Brash boss: first year 'overly ambitious,' outlines improvement plan
Speaking with GameDaily in response Monday's Variety article (which we had our own response to) on the "turmoil" surrounding Brash Entertainment, CEO Mitch Davis acknowledged that "we took our lumps" on its first three titles – Jumper: Griffin's Story, Alvin & The Chipmunks, and Space Chimps – which scored 29, 33, and 55 (out of 100) on aggregate. Davis also vowed that changes are in store; ones that will hopefully lead to better games.
"First and foremost, we've put an end to short-cycle games," Davis told GameDaily, adding that, "some of our games will benefit from up to three years of development." This may explain why we've yet to see titles in development by Factor 5 and Game Republic, two of several "better development studios" Davis believes will help Brash get back on solid ground quality-wise.
Speaking to the departure of company execs and other staff, Davis stated, "After our first few games did not meet expectation we decided that we needed to upgrade our staff," pointing to the hiring of former Activision licensing head Lori Plager as Senior Vice President, in charge of intellectual property acquisitions. Quality games based on quality source material? Sounds good – Brash just has to prove it can manage the former before gamers en mass can get behind this newly "refined" publisher.
"First and foremost, we've put an end to short-cycle games," Davis told GameDaily, adding that, "some of our games will benefit from up to three years of development." This may explain why we've yet to see titles in development by Factor 5 and Game Republic, two of several "better development studios" Davis believes will help Brash get back on solid ground quality-wise.
Speaking to the departure of company execs and other staff, Davis stated, "After our first few games did not meet expectation we decided that we needed to upgrade our staff," pointing to the hiring of former Activision licensing head Lori Plager as Senior Vice President, in charge of intellectual property acquisitions. Quality games based on quality source material? Sounds good – Brash just has to prove it can manage the former before gamers en mass can get behind this newly "refined" publisher.











Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
dark_inchworm @ Oct 15th 2008 10:57PM
At least someone can acknowledge they've made shitty games.
TheShizy @ Oct 16th 2008 7:14AM
Developers are starting to realise that with all the quality titles coming out soon, they truly need to step their game up!
Anticrawl @ Oct 15th 2008 11:14PM
Maybe a start would be not focusing on movie cash-ins.
KeenCommander @ Oct 15th 2008 11:30PM
Maybe it would also help if you were making cash ins for better movies. I mean, when you've got shit to start with - there's only so much you can do.
Zac @ Oct 15th 2008 11:17PM
Dear Joystiq,
I will not keep visiting this blog if I see full page flash pop-up ads take over the screen when I try to read. either allow me to skip them, or keep the ads to the sidebar.
Zac Shipley
Meta @ Oct 15th 2008 11:19PM
adblock
Sora @ Oct 15th 2008 11:47PM
What Meta said.
Reuben @ Oct 15th 2008 11:51PM
Cry about it.
How do you think they pay for the bandwidth?
Shmil @ Oct 16th 2008 12:50AM
we'll miss you zac, you and all 27 of your comments
WRE @ Oct 16th 2008 1:08AM
Whoa! If you lick the screen you can almost taste Zac's salty, salty tears.
t_m @ Oct 16th 2008 6:49AM
Holy carp! I just realised you can click on names to work out how many posts people have made... and i've made about 1800.
Jeez.. i really have to do something more productive with my time. :-o
DiggyStyle @ Oct 16th 2008 8:15AM
Yeah, get Firefox with adblock man. I haven't seen any ads take over my screen since I switched a few years ago. IE is a bloated, ad loving P.O.S., just like the games mentioned in this blog.
woot @ Oct 16th 2008 2:08AM
The leading image is Maximum Win.
Thank you Joystiq!
JoeTheBlow @ Oct 16th 2008 5:00AM
Jumper?
Chipmunks?!
Space Chimps?!?
And this "company" somehow saw fit to have "executives", who were surely on 6 figure salaries?!
Are you fucking kidding me! And i thought Gamecock was bad.
MDV @ Oct 16th 2008 5:28AM
I can tell they really mean it with these recent hirings. If there's one name in the industry that's synonymous with quality, it's former Activision licensing head Lori Plager.
Erluti @ Oct 16th 2008 9:30AM
Jumper was almost good! The combat was interesting and the videos of teleport deaths made me laugh each time.
But really, it was a disaster. I rented it, beat in 3 hours and took it right back. Got 800 gamerscore on that first pass...