

th
th
make-it-rain-o.gif
i-make-it-rain-o.gif


could be cupcakes..?
 
Geebus, Sony allowed game development to accumulate to the tune of almost $100 million with nothing to show for it before pulling the plug. No wonder the company as a whole is in such bad financial shape. Who is manning the store over there, they really need to get a better handle on things internally and stop bleeding so much money.
 
Repetae said:
Want to know what's going down ? This is what's going down....

Stig and his team spent almost 100 million dollars on a game that failed every QA test that took. The game sucked. They s***canned the game and a lot of the people involved. They offered Stig a spot on barlog’s project – he didn’t want to go from game director to something lesser so he quit.

This makes sense, right? s***ty game, money wasted, people fired, head guy leaves out of ego? I mean that all makes sense.

Amy Hennig has creative differences about the direction that UC4 should go in. Egos swell, she leaves. She’s happy, she will make another studio much better when she gets there. Justin Richmond, an ally of Hennig’s, gets an offer he can’t refuse from Riot. He leaves.

These things happen. Naughty Dog is going to be fine. UC4 will still be awesome. Riot will be better with the pickup of Richmond and whoever gets Hennig will be better off. The sky isn’t falling.

Guerilla Cambridge is working on a vita game that is s*** and won’t sell. They slim down as they retool for another project.

Again – this isn’t new. This happens a lot.

The director of Driveclub doesn’t deliver the game on time. Given more time the game still needs work. He is replaced.

Wouldn’t you replace him? Wouldn’t you s***can stig’s project that cost them almost 100 mil and had nothing of value to show for it? In fact they should have done it two years ago. The fact they let it go this far is a testament to how much they believed in him after GoW 3.

And all of this is happening before the fiscal year ends. Is sony trimming fat? Of course. Sony corporation is not in a great spot. So they are tightening up a bit. But a lot of people are connecting dots that don’t need to be connected. Hennig/Richmond is about creative differences and ego. Stig is about wasted money and time. Col Rogers (driveclub) is about failing to deliver. Taken on their own they all make sense. Combine them together and you get glenn beck with a chalkboard.

And Jack Tretton was about money and inability to move up. He will make more money and have more power somewhere else – something Sony simply could not offer him. s*** happens.

It’s the same with the xbox department guys. People move around. People leave for other companies. s*** happens.
Click to expand...

Turns out your source is full of s*** again

director of Driveclub said:
Hello, all.

This is my first post on NeoGAF, and whilst I'm not generally one to deal in internet speculation, I have to put the record straight with regard to Pete Dodd's comments above.

Everything he has said with regard to myself and Driveclub is incorrect. It's also libellous.

As Putty (who is a personal friend of mine, and has been for about 25 years) suggests, I left Evo in February for personal reasons. The personal reasons being that my son, who is 4 years old, has been diagnosed with Nephrotic Syndrome, which is a potentially life threatening condition. I live 220 miles (4 hours drive) away from Evolution Studios, and was away from home 5.5 days a week. Given the circumstances, I could not continue to work there.

Driveclub is a great game, and the direction hasn't changed since my departure. This has been confirmed by SONY in various press releases over recent days.

I have no problem in dealing with very large projects, as I've been working in the games industry for the last 19 years, and have worked on some very prestigious titles, so there is genuinely no truth to anything posted by Mr Dodds at all. My departure (and indeed the setup of my 'indie' operation, BigRedSwitch) is 100% driven by family necessity, not some professional failing on my part.

I left SONY on very good terms. There is no animosity there, and I was absolutely nothing to do with the recent redundancies - in fact, the news of those redundancies was probably linked on here before I knew about them.

The games industry is a tough place at the moment. My circumstances with my son mean that I've had to leave secure work in order to try to make my own way in the world. This may entail getting another job. With people who obviously know nothing about the situation blackening my reputation for the sake of internet 'fame', this could be made much more difficult. It's nothing less than trolling.

I've contacted Mr. Dodd on his email address on his site. Due to the factual inaccuracy of his statements, I've informed him that he needs to remove the statements and apologise for the damage they have caused, as posting incorrect information and claiming it's true is quite simply libel.

I'm sure you can all appreciate just how difficult things are for myself and my family at the moment. I'd genuinely appreciate it if you can take my statements as word from the origin, and realise that there has been no big cover-up when it comes to my departure from SONY/Evo.

Thanks, all.

Col.
Click to expand...

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=106121033&postcount=1393
 
Mort just s*** the bed with that one, and it's pretty f***ed up that it was at the expense of a developer in a situation like that. Imagine being that guy, in that situation and coming home and seeing on Yahoo news that you are apparently terrible at your job and got fired from confirmed sources. Smh.
 
pravus said:
Mort just s*** the bed with that one, and it's pretty f***ed up that it was at the expense of a developer in a situation like that. Imagine being that guy, in that situation and coming home and seeing on Yahoo news that you are apparently terrible at your job and got fired from confirmed sources. Smh.
Click to expand...

It was on Yahoo "News"? I thought it was just rumour floating around on the boards...
 
According to the internet masses and their high regard for FamousMorty, his insider info is accurate so go with his info.
 
Repetae said:
Want to know what's going down ? This is what's going down....

Stig and his team spent almost 100 million dollars on a game that failed every QA test that took. The game sucked. They s***canned the game and a lot of the people involved. They offered Stig a spot on barlog’s project – he didn’t want to go from game director to something lesser so he quit.

This makes sense, right? s***ty game, money wasted, people fired, head guy leaves out of ego? I mean that all makes sense.

Amy Hennig has creative differences about the direction that UC4 should go in. Egos swell, she leaves. She’s happy, she will make another studio much better when she gets there. Justin Richmond, an ally of Hennig’s, gets an offer he can’t refuse from Riot. He leaves.

These things happen. Naughty Dog is going to be fine. UC4 will still be awesome. Riot will be better with the pickup of Richmond and whoever gets Hennig will be better off. The sky isn’t falling.

Guerilla Cambridge is working on a vita game that is s*** and won’t sell. They slim down as they retool for another project.

Again – this isn’t new. This happens a lot.

The director of Driveclub doesn’t deliver the game on time. Given more time the game still needs work. He is replaced.

Wouldn’t you replace him? Wouldn’t you s***can stig’s project that cost them almost 100 mil and had nothing of value to show for it? In fact they should have done it two years ago. The fact they let it go this far is a testament to how much they believed in him after GoW 3.

And all of this is happening before the fiscal year ends. Is sony trimming fat? Of course. Sony corporation is not in a great spot. So they are tightening up a bit. But a lot of people are connecting dots that don’t need to be connected. Hennig/Richmond is about creative differences and ego. Stig is about wasted money and time. Col Rogers (driveclub) is about failing to deliver. Taken on their own they all make sense. Combine them together and you get glenn beck with a chalkboard.

And Jack Tretton was about money and inability to move up. He will make more money and have more power somewhere else – something Sony simply could not offer him. s*** happens.

It’s the same with the xbox department guys. People move around. People leave for other companies. s*** happens.
Click to expand...
Looks like behind the PR screen they work just like every other big corporation.

But good to see Pete Dodd expose it. We need more insiders like him as opposed to PR yes men.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back