Ugh. I was happy when Embracer got the IP since there was a good chance they’d actually do something with it. After the $2b deal fell through, I guess they’re going to be really conservative with their projects from now on. There goes any hope for a new LoK.

Why..? Games get delayed all the time for additional polish. Why would a delay make you question its quality?

Not sure this was ever a slam dunk. Black Flag fans wanted more Black Flag, just without the AC baggage. Very few of those people wanted a live service multiplayer naval combat game.

If you have any verifiable sources directly stating that the cancellation of Odyssey was specifically the result of the merger and wouldn’t have happened anyway due to the project’s troubled development, please do share.

You also have yet to provide any specific examples of large-scale consolidation being harmful to both consumers and workers in the videogame industry. Layoffs and closures are not exclusive to consolidation, as evident by the vast number of independent studios that have shut down over the past 30 years. Conversely,…

*shrugs*

You haven’t proved that the game was canceled as part of the merger because the internal memo doesn’t mention any specific projects. It’s certainly possible that the project was cut as a result of MS cleaning house after the merger. Or maybe Activision was already planning to cancel the game at the start of the year…

None of that is specific to this project, though. Nor does it prove that Odyssey wouldn’t have been canceled had the merger not occurred. By all indications, Odyssey was going to be canceled anyway, especially if the higher-ups were looking for a 2026 release. Overhauling an engine and creating a massive, AAA, open-wor…

Where’s your verifiable evidence that the cancelation of this project (and the layoffs that resulted) were a direct result of the merger?

You have yet to prove that there’s a verifiable link between the merger and the cancelation. Correlation is not causation. You can prove that the cancelation happened after the merger. You can’t prove that the merger was the cause of the cancelation, just like I can’t prove that it wasn’t.

The article states that over 100 people were working on the project. If a game is still in pre-production after six years, has over a 100 people working on it and little to no work has been actually done, that’s pretty disastrous.

I’ve already proven that the project was at extremely high risk of cancelation before the merger. If the project was already going to be canceled, whether or not the merger became an additional factor is irrelevant because, again, the project was going to be canceled anyway. It’s like throwing a match onto a burning…

I agree with the optics part. This does look bad for MS because people will ignore the high probability that the project was going to be canceled regardless.

You realize the layoffs were the result of the project cancellation, not vice versa, right..?

“Effectively saying” is not the same thing as a claim or statement, full stop.

Nope. I’m saying that there are variable amounts of risk and this project was canceled because it had too much risk (for the numerous reasons listed in the article). That’s why projects are canceled. The developer/publisher does a risk-benefit analysis and if the risk outweighs the benefit, the project usually gets…

On both workers and consumers. Don’t leave that part out.

Nah, not just one factor.

According to the article, Blizzard didn’t have an engine that could actually support the game. That alone is typically the nail in the coffin for any game that’s in pre-production, especially if said game is a risky new IP. Engine overhauls are very expensive and time-consuming. Unless the publisher is confident that…

Yeah, games get canceled all the time, usually before they even enter production. From what this article says, this project was basically doomed because they simply didn’t have the tech needed to actually make the game.