Activision closes 'Web of Shadows' dev Shaba [update]

by Alexander Sliwinski on Oct 8th 2009 10:01AM

Activision's Shaba Games, which most recently developed Spider-man: Web of Shadows, has allegedly been shuttered. Kotaku reports that sources with knowledge claim the studio closed yesterday; attributing the corporate downsizing to sluggish sales of Guitar Hero 5.

Approximately 30 employees were reportedly laid off at Shaba, which is roughly half the workforce Shaba claims to have -- an eerily similar fate that apparently befell Activision's 7 Studios earlier this week. We're currently following up and will update with any new information.

Update: Activision confirmed the studio's closure with this statement: "Activision continually evaluates the resources at our studio properties to ensure that they are properly matched to our product slate and overall strategic goals. As part of this process, we recently made the difficult but necessary decision to close Shaba Studios. We are grateful for the studio's contributions and wish this talented team success in their future endeavors."

Source

Tags: activision, activision-blizzard, layoffs, shaba, shaba-games

Reader Comments (41)

Activision is shuttering a lot of studios lately. And 'poor sales of GH5'-could the music genre finally be dying?

It died with Super Guitar Hero 4: Remix Dream Fight 2009 HD Mega Mix

I'm sure poor sales has more to do with music games being thrown at genre fans monthly than it does gamers' weening interest in the genre.

was guitar hero a capcom or square enix franchise?

Awww...that's a shame. Shaba did a pretty good job with Web of Shadows. It really only suffereed from a weak story. The gameplay was fun as all hell.

I hope this doesn't mean the franchise will go back to Treyarch...they did a terrible job with the previous Spider-Man games.

I really enjoyed the gameplay, the story kind of sucked, but it was cool to see all the different Marvel characters.

The camera was frustrating, and the story kind of weak (but not abysmal, in my opinion).... but the gameplay was a lot of fun!

It was still too repatitve.

Seriously for the achievements you have to kill an absurd amount of guys. And it's only an absurd amount because they already task you with killing a ridiculous amount of guys just for the main story.

I just played through this last week, and did enjoy it immensely. It had it's fair share of bugs though, like the terrible locked-up or -down camera after you climbed a wall to a roof. My favorite bugs (though hard to do) were getting Spidey stuck in a building (couldn't get out, had to reload) and "falling" from one vertical surface and landing on another across the street (with no "downward" gravity effects). Still, Spiderman games are fun because swinging through the streets is fun, and the combat was a little more varied in this one that previous games.

Regarding the kill a ton of guys achievements, at least they didn't have the stupid gold races (where the camera was your biggest opponent) or the swing 200 miles. Additionally, it was a nice touch that the second half of the collectibles showed on your map.

They should let Radical Entertainment make a spider-man game. Hulk: ultimate destruction was awesome. Prototype was also awesome and had some spider-man/venom/carnage-like powers.

Maybe activision should be getting rid of the idiot at the top instead of firing hard working developers.

Here, here! He's the one causing all the vitriol against the company. I'm glad IW had the balls to say that their parent company didn't want them to go Modern with the CoD series (which they effing crafted). They're turning off formerly loyal customers, with this nickle/dime shit, and I can't understand how the bottom line does not reflect our new found hatred for the leadership. This stance is a little tough to take, when we see hardworking devs getting laid off. Save millions of dollars and fire management!

i think the problem we have here is the person in charge of firing is the idiot at the top

Did Shaba have ANYTHING to do with the development of GH5? If they did and GH5 "underperformed", then it makes sense, but I'd be more willing to believe that it's just a convenient excuse. I could be wrong, of course, and I welcome anyone to show me evidence that I am wrong.

What I think is happening is that Activision over-promised on GH5's sales projections, it's coming back to bite them in the ass, and now they need to recover those missed revenues by any means necessary. (In the magic land of hyperbole this means Kotick paces up and down a line of bounty hunters, sternly reminding one that firing employees means "no disintegrations".)

One studio makes one game. It's suppose to be big. It wasn't really.

Another studio makes other games. They make other games. They perform to expectations.

The second studio is closed.

^_-

Really, what contributions would they have really made to the industry? Another Spider-man/licensed cash-grab? It's too bad when creative minds lose their jobs, it just sucks a lot less when their creativity hasn't been all that creative.

You didn't play Web of Shadows, did you?

Off topic, but this post just reminded me of what an epic fail the Venom movie will eventually be.

Possibility of Topher Grace reprising his role? Check.
Venom as an anti-hero helping save civilians? Check.
Possibility of Carnage showing up as a major villain? Check.

Recipe for disaster.

Spinning off anything from that crap of a movie would be an epic disaster... Any movie that has Peter Parker performing in not one, but TWO, dance breaks deserves to die a fiery, flaming death!

Topher Grace most likely won't be reprising his role due to the fact that he's currently attached to the new Predator movie.

He acting was crap in Spider-Man 3 and he didn't put much effort into his character. To me, he'll always be FOREMAN!!!!!!!!

That's a shame... The game was flawed, but overall, I really enjoyed playing it! Hopefully the laid off employees will land on their feet with a new development studio quickly!

Awww, this sucks WoS was a pretty decent game 8-7/10. only thing that was weak was the camera and the storyline. Other than that I had a blast playing it. Sad to see them go.

That blows hard. Web of Shadows was the best Spiderman game since Spiderman 2. They even put Moon Knight in it! I was really wishing they'd even-somehow-maybe-not-really-but-hopefully develop a Moon Knight game just for me. ;__;

With this and the "Call of Duty should only be a WW2 shooter!" story, I'm convinced that Activision is run by J. Jonah Jameson.

What's next? Are they gonna try and get Blizzard to cancel Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 in order to crank out 6 new WoW expansions before the end of next year? Have they already tried that?

I'm sure they have, but considering Blizzard brings in $n a month (where n is a minimum 10-digit #) in WoW subscriptions with the existing content, they can afford to tell Kotick to shove it.

Heck web of shadows was the best spide game since spiderman for the atari 2600...

You mean Spider-Man 2?

The problem with Activision is it owns the two biggest names in gaming. That lets it do pretty much whatever it wants. Idiots.

So Activision closes a studio that had nothing to do with GH5?! Why not close Neversoft and NEVER make another GH again? That should solve you're lagging sales issue.
I swear Activision has replaced EA as "industry-douchebags"...

7 and 3 tenths is an awfully precise score!

Meant as a reply to cahlito :(

My only memories of Web of Shadows are MY GOD THIS PC PORT IS TERRIBLE ARE THEY EVER GOING TO FIX THIS MESS?

So I don't feel much.

Neversoft puts such a crappy setlist in Guitar Hero 5 that nobody wants to buy it, even with free GH:Van Halen. Sooo, they fire a bunch of employees unrelated to the Guitar Hero franchise.

That's a logical explanation...

...for me to poop on.

Thanks for the respectful tone you guys have been carrying with your stories about layoffs. We notice these things. You guys are alright.

This article:
- sluggish sales of Guitar Hero 5

Article yesterday:
- Guitar Hero 5 trounced The Beatles: Rock Band in the UK

...what.

Because it's "fun as hell"!!

They probably couldn't renegotiate the Marvel licenses from Disney, which isn't surprising considering Disney has their own games division. Without the Marvel IPs, Shaba's pretty useless.

Actually that makes me think that the long list of terrible marvel movie tie-ins Activision has been responsible for will finally end. Granted, they've been responsible for a couple good ones, the overwhelming majority were terrible.

"attributing the corporate downsizing to sluggish sales of Guitar Hero 5"

Wait... didn't Activision say yesterday that Guitar Hero 5 sold well because it was just so much fun?

I'm convinced all these big publishers are run by idiots. they close one studio per game, then those guys make a new studio or two, then th publishers buy them. Then they close them. repeat.

Why don't they just keep a decent, permanent stable of studios and stop all the waste? It's like if i bought a new car for every week, because i threw away the old one each week.

am i the only one wishing for another marvel rise of the imperfects?

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Activision closes 'Web of Shadows' dev Shaba [update]

Reader Comments (41)

Posted: Oct 8th 2009 10:04AM (Unverified) said

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