We found out why 'Redfall' sucked so bad...

so we all know that red fall is just not a very good game however we just found out why it's not a very good game and the story is not great basically this is a story of corporate greed of mismanagement and of a company that didn't really know what they were making or why they were making it strap in this one's a little crazy the story comes from Bloomberg specifically from the one and only Jason schreier and I'll have this linked Below in the description and pinned comment if you want to read it for yourself Arcane is a studio that was founded back in 1999 and they built a reputation for creating some phenomenally well-designed immersive Sim games specifically ones that focused on tight intricate level design with extremely robust mechanics to encourage you to explore in different ways seriously if you have not played the Dishonored games you are missing out those are an absolute Gem and there's a reason why why people expected redfall to at least be decent because this is a team that knows what they're doing now to break things down a little bit more specifically there are two teams within Arcane there is Arcane Leon in France and there's Arcane Austin now it's not exactly clear how many employees each of these Studios have but they're decent sized Studios with at least 100 employees working on each of their games now redfall was developed by Arcane Austin down in Texas this is the same team that built prey which was highly praised by critics and of course helped on the original Dishonored the reason I say helped is because Dishonored was actually developed by both Arcane Leon and Arcane Austin together they didn't really separate until after that doing different projects at the same time so they helped but I mean it was basically a 50 50 thing for all intents and purposes they developed Dishonored and prey both of which were reviewed very very highly by critics though Dishonored 2 and prey were considered Financial flops they were great with critics but in terms of actual Revenue they didn't do that well now prey launched in 2017 and after it's less than Stellar launch financially it was decided by corporate Executives within xenomax that they needed to re-evaluate what their mission was going to be and how they were going to start generating actual profits for the company now quick rewind back to 2018 I made some videos where I was looking at Fallout 76 trying to figure out why on Earth the game was so greedy from the ground up I mean the entire thing was built just to milk money from customers without even so much as a slight consideration for the quality of the product they were delivering it was borderline evil what they did with Fallout 76 uh can you believe that this it doesn't talk to me or respond to my emails for review codes or anything anymore yeah no well what they did was evil I'm gonna call it like it is it was evil they tried to steal your money basically repeatedly I mean just go watch the internet historian video on the whole situation it's insane that anybody defends bgs after that anyway what I determined was that because the management hadn't changed within Bethesda and xenomax their parent company something had shifted if the managers are the same there hasn't been a change up in terms of who's making the decisions when there are major shifts in priorities and goals for a company you have to consider that maybe the motivation has changed maybe the goal has changed because if for 20 years a company runs a certain way and then without management changing they all of a sudden start acting like a totally different company you have to wonder what are the owners actually trying to do now that they weren't trying to do before in other words they got so greedy the only explanation was that they were trying to boost their revenue numbers to look more appealing to get more money from a potential acquisition something that was doubled up because there was a bunch of reporting of xenomax talking with various people investment companies to potentially sell off a chunk of their Holdings within xenomax or to just entirely be absorbed into a larger corporate structure which is of course what eventually happened when Microsoft announced that they were buying them and bringing xenimax into the Xbox fold now I know what you're thinking what does this have to do with redfall well back in 2018 Executives within xenomax the parent company of Bethesda softworks and them being the parent company of Arcane they decided that they needed to start really pushing live service games that would turn a profit over the long run through selling Cosmetics microtransactions the whole kit and caboodle again 2018 was the same year that Fallout 76 launched so it makes sense that they would come up with this idea of forcing Arcane to finally turn a profit by developing something that was built from the ground up to squeeze money out of players going back to the article according to people familiar with the process xenomax was strongly urging developers at its subsidiaries to implement microtransactions that is recurrent opportunities within games for players to spend real money say outfitting their characters although this wasn't an absolute mandate several xenomax franchises such as Fallout doom and Wolfenstein would soon release new versions incorporating online multiplayer and monetization options again we saw this happening in real time where out of nowhere all of these Studios that were previously making really high quality single player content were coming out with multiplayer games games with Co-op and games with in-game shops this wasn't because the devs all of a sudden decided to do it it's because the guys upstairs not God the man managers sword of God they decided that they wanted this to happen and that they needed to boost those numbers so when they finally sold they could get as many billions as they could now when it finally came time to develop redfall they tapped two very respected developers Harvey Smith and Ricardo Barre I'm assuming Beret it might just be Barr or bear I don't know ballet sounds more interesting so I'm gonna go with that and these guys had previously worked on the Dishonored series and pray if anybody could get this new game working it would probably be them after some ideation they settled on the concept of a game where multiple players would be in a team together in a co-op Adventure game where you slay and battle vampires and pay for cosmetic upgrades developers under Smith and Beret said the two leads were outwardly excited but as the project progressed they failed to provide clear Direction staff members also said that over time they grew frustrated with Management's frequent shifting references to other other games such as Far Cry and Borderlands and that left each department with varying ideas of what exactly they were making throughout the development the fundamental tension between single-player multiplayer design remained unresolved and again this can be felt when playing redfall it feels like a multiplayer game that wants to be a single player game and also like a single player game that really wants to be a multiplayer game it just doesn't feel good to play because it doesn't know what it wants to be and that's because the developers didn't even know what they wanted it to be and the description of how management was constantly shifting references to other games such as Far Cry Borderlands is also very very visible in the final product there's also visible in the marketing campaigns and the discussions that the developers had with press leading up to redfall's launch where they repeatedly referenced it being like an open world Far Cry game and then also saying that they taken inspiration from games like Borderlands with the weapon customization and things it was very confusing because none of those those ideas really blend together for a good reason they also described how the studio was regularly understaffed for the project at hand again a reflection of this team's original purpose which was to develop smaller in-scope single-player games like prey and Dishonored love it or hate it multiplayer games just take a lot more people you have to have networking staff that you wouldn't normally have you have to have staff working full-time just on the infrastructure of the servers to play stuff internationally it's not as simple as just flipping a switch and making your game multiplayer it's a huge Endeavor according to the article zenimax's management tried to get help from outside companies some of which they owned and others that they didn't but It ultimately didn't really help and by the end of red Falls development as morale continued to suffer and fall roughly 70 percent of the staff at Arcane Austin who had worked on prey were no longer at the company 70 and this is something that I frankly had not really thought of or considered but it makes a lot of sense I've for years said that when a company that is known for single player games shifts and makes something multiplayer they will inevitably run into some friction where players that liked their single player stuff will not connect with the multiplayer stuff and they will fall off you'll lose some fan base as a result of that because they wanted single player stuff now they're getting multiplayer they're not interested it's exactly what we're seeing happen with bgs when they did Fallout 76. I know I know I know it was bgs Austin but Jason tryer this same guy also reported that bgs Maryland was much more involved in that game's production than they initially LED on for obvious reasons because it's a really bad look but regardless bgs fans were not that into Fallout 76 because it was not their typical kind of game and it's the same sort of thing we're seeing happen with Suicide Squad kill the Justice League where it's coming from a team Rocksteady which is world renowned for amazing single player action adventure games and yet now now they're developing a really lackluster looking Co-op looter shooter it just doesn't make any sense at all and so the fans are falling off but what I hadn't considered is that the staff runs into this problem even more so because they have to work on this for years if they are a developer that really Prides themselves on single player or open world designer single player tight intricate level design like Arcane was known for and then they're told from management that they need to start working on a generic Co-op looter shooter thing that's going to be Far Cry but also is going to be Borderlands nobody really knows I wouldn't blame them at all for leaving and going to another studio somewhere else where they can create games they really want to make and that they're proud of I mean just put yourself in their shoes if you have a lot of talent and there's a lot of companies that would like to hire you and then you find out that you can either spend five years of your life working on something you don't believe in that doesn't seem that good or interesting or you can go over here and work on something you are excited by that actually looks like it could be special and that you would be hyped to be a part of I don't blame them for moving from here over there it makes sense to me and the real tragedy is that this is how companies and Studios fall apart Arcane Austin is not the same company it was when they built prey people are like oh just make prey too and everything will be great again no seventy percent of the people that made prey the majority are gone they've left they're not coming back willy-nilly maybe some of them might if you can offer them higher pay or something but they're gone that Talent loss is way more devastating in the grand scheme of a company than any sort of sales loss from a game launching a little buggy or from Lost micro transactions from a game that wasn't monetized fully that's something that you can't just repair and this whole thing just reaffirms the idea that nobody within Arcane was confident that redfall was going to be good everybody that worked on it was kind of dreading its release and some were even dreading it so much that they left the company entirely and went somewhere else another nail in the coffin is this right here the acquisition of xenomax by Xbox and Microsoft gave some staff at Arcane hope that Microsoft might cancel Soul redfall or better yet let them reboot it as a single player game according to sources familiar with the production of the game instead Microsoft maintained a hands-off approach which let's be clear I know it's easy to like jump on Xbox and hate on them for this because it's like oh they should have gotten involved and seen how broken it was and delayed it or cancel it whatever but at the same time I can respect the Management's choice to come into a studio that's operating independently and let them just do what they were doing not mess with it not come in and be like hey we're Xbox gonna do things our way but just let them make what they were making I would say they should have still asked around the studio and been like hey are you proud of what you're making what do you think this game's gonna turn out like blah blah blah they could have found out real quickly this wasn't going to end well and then cancel it but you know what I understand why they wanted hands off and as the years ticked by redfall just kept getting worse and worse nobody knew what this game was going to be and the debut date was pushed back from Halloween of 22 to early 23 and then eventually to May of 23 and all along the way the upper management were basically telling employees that Arcane magic would manifest at the last minute tie the game together make it awesome which funnily enough is exactly as he describes here what BioWare was saying in the lead up to Anthem but it's also exactly the same language that came out of CD project red when they were developing cyberpunk 2077. Jason schreier also wrote a report on that game's development after its troubled and described how many managers just kept putting off problems and glitches and things that would pop up and saying oh we'll fix them later on after all we made The Witcher 3. that was their go-to phrase it's gonna work out no way we would launch something buggy and broken we made The Witcher 3. it's gonna be great it once again shows that Pride really does go before the fall and in these cases I don't know if it was pure Pride or if it was just delusion or maybe denial because I have to think that the executives and the lead designers on redfall and say Anthem knew that that was not ready that it wasn't going to be received well they had to know and not honestly believe that this was just gonna work out but who knows who knows another interesting tidbit in the article is this little bit right here where they described that for the first three years so from 2018 to 2021 redfall had significant microtransaction plans in play Place only in 2021 after that three-year period with games as a service growing more and more controversial did Arcane scrap its unwieldy in-game monetization plans which already redfall has been designed to have multiple playable characters they've already said I don't know if they canceled this but they said in the lead up to launch that they were going to be more playable characters available after launch for additional purchase so it's going to be very very interesting to see if they continue that but I can't imagine what that in-game store must have looked like before they cut it out but this just goes to show you again that once you design a game around live service you can't just rip it out and make it okay people have been really worried about suicide squad kill the Justice League because it looks like it's been built from the ground up to just milk money out of people as best they can and people have been hoping that maybe they go back in and they cut it out they just delayed it to next year so maybe that's what they're doing they're just stripping all of it but let's be honest they're not doing that and even if they did and they were able to get rid of all of that stuff and completely delete the in-game store blah blah blah it wouldn't frankly matter because when a game is designed for microtransactions for XP boosts for loot boxes that give you crafting materials you can't just take that system away and expect the game to be fun or interesting because all of these systems are built from the ground up if the foundation is cracked or if the house is built on Sand the entire thing is going to collapse no matter how many rocks you put in and dig out the sand and try to make it solid again it just won't work but all told redfall is just a prime example of short-sighted managers trying to quickly cash out that's what this was the leadership over at zenimax decided they needed to milk all of their franchises as dry as they possibly could to boost those Revenue numbers for the acquisition that they were looking to complete and it worked they got billions for the company and they Gabe left and rode off into the sunset some of them passed away within just a few months some of them are still rocking and rolling now but their whole plan was to sell out their own company in order to get out with the biggest payday possible and when that happens you can see just how short-sighted it is they drove the reputation of the Fallout brand into the dirt they nearly destroyed the reputation of one of their most prized developers Bethesda game studios they set Arcane up for absolute abject failure with this game and a bunch of their other Studios released their worst rated games in a decade because they were forced to put out these multiplayer games that nobody really wanted and while we look at that and say what on Earth were they thinking what was Arcane thinking putting it together something like redfall what was Bethesda thinking putting something together like Fallout 76 from our perspective it doesn't make sense but from the perspective of the owners of zenimax it makes perfect sense what they did milking all of these franchises dry and really in many cases setting up their own Studios for failure in the long term by losing Talent they were able to get out a Dodge with an extra billion dollars with an extra 500 million or something we don't know what they would have been offered for xenomax before they boosted Revenue numbers these way who knows maybe they would have been offered 5 billion maybe six maybe it would have been the same or maybe more because the reputation wouldn't have been tarnished but what we do know is that it seems to have worked the management sold they were able to move on by their super Yachts retire in the Maldives I I don't know where they went I like but they got out they got what they wanted it costs them everything but they did it and listen I have a bachelor's degree in corporate finance it's no mystery that I appreciate what businesses can do for individuals but I also have seen the nitty-gritty of how terrible business can go when in the hands of a moral and let's just say uh managers who lack conscience and care for their human employees and I think xenomax is a great example of a company that frankly didn't give a crap about the studios the employees they were just trying to maximize the bottom line so they could get out with as fat a stack as they possibly could and I find that really really detestable if xenomax had been publicly traded I don't think they would have done all of these types of things because their goal would be to maximize shareholder value they wouldn't have tried to destroy the long-term reputation of their Studios just for a quick benefit of a potential merger or acquisition sometimes they still do that we've seen that a few times with some other companies but in general managers try to do what's best for the long term when there is a public interest or a broader interest from shareholders but in this case because denim Max was private held all bets were off and they made decisions that harmed thousands and thousands of people because 10 people wanted to get out and make big bucks from Microsoft and you know it's it's just a tragic tale really at the end of the day Arcane Austin will never be the same companies like bgs will never be the same and I think that's just frankly tragic but you know what isn't tragic a new t-shirt from lukestevenstv.com check them out right now we have a brand new one hype makes you stupid which is one of my personal favorites I've been wearing this one the last couple days I forgot to put it on for this video I'm very sorry we also have a proud skeptic mug skeptic T this one I'm not cynical I'm skeptical and a bunch of other stuff if you're interested even 16 times the detail merch as well and also if you order a t-shirt or any of these things I will send you a personalized little video on my phone sitting here in the studio or on my back porch wherever I am just saying thank you it's kind of like a cameo so two for one but you know what that's gonna do for me let me know what you think of all this red fall Madness I think the game is not great but with patches a little TLC I think they could eventually get to the point where it's maybe like a 6.57 out of 10. I don't think it's really like a 50s which is where it is now I mean right now it's rated 56 out of 100 which puts it at a lower score than blood Bowl three which is amazing but I don't know what do you think is redfall a Hidden Gem is it gonna get better with time or is it just a a lemon is it just uh I was gonna say a turd but I couldn't find a redeeming quality in a in a turd is it just not good is it just not gonna let me know what you think also a heads up videos might be a little inconsistent for the next couple weeks because we have a another baby due very soon like literally any day so if I miss a Monday or Friday upload it's probably because a baby is here and I'm frantically trying to juggle that so uh wish me luck oh that thank you for watching I love you all thanks for making my dream a reality being able to provide for my family doing what I love this is actually a dream come true like not just turn a phrase this is like a dream I had and it's real so thank you I love you dearly I'll see you in the next one hugs and kisses bye-bye

Channel: Luke Stephens

Views: 457,668

Keywords: luke stephens, luke stephens redfall, redfall studio, xbox, gaming

Id: LMAa27bQEsI

Length: 23min 9sec (1389 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 02 2023