Crackdown 2 situation one of those 'awkward moments' for Realtime creative director

by Alexander Sliwinski on Jun 17th 2009 9:45AM

Imagine: Your company makes a hit game (and gets bundled with a hit beta). The publisher won't green light a sequel, so your team begins work on another franchise. Then the sequel is awarded to a developer ... in your own town, who permanently borrows your talent. With all that said, it's understandable that Realtime Worlds Creative Director David Jones was a "bit miffed at Microsoft" for giving the Crackdown sequel to start-up Ruffian Games.

Speaking with GI.biz, Jones explains that Realtime Worlds was all set to do a sequel before Crackdown's release. When the company didn't receive the go-ahead from Microsoft, it moved on to create APB. Jones wishes that Microsoft had chosen one of its shuttered internal studios to make the game instead of going with Ruffian Games, a company that's in the same town and takes from the same talent pool. He notes it's "challenging to get enough developers in one region as it is." Maybe Realtime can get the third title in the series? Trade off like Infinity Ward and Treyarch did with Call of Duty.

Source

Tags: apb, crackdown-2, david-jones, Microsoft, realtime-worlds, ruffian, ruffian-games, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (63)

theyr gonna be treyarch

Typical Microsoft move right there.

Yeah microsoft does this all the time!

No.

I meant in the more generalistic terms of just screwing people over.

No No No. Don't start talking trade offs. The last thing we need is to be stuck in WWII with all those super-soldier powers......or is it?

Crackdown powers in WWII? Fuck, I might actually play a WWII game then.

Only if I get a red, white and blue shield with a star in the center.

See: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2

Shit, I wish Cpt America had a solo game

I'm sure he will and I'm sure it'll suck come 2011 (?) when the Avengers movie comes out.

Isn't the Captain America movie coming before Avengers? I'd imagine they would have to have him get frozen for the Avengers.

I think the Avengers movie will be about them rescuing him. They are doing Thor next.

That's pretty dickish of Microsoft

Seriously. They've been fucking up left and right since 2007.

Microsoft has a long, long, long history of doing things like that. No one trusts them in the computer business. Game developers should take note.

Ooo... that burns. Sounds like business to me.

Wow, this ranks up there with buying out Rare.

Wait.. are people blaming Microsoft for helping new companies? I mean... a post about a developer whining that there's competitors popping up is just lame!

It has more to do with them creating Crackdown, and not getting the OK to create a sequel to "their" game, then MS giving a different company (that is a regional competitor) the Crackdown 2 project.

Realtime has a right to be pissed, and it's not because MS is helping out a competitor.

Well, that was pretty ignorant of you, Boom.

The issue at hand is that the developers created a game which was a hit. In other words, *they* were the ones who made the game into a success to begin with. Then Microsoft turns around and give the sequel to their hard work to someone else. Furthermore, it was someone who they're a competitor too.

Generally, I agree with Cannabis (and will be upvoting him), but I just felt the need to make my own post

You know, it sounds kind of mean, but I prefer the hurt feelings to the alternative.

If Realtime Worlds was working on Crackdown 2... there would be no APB.

It's like child protective services giving your baby to your neighbor even though you did everything right as a parent.

If its not their IP, what do they care?

Franchise passing is the nature of the business.

@Access Granted

Actually, it's more like child services asking you to take your baby and you saying "sorry I'm busy with this new baby right now, I don't have time for it" and then child services passing the baby on to someone else rather than letting it live in an orphanage for 5 years while you free up time in your schedule.

@Vcize:

What? Do you even understand the situation? Realtime were willing to start on the sequel, it says so here: 'Jones explains that Realtime Worlds was all set to do a sequel before Crackdown's release'. It was Microsoft who wasn't giving the go-ahead. Rather than staying idle, Realtime decided to start on a new project. Then Microsoft decided to give the sequel to someone else.

I don't see the problem here. Either be in the derivitive sequel business (Crackdown 2), or make an original IP (APB). RTW sounds like they don't want to be bothered with something new and would rather crank out the same crap year after year.

Or maybe they were proud of the first game and were excited by the idea of doing a second one only to have that taken away from them.

Exactly.

Besides, from what I've read on other sites, MS didn't green lite it asap due to other projects, when they did contact RTW, they weren't interested at the time MS was due to APB. So MS goes elsewhere. Big deal.

Frankly it makes no difference to me, as I'm one of the few who couldn't stand crackdown, but RTW crying "foul" now is pathetic.

But Mr. LaughingTarget, I could have sworn that they have only worked on APB and Crackdown, why would you say that they don't want to be bothered doing "new" things? I mean, the fact that a game is a sequel it doesn't mean that it can't be "fresh" or great for that matter.

Manly Mcbeefington (Mr. ESC) you are dead wrong about the DLC being already on the disc. The thing was 89 MB, not 108K.

Crackdown was pretty much their only game, so here they are bitching about it being what they want to do next, another Crackdown game. Instead, they had to just deal with making APB because Microsoft didn't give it to them fast enough. Boo hoo, they're making a much more interesting game right now. They should go Team Ico and not do anything but original titles, that'll get them major points.

The Realtime CEO is upset that the sequel is being done by a company started up by former Realtime World's employees that worked on the original? Yeah, let's blame this on Microsoft.

All of you saying it's a dick move by Microsoft and so on... I'm sorry but you're horribly wrong.

The start up studio: Ruffian that gets to do Crackdown 2 is the same team that did Crackdown 1, they seperated with Realtime and made their own studio. Crackdown is Microsoft's IP and they chose to stick with the original development team instead of the studio. A pretty logical decision.

It can be compared to how Guitar Hero/ Rock Band came to be and how everyone seems to hate on Activision for switching out development studios. This time around though Microsoft went for the continuity in development team.

It's some of the same people, not all of them.

Ruffian's creative director was the lead designer on Crackdown, so who better to head up the crew developing the sequel? And that bit about taking from the same talent pool is silly. Lots of RTW staffers jumped ship back in January -- who knows why? RTW's CEO doth protest too much.

I think they have the right to be a bit miffed. But they and we need to look on the bright side.

APB probably wouldn't have happened if they green lighted the sequel right away. And the relatively small down of Dundee is now an area of game development growth, which will attract future talent to the area.

Seriously? I thought this had passed us by by now.

I think this is pretty simple. MS didn't think Crackdown was going to sell enough to warrant a sequel. Then it steadily gained popularity and actually sold well, and beyond that got kind of a cult following from everyone that played it because it was such a good game.

At this point, they realized it needed a sequel. Realtime Worlds said "sorry we're busy", so they gave it to Ruffian who, realistically, is the majority of the people that created it in the first place.

This would have been akin to people getting upset if Harmonix had gotten to keep the Guitar Hero name when switching over rather than having to make a new game called Rock Band. If Realtime Worlds had gotten to make Crackdown 2 it wouldn't have been the "real" Crackdown 2, much like Guitar Hero 3 wasn't the same team as GH2.

Agreed.

Winner, winner chicken dinner!

Are you sure it's the majority? I was under the impression it was a handful of people from RTW but I could be wrong.

That must hurt because their game and ideas were such a hit. now some unfortunatly named studio has the chance to reap the fruit of their success with a highly anticipated sequal that could potentially ruin the titles good name if it turns out a bit duff

Did you even read the article?

The studio handling crackdown 2 it is made up of former RTW employees...the same ones who did Crackdown.

While I can see why people think this is a dick move, to be honest I really don't care. The fact that Ruffian Games is made up of people who not only were members of Realtime but actually worked on the original game as well so I'm fine with it.

Besides I'd rather get a Crackdown sequel sooner rather than wait for RTW to finish APB(a game I really don't care about) in order to start working on it.

It might not matter to you, but it might matter to those game developers who are creating a game and looking for a publisher.

Yeah, I'm not sure what the complaining here is about.. A bunch of guys from Realtime Worlds left because they wanted to do Crackdown 2 while they were busy working on APB.

At least MS gave the Ruffian guys the sequel to do, rather than some completely different studio.

While sad, I think Microsoft is not to blame.

If Real Worlds offered the same advantage as that new company, they would have win the contract.

Am I missing something here?

Realtime Worlds wanted MS to green light a sequel to a new IP which was Realtime World's first released game before the game had even released?

Why would MS do that without first seeing if the game would sell? I seem to remember everyone was a little leery of Crackdown at the time and saying the only reason it would sell was because of the Halo 3 Beta bundle becasue it was a GTA wannabe.

Also, I remember Realtime Worlds saying multiple times, publicly, that they couldn't do a sequel to Crackdown because they were busy with their next project since MS didn't green light a sequel before the game released.

Why would MS go to them to create a sequel when they said they were too busy? Are they supposed to ask them... "Gee are you really sure you're too busy?"

If I was MS I would go to Ruffian too.

Agreed.

+1

Oops... took me too long to write my comments. Vcize comments above states pretty much the same thing

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Crackdown 2 situation one of those 'awkward moments' for Realtime creative director

Reader Comments (63)

Posted: Jun 17th 2009 9:53AM Brook said

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