That bit you screencapped goes on to talk about the dev team coming back to the office after covid lockdowns lifted. I donât remember how restrictive things were in Sweden but Iâm guessing having to stall production for at least a few months ended up being a pretty huge setback, even if the team was able to partially work from home. I imagine it must have exacerbated Fatsharkâs history of communication issues at the very least.
I think a lot of people might be underestimating the effects that had on a lot of gamesâ dev cycles, might be partially to blame for the trend of games releasing unfinished in the last few years. Wouldnât be surprised if a lot of studios are still feeling the effects of it.
If that all pans out, it seems increasingly likely to me that FS was running out of money and didnât have much choice except release the game early and unfinished. Doesnât excuse the shape the game is in, but itâs a more coherent explanation to me than âthey scammed usâ
Also interesting that this article seems to be saying that Dan Abnett was brought on to write background lore and worldbuilding, and not the gameâs narrative, which honestly Iâve been expecting as much considering how barebones the story is and how fleshed out Tertium and the Moebian guard are in promo material.
1 Like
Iâve been reading Eisenhorn: Magos recently and the tone of the worldbuilding in Darktide is pretty much identical. The short stories are good because they delve into a lot of street level situations.
1 Like
Mmm. The could come out and say this, but I dunno, maybe that would do more harm than just staying quiet.
Iâm not a finance guy but Iâm pretty sure a company canât/would never just come out and say âhey guys, bad news, weâre out of moneyâ unless theyâre declaring bankruptcy.
1 Like
Itâs a very interesting article overall, well worth the read
I remember reading it when it first came out and getting to that part I screencapped and started getting a bit worried
Itâs interesting to look back on that quote based on where the game is at now
1 Like
Brothers⌠This anime was great.
To be fair, there is hardly another reason imaginable other than money being the key factor here. It doesnât even need to be they âran outâ of money, but like Iâve stated multiple times, they have investors, shareholders and thus, VC that tells them what to do. If you fall behind schedule, your investors might pull out and your shareholders will get nervous.
When people say that Tencent had no say in this issue, it is only half the truth. They are âthe moneyâ, number one, and number two, they are majority shareholder and thus, they CAN tell the CEO(s) what to do. People, for some reason, always assume that the CEO is the head-honcho of a company. No, not necessarily. If he isnât the majority shareholder himself, he is just the highest ranking employee of the company, who has to do what the board of directors is telling him to do. He represents the company, he is the one who acts on its behalf, but he has to do what âthe moneyâ is telling him to do,
So, yes, of course the primary issue was money, what else would it be? I think the absolutely astonishing amount of FOMO, MTX and every other play in the book of vc-capitalism has been implemented might be a strong hint towards that.
What I find flabbergasting is that people want to take that as an excuse. To be a little bit crass, thatâs like saying if I murder someone, I should be getting a break because someone payed me if I did it.
Like, yeah, that is your own responsibility as a company. If you screw up and cannot deliver on time, well, tough luck, thatâs the name of the game.
2 Likes
Yeah, but we know what Tencent are like from other game developers. They donât give a f*ck, donât interfere, and pretty much brainlessly sit back and hoover up dividends.
The owner sold many of his shares to tencent while still remaining head of the company a while back. That is a fair indication that they were having money problems before, in other words, sell shares or close the company down. They likely did that, burned through that additional cash injection, and then had to release as they had nowhere else to turn to. You canât sell shares that are already sold again.
The development hell and mismanagement of darktide is at the root of selling to tencent. A combination of huge difficulties upgrading the game engine, and game design that kept changing direction, or was too ambitious.
Games Workshop probably would have been better stewards than tencent, as GW may have interfered, or paid for more development time out of their own pocket, and thatâs besides it just making way more sense than tencent buying the shares.
Darktide may have sold well enough to keep fatshark afloat another year or two, but my god, they really need to fix their dysfunction and massively boost productivity and efficiency and efficient decision making.
3 Likes
I think it is reasonable to assume that Tencent brought Infinity or what their name was into this game, who are very likely responsible for all the âLive Serviceâ crap.
Fatshark wanted to make VT2 in to a service game but couldnât due to foundational work clashing with the modular reality of service games, which is why Darktide was made to be live service from the get go. Tencent didnât have anything to do with that decision, it was the natural progression from V1 to DT.
2 Likes
I am not saying they did, directly. I am saying they brought in the expertise.
They are publishing the game themselves and the companies are not publicly listed, so itâs not likely that they have a bunch of external pressure. The only shareholders are Tencent and the company founders (via a holding company) unless that has changed recently.
The numbers for Fatshark and Fatshark Studios doesnât indicate at all that they are strapped for cash, but rather the opposite. They have had great profit margins the last couple of years and (if I donât misremember) all the profits are re-invested in the the respective company.
For the non-quoted but tagged people: The described financial health of the company is not based on speculation but by actually looking into their finances (out of curiosity). Itâs both a blessing and a curse when pretty much everything is publicly available and digitalized.
@derpherp, I think you are correct that FS needed a cash injection when they sold the first batch of shares. It allowed them to try new things and go with the semi-free update model (free maps/game-mode, paid cosmetics and classes), but I doubt you are correct about Tencent and their involvement. If youâve ever looked into their investment patterns youâd see that they are investing in a broad range of genres and studios. It seems like they are investing long term and in companies with great potential and a good amount of âmarket sharesâ in their genre or niche.
1 Like
Quit this game. ill check back in a year. didnât buy it, tried it on gamepass. unoptimized unfinished game. glad i didnât buy it. will play vermintide until this game is functional and finished.
1 Like
Itâs now officially 39
1 Like
Woah. Quite a few people with hundreds of hours left reviews today.
Fatshark right now
Yes, itâs a glorious sight to behold.
No doubt thereâs going to be the usuals: You shouldnât give negative reviews when youâve played more than X hours.