Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance reviews are out

[Mercador]

I'm pretty sure Tuque are over a hundred employees by now. They really scoped up right before the pandemic.



Also, a lot of people question the purchase, but I think it was probably a good purchase. There's a ton of really good people at Tuque. There's people I wanted to hire that made their way there. But going from twenty employees to over a hundred over two years, while handling a large IP and doing all that during the pandemic is not a good recipe.

I'm confident that Tuque will bounce from this.

You are over-confident. WotC will simply shut this down. That's sad for their employees but there's plenty of game studios in Montreal (and even at Qc City where I lived if they can accept a lower salary).

 

[Umbran]

When your product is a complete fiasco in every way, that is a time to consider cutting your losses.

So, have you ever complained about how corporations only care about short term money? That they treat employees as disposable, and whatnot? Because right now, that's the behavior you're advocating.

Sure, there's something not-great in there that led to a poor product. So... FIX IT. No, a poor product does not necessarily mean horrible performance up and down the ladder - most of the folks there are probably highly skilled, competent individuals. Find the problem, fix it. Test your fixes on some small projects, repeat until your teams work well.

 

[Zardnaar]

So, have you ever complained about how corporations only care about short term money? That they treat employees as disposable, and whatnot? Because right now, that's the behavior you're advocating.

Sure, there's something not-great in there that led to a poor product. So... FIX IT. No, a poor product does not necessarily mean horrible performance up and down the ladder - most of the folks there are probably highly skilled, competent individuals. Find the problem, fix it. Test your fixes on some small projects, repeat until your teams work well.

Fixing it generally requires money and that the problems isn't to bug eg with the game engine.

A few companies do this but once again they're ones with built in good will and they usually respond fairly quickly after a games release and lay out a plan.

Small studios generally get closed down. They don't have a reputation worth saving or other IPs people care about.

Any future releases also tainted by that reputation.

Basic math as well 100+ staff wages for months to fix it with no new game in the pipeline. That's millions of dollars just in wages.

Any future income stream is at least two years away which is a rushed game these days.

Sales of a game are also heavily front loaded in the release window. Spending months fixing it usually doesn't make sense unless they plan on selling DLC or have other titles where their reputation matters.

 

[Mercador]

You are unfortunately right @Zardnaar

 

[Mecheon]

Sure, there's something not-great in there that led to a poor product. So... FIX IT. No, a poor product does not necessarily mean horrible performance up and down the ladder - most of the folks there are probably highly skilled, competent individuals. Find the problem, fix it. Test your fixes on some small projects, repeat until your teams work well.

Not how the industry works unfortunately. Well, unreleased games getting released and then patched to get them in something resembling working order is unfortuantely, but if it fails very bad it tends to be a 'sever the arm' type of situation. Video game industry is a mess and there's a reason I was more excited for the indie game Hades than most triple A releases last year.

Mind there's the very few that actually do put the full effort in to fix everything, like No Man's Sky, but they are few and far between

 

[Zardnaar]

Not how the industry works unfortunately. Well, unreleased games getting released and then patched to get them in something resembling working order is unfortuantely, but if it fails very bad it tends to be a 'sever the arm' type of situation. Video game industry is a mess and there's a reason I was more excited for the indie game Hades than most triple A releases last year.

Mind there's the very few that actually do put the full effort in to fix everything, like No Man's Sky, but they are few and far between

A few I can think of in addition to NMS.

Bethesda Fallout 76. Not sure how the game is now but they are trying.n

Paradox interactive. Going ack and upgrading older dlc from years ago and fixing later oopsies.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

When your product is a complete fiasco in every way, that is a time to consider cutting your losses.

I'd be surprised if they did that with a studio they'd bought so recently, and forced to staff up so rapidly, because it would be more admitting WotC's incompetence than Tuque's. I feel like this is probably a "fool me twice" situation. If their next game isn't at least really solid, then I'd expect they'd be looking at letting people go. If they were a major publisher with a bunch of studios, I think thinks might be a bit different, but they aren't.

Also, sales-wise, they're good. Why? Because the game is on Xbox Game Pass, which means the publisher is getting paid the equivalent of "decent sales", which is probably better than what this would have got in the wild. So it's not like WotC is likely to be out-of-pocket or something.

 

[GreyLord]

I think it actually is selling well right now. It's one that I actually have, but not on a system I actively play normally. I haven't given it a shot yet, still playing other games. I might stir it up for a quick shot this weekend to see how bad it really is...and if it is bad, a short play would all that would be needed to see it.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

WotC will simply shut this down.

It's not impossible. But I don't think it'll happen. They just bought the studio, the game was already well underway. They didn't buy it for a quick cash with one release, they bought it as an investment in the future. Also, the game seems to be selling well.

Basic math as well 100+ staff wages for months to fix it with no new game in the pipeline. That's millions of dollars just in wages.

There's most likely project overlap and there's another project probably well into pre-production.

 

[Imaculata]

The sad thing is, this game studio probably has a lot of talented hard working employees that had to pull a lot of overtime to get this game done before release.

When a game releases in such a poor state at this one did, a bunch of overpaid producers are often to blaim. At least, in my experience. But it is the employees that may end up getting laid off over it.

That's the game industry in a nutshell.