The epic demise of Realtime Worlds, maker of Crackdown & APB
escapistmagazine.com
The epic demise of Realtime Worlds, maker of Crackdown & APB
1–10 of 19 posts
Re: The epic demise of Realtime Worlds, maker of Crackdown & APB
#2The story will resonate with anyone who is familiar with "The Mythical Man-Month", but what I particularly interesting about this story is the stark contrast between the company's initial success with Crackdown and then how quickly it screwed it all up with APB.
Re: The epic demise of Realtime Worlds, maker of Crackdown & APB
#3I think they're still confused. They think the 'smaller team' was what made Crackdown better, and in reality was 'better team'. Size wasn't relevant, only the people were. They admit later they had people who enjoyed making a great game, and others who relished the politics. The latter is what destroyed them.
Re: The epic demise of Realtime Worlds, maker of Crackdown & APB
#4Moral of this story would be: do not rush to launch with a minimal viable product if you're working on an MMO (or probably any console game).
Re: The epic demise of Realtime Worlds, maker of Crackdown & APB
#5Related: Luke Halliwell's Weblog, http://lukehalliwell.wordpress.com/ (Found via: Ex-Realtime Worlds Employee Examines APB Fiasco, http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103563-Ex-Realtime... )
Re: The epic demise of Realtime Worlds, maker of Crackdown & APB
#6Moral of this story would be: do not rush to launch with a minimal viable product if you're working on an MMO (or probably any console game).
To be clear, you're saying to avoid rushing to your Launch (marketing, press, boxes on shelves, etc), right, not to avoid showing it to customers?
Re: The epic demise of Realtime Worlds, maker of Crackdown & APB
#7Moral of this story would be: do not rush to launch with a minimal viable product if you're working on an MMO (or probably any console game).
The real moral is not to release a shitty product. APB was a terrible product, marketing and all the other stuff aside, it just plain sucked.
Re: The epic demise of Realtime Worlds, maker of Crackdown & APB
#8Moral of this story would be: do not rush to launch with a minimal viable product if you're working on an MMO (or probably any console game).
APB was a good game with a lot of potential but it was plagued by two issues. The first being a total lack of variety in regard to story content and the second being that the matchmaking system was horrible. When playing that game I was constantly paired up against people who were a much higher level effectively doing the same mission I had done a bunch of times already.
Re: The epic demise of Realtime Worlds, maker of Crackdown & APB
#9The story will resonate with anyone who is familiar with "The Mythical Man-Month", but what I particularly interesting about this story is the stark contrast between the company's initial success with Crackdown and then how quickly it screwed it all up with APB.
Beware of the dreaded Second System Effect?
Re: The epic demise of Realtime Worlds, maker of Crackdown & APB
#10Moral of this story would be: do not rush to launch with a minimal viable product if you're working on an MMO (or probably any console game).
Well, that strategy seems to have worked for EVE Online. On the other hand, that's the only MMO I can think of that started small and kept growing successfully.