Shadowrun dev closes doors
But ass kicking will continue.
Shadowrun developer FASA Studio has officially shut down following months of rumours.
Released earlier this year, Shadowrun was the first cross-platform game for Xbox 360 and Windows Vista. FASA also developed Xbox titles Mech Assault and Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge.
"It is my sad duty to announce that FASA Studio has officially closed its doors," said studio manager Mitch Gitelman, via the developer's community forums.
"Today was the official last day of employment for those of us who had not moved on to other positions within Microsoft Game Studios.
"While the rumours have been circulating forever, we chose to wait on an official announcement because we didn’t want people’s attention distracted from our last product, Shadowrun, a game we love."
According to Gitelman the team knew the studio was to wind down operations, but continued to support Shadowrun with three updates before making the closure public.
"I am pleased that about half of us have found great positions elsewhere in MGS and Microsoft where they can share their experience and passion with the great people there," said Gitelman.
"I'm saying goodbye to you on behalf of a group of talented and dedicated professionals who busted their humps for the love of the game. I am proud to have worked with and represented them to you and know that wherever they go, they will continue to kick ass."
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Comments (60) Latest comment 4 years ago
Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!
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This is a real bloody shame imo. And Svecke and tobi - hang your heads in shame, gentlemen.
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Hmmmmmmmm...
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A belated plug: Shadowrun's the best multiplayer fps you can currently buy for the 360 (imo). By a long way. It's probably cheap now too, so BUY IT!!!!
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Shows what a touch-and-go industry it really is.
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Of course I am.
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Actually, Shadowrun gave me more pure FUN then any other game I can think of in the last 5 years.
It's sad but this game will fade in to oblivion
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There will be a queue.
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It's a shame to see any developers die. RIP FASA.
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They won't as fasa has nothing to do with that.
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started typing a long, sensible, reasoned response to your last post - as someone that's worked in the industry and has been made redundant several times, as have many of my best and most talented friends.
but I couldn't be arsed to finish it as I'm busy at work.
instead:
you're a f**king retarded virgin.
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Rubbish. There are loads of reasons why one could be out of work, money being the primary. Rivalry being another.
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Apparently "Busted their humps" and "Kicking Ass" are business terms, must put that in my next paper
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Unbelievably cretinous comment. For the reasons Timpig gives. and it's not just the games industry it's relevant to. I have known people put years into a start-up only to see them unemployed - overnight because of management failings (in this case a shifty CFO).
I suspect you've either not worked, or work in a nice secure job with no risk.
(oh - and a big fuck off to anyone else who think people losing their jobs is in any way a good thing)
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And a typical trend, I'm betting we're gonna see FASA resurface as a "nice" publishing house within Microsoft in some months.
Here's to "independent" studios staying with us a big kick to the groin to MS for forcing them into the "VISTA ONLY" trap and loosing out on a LOT of sales
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It was a pretty decent day until I read their comments. Schaudenfreude (sic?) isn't welcome when a good dev studio dies.
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Wasnt the Vista Only thing to do with the Live Anywhere/PC-360 online support? Which is a nice idea if you ask me, no if anyone's to blame its the gamers for turning their noses up(infact they didnt have a million seller, as far as I know, for a long long time).
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FASA, you will be missed.
Edit: I believe FASA were bought by MS after Mech Warrior 2, they've not been independent since.
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I'm glad you're so blasé about people losing their jobs, and so quick to point the finger of blame at the individuals. You idiotic, thoughtless pricks.
In today's costly, risk-free industry, independant studios going out of business is never a good thing.
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Which world are you living in and how much does it cost?
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There wasn't a PC demo. Madness, especially for a game that received so-so reviews, but was praised a lot by the gamers. :-/
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on-topic: allways sad when a bunch of ppl is sacked, and I thought Shadowrun was doing well, it stood on Live most played games top for quite while.
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They were always going to disapear - although FASA did have a ton of great IP, they have just gone the way the rest of the "oldskool" pnp games developers with the rise of WoTC :/ For anyone who remembers - [link url=http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/FASA
]http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/FASA
[/link]
Eathdawn still rocks
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For me the game as an amazingly bad half-finished Halflife 2 like mod that never deserved to see the light of day. To say its a robust multiplayer FPS is just plain wrong in my view. Consider the likes of Rainbow Six: Vegas and the like which are much more engrossing than the tree planting floating up ladder nonsence Shadowrun had. The less said about that abortion of a game the better!
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Whilst I think Svecke et al are out of line, I don't hold with the instant sympathy and glowing epitaphs that some people need to spout when this sort of thing happens. FASA had a bad project and it tanked. Just like everybody predicted it would.
In fact, I would guess that, since FASA was MS-owned anyway and there will have been no need for exchange of contracts and such, the half of the studio that aren't still in their employ were just sick of working there and wanted to move on. Either that or they're setting up an independent studio on their own, that often happens when something closes.
I am a software developer, and I've been made redundant when a company has been on its way under, but I've been talented enough to get another job quickly. There's huge demand for development staff, if they don't get snapped up quickly, there probably is something wrong with them.
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Yeah... people losing their jobs. Really funny..
fucking bell-end. Bet you couldn't write a game to save your life.
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Still, hope they manage to get work elsewhere, but someone in their management should be... fired? Not allowed to work in industry?
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Shadowrun is just plain good solid fun, it's been excellently balanced and produces amazing team play even in quick match groups.
Honestly those of you damning it go and give it a go, yes not including a single player game was a mistake but that hasn't affected how solid the multiplayer is.
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(+ it is a lot like counterstrike, thats why it gets compared to counterstrike...)
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I said IF. They might all be brilliant prospective employees. They might be a shower of imbeciles, I don't know.
You also said they probably deserved to "tank" because they had a bad project, but the decisions werent probably made by those.
A good team will try their best to do something about bad ideas. Good games project management will react to feedback from the team. Unless you're railroaded by your publisher (and from my experience of working with them, Microsoft aren't that type of publisher), the responsibility for the end product is spread across the whole team.
So, either Shadowrun's poor reception was their fault, or there were the sort of failures in management that would have pissed the team off so much that it would be best dissolved anyway.
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OH NOES IT HAS GUNS IT MUST BE A DOOM CLONE
etc
Sorry to hear the devs have closed their doors, it was good of them to stick with SR and it's a shame it never found the audience it deserved.
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You guys are absolute cretins. The only satisfaction I'm gaining from this sad story, is the feeling that all the people on this page know you guys are twats.
I hope you all lose your jobs soon and you can see how funny it is.
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Shadowrun is great, personally the best online fps available on x360
oh, and Rainbow6:Vegas sucks big time, unbalanced and glitcher friendly game
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Mechwarrior 4 - travesty againt the licence
Mechassault 1 & 2 - travesty against the license
FASA studios will not be missed by me, all they did was run decent IP into the ground, the only decent game they made (as far as I'm concerned) was Mechcommander 2.
Never played Crimson Skies, so can't comment on that.
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Blame for the Shadowrun game sucking as a shooter when it should have rocked as a vast sprawling RPG likely sits with the companies money men who totally lost the plot and didn't realise what Shadowrun actually was.
Anyone remember the Shadowrun game on the SNES ? An RPG classic. So why turn it into a generic shooter? Just a shame that hardworking joes get canned because likely the companies managers did not understand the great RPG concept they had in Shadowrun.
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Svecke: The games industry has no real job security. The ones not hired by Microsoft will now have to pray another large company takes them on, because that's the only way to guarantee you'll have a job in a year or twos time. A friend of mine who worked on the "conflict:" games (conflict desert storm, global storm etc), could be looking at joining the dole queue soon, as the company is "restructuring".
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Plingelingmaster