Damnation team sent packing

By Games Industry.biz Published 1 July, 2009

Blue Omega lay-offs follow poor sales.

Blue Omega Entertainment has laid of its games development team.

"The entire Blue Omega team was laid off today (well, starting Friday). If anyone has job openings, send them my way and I'll pass them on," wrote programmer Geoff Rowland on his Twitter account.

Blue Omega Entertainment, a subsidiary of Heavy Hammer, was established to develop intellectual properties for use in both games and films.

It won second place for its Damnation prototype in the Nvidia Make Something Unreal Contest in 2004, and the fully-realised game was released by Codemasters this year – although it was mauled by reviewers with Metacritic ratings of below 40 per cent.

Legal documents published on Shacknews show a messy legal situation between publisher Codemasters, Blue Omega and two sub-contractors – Velvetelvis Studios and Point of View.

According to the report, Codemasters had removed the Blue Omega from development duties, while Point of View continued work on the project, prompting a USD 75,000 lawsuit from Blue Omega.

Blue Omega also claims delays by Velvetelvis caused the developer to miss deadlines with Codemasters, and again seeks USD 75,000 in damages.

Picture of Games.

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Comments (21) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • NewbieZilla #1 3 years ago

    Not a game that was ever on my radar, but when I found out about what the PR concept idea of the game was, pity the reality was so different. Least I wasn't hoping for anything from it on the grounds that I didn't know of it, and didn't waste my money on buying it.

  • roz123 #2 3 years ago

    Damn

  • DFawkes #3 3 years ago

    I would have tried the game, but or the life of me I can't remember a single piece of marketing for it, and it's certainly not on the shelves of shops in my area. I know who I'd blame, and it's not the devs (not entirely, at least).

  • muscleblade #4 3 years ago

    The game has one of the worst metacritic average score this year so i think the devs can be blamed.

  • rashes #5 3 years ago

    @DFawkes

    I agree, I was barely aware this was released and I'm on gaming sites half the day.

    As a developer, I feel for the devs. I'm sure they worked hard at it and it's a horrible reward to get at the end of a hard slog. Software projects fail for many reasons.
    Edited by 1 at 01/07/09 @ 15:16

  • Gnort #6 3 years ago

    @DFawkes

    I don't think you can blame a lack of marketing spend for the game being a failure. It didn't receive a lukewarm response from the critics, it was pretty much universally savaged. A metascore of 37 (for the 360 version) is shocking, even with all the caveats about how you can't assume a metascore is gospel. It means almost every reviewer who played it hated it. Sadly, it appears the developers just put out a rubbish title.

  • George-Roper #7 3 years ago

    I would have tried the game, but or the life of me I can't remember a single piece of marketing for it, and it's certainly not on the shelves of shops in my area. I know who I'd blame, and it's not the devs (not entirely, at least).

    You seem to be missing a major point, which is that the game comes in at well under average.

    I saw Damnation ads all over the place, for a week or two around its release but that still didn't entice me to want to try a low scoring game.

  • JimWest #8 3 years ago

    @DFawkes

    Why would a company (Codemasters) spend lots of money on advertising when they are clearly aware it is not a good game. This game had obviously got messy for the publishers and it was easier to cut its ties with the game and release it, rather than pour more money into a shoddy product.

    Publishers normally test games, and not make the games. I'm sure many of the issues that have been bought up were mentioned in testing, but if the devs don't fix the problems the publishers have massive problems. Thus leading to the aforementioned lawsuit with Blue Omega being taken off the game.

  • laudy #9 3 years ago

    I seem to remember a preview article on EG that seemed to suggest that this game would be decent at the very least.

    The game vanished from sight abruptly, no updates, nothing. All of a sudden, it's released, with no fanfare, to universal...er...well...damnation (sorry)

    In today's climate, you just can't make mistakes like this, I often wonder what devs actually think when they walk past the shelf in HMV and the nonsense they produced is on sale for a bile-raising £39.99...

  • DFawkes #10 3 years ago

    I'd still like to know it exists. I agree they shouldn't piss money away on over marketing something that some people might not buy due to negative reviews. But that doesn't change the fact that if I wanted to buy this on the High Street, I couldn't. More often than not this happens to niche games, but sometimes a prefectly playable game is let down by a ridiculous low print run, like Suikoden Tierkries.

  • m0thr4 #11 3 years ago

    Honestly, are there still publishing companies funding software development in this way? Read the pitch, send 'em a bunch of cash and sit back and wait for release day?

    If so, shame on them.

    I was under the impression that game development might work the same way as business software development - iterative cycles with the person whose cash you're spending fully involved on a weekly basis to make sure you're not developing a pile of shit. At least, that's how it works where I work.

    Then again, game developers are probably the worst paid in the whole of the IT industry, so maybe it's not that surprising.
    Edited by 1 at 01/07/09 @ 15:50

  • m0thr4 #12 3 years ago

    The game has one of the worst metacritic average score this year so i think the devs can be blamed.

    If by "the devs" you mean the poor saps charged with writing the code, then that's a little unfair. The blame should surely lie with the publisher for not being adequately involved in the development process, and with Blue Omega's management for not recognising that what they were producing was bound to fail spectacularly.

  • Darren #13 3 years ago

    Damnation... now that's the kind of mediocrity that David Livingstone was talking about in the other EG article!

    I do feel sorry for developers sometimes if they genuinely have worked hard on a great game and it doesn't sell (as many unfortunately do) but I have little sympathy for developers who release apparently rubbish games like Damnation. I admit I haven't played it, nor do I wish to with hindsight as all the reviews I've read have slated it so it evidently isn't very good.

    Do developers/publishers think these games are actually good or do they just release them knowing they aren't and hope that they sell enough copies to make some money back?

  • Olemak #14 3 years ago

    So the underboobage did not help then?

  • DUFFKING #15 3 years ago

    I remember this when it was UT2004 mod and it was quite cool :(

  • penhalion #16 3 years ago

    Sadly they took a mod and tried to release it. Unlike say Left 4 Dead. They didn't spend any real time trying to elevate it into a full game. As a result it plays like you'd expect an unpolished mod to play i.e. it's enjoyable as long as no-one is asking for money for it!

  • Triggerhappytel #17 3 years ago

    Despite how crap the game may have been, this is always sad news. It's never nice to see developers go under, or legal scuffles of this sort which always seem to drag on forever.

  • wonton #18 3 years ago

    Whole-heartedly agree with Darren

    Unemployment isnt funny, but like 3D Realms, if you fail to produce something good enough, what can you expect?

  • JamieR #19 3 years ago

    The only thing stopping me buying this is the reviews the game it self looks good from the pictures and its tempting

  • sneetch #20 3 years ago

    @m0thr4
    If by "the devs" you mean the poor saps charged with writing the code, then that's a little unfair. The blame should surely lie with the publisher for not being adequately involved in the development process, and with Blue Omega's management for not recognising that what they were producing was bound to fail spectacularly.

    Yeah, I was just going to say that, the designer(s) and development/quality management should also bear a significant portion of the blame but not the rank and file.

    I get the feeling that - in the good old days of more freely available capital - this game would have been held back for serious polishing, I guess that it became one of those now or never things, the choice was to release it or scrap it.

    Still, a turkey is a turkey regardless of the reasons.

    @ Olemak

    No, not even underboob helped, a pity as the setting was so wonderfully camp. :)

  • metalangel #21 3 years ago

    Underboob can only help so much... guess I'll buy Juarez today.