Rumor: APB Dev Dropping Staff

[Logan Westbrook]

Rumor: APB Dev Dropping Staff

According to rumor, APB and Crackdown developer Realtime Worlds has let go an entire developement team, and severely reduced another.

Just weeks after the reveal [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102455-Social-Networking-Experiment-Models-Entire-World] of Realtime World's new social media/gaming project MyWorld, rumors are circulating that the entire team behind the project has been made redundant.

RTW warned last month [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/101944-Realtime-Worlds-Restructuring-to-Support-APB] that some redundancies were likely as the developer restructured to support APB, and a second project - presumably MyWorld - was downscaled, but reports are suggesting that as many as 60 people have lost their jobs, with RTW possibly trying to sell the team off as a smaller entity.

Aside from the job cuts made to the MyWorld team, there are rumblings that severe cuts might be made to APB itself, with some suggesting that RTW might be trying to sell the MMOG. According to one source, who posted [http://www.vg247.com/2010/08/13/rumour-realtime-worlds-warns-of-drastic-apb-cuts-lays-off-entire-myworld-team/comment-page-1/#comment-204060] in VG247's comments section, the APB team has been cut down to just administrators and a skeleton crew of developers and artists to keep the keep things running.

Despite five years in development, and a rumored $100 million spent on the project, APB received very lackluster reviews when it was released last month, and there have been suggestions that the game's servers were not as full as they should be. If true, lower than expected revenues could certainly had made continued operation difficult.

There's so much rumor floating about this story, it's impossible to say for sure exactly what's going on without some kind of official confirmation. If it is true, however, we hope that everyone affected lands on their feet.

Source: Develop [http://www.develop-online.net/news/35616/Further-staff-redundancies-at-Realtime-Worlds] and VG247 [http://www.vg247.com/2010/08/13/rumour-realtime-worlds-warns-of-drastic-apb-cuts-lays-off-entire-myworld-team/]




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[tlozoot]

Had to look up just what APB was. Can't say I've heard of it, so it might not be surprising that it's performed so poorly. Sucks for people to lose their jobs over this though - and after a lot of work seemingly went into it as well.

 

[silver wolf009]

Well APB did kinda flop, so mabye this is to be expected but the whole staff? that seems a little overboard to me.

 

[uppitycracker]

While I've been really interested in trying APB, from what I've heard, this is only the fault of the developers. The issues I've heard with the game could have easily been fixed by listening to the community, but then again this is just what I've heard. It's a shame, I definitely won't invest money into a game that is on it's way out.

 

[instantbenz]

Some friends got it, but I don't think they play it. They were drawn to the customization ... I dunno I'm down with customizing, but there needs to be people to play the game with instead of showing two people how cool I pimped my ride.

So, is this myworld thing like a playstation Home situation?

 

[Jared]

Looks like APB may be going down faster than they thought it would...tis a shame, but, in an overinfated MMO market...

 

[Hoplon]

Why is every new mmo "rumored to have cost $100 million"?

who makes that shit up?

 

[GoGo_Boy]

Why is every new mmo "rumored to have cost $100 million"?

who makes that shit up?

Yeah man all those cost assumptions really annoy me. Starcraft 2 costs this, WoW that, Mass Effect had this budget and APB did obviously cost $100 million.

How do you know all that?

"Oh we just take a guess..."

 

[HaraDaya]

Well, seems there's no saving the game now. I've put over 100 hours into the game, pretty much because the customization kept dragging me back to it. The game is unbalanced, the mission rules are often unfair and biased to one faction. And people who've got high level gear will be put against you and pummel you again and again. It had such potential, if they would've just been faster and better at listening to the community, and balanced it properly, it could've been a great game.

 

[Kashim117]

$100 million and they can't program steering correctly? They deserve to be shut down.

 

[FinalDream]

APB was a mess, no two ways about it. I still to this day can't understand how they messed up so badly.

 

[Scobie]

DELETED

 

[cerebus23]

apb = free to play, it just was never a game that you would want to spend hours a day every day a week doing stuff in period. then the main part of the game is a multiplayer shooter and that has been done for free and done better. so all that apb had going for it was the custom stuff and hey that was cool but how many people want to shoot things constantly to get some pimped tee shirts and cars? granted the time stuff isnt bad their price scheme seems to indicate that they made a game that was not going to generate hardcore interest and that it was more a game people might login to mess around on occassion.

 

[Somethingfake]

"skeleton crew of developers and artists to *keep the keep things running*."? Sorry, it's just staring at me. As for APB, it doesn't seem over the top letting go an entire dev team if a game bombed as the company would need to save money somehow.

 

[Blackjack 222]

What did they expect? "Hey, we made a PvP only game with shitty driving mechanics guaranteed to make you hit a wall at the worst moment, and it will cost you 50 bucks plus subscription!" I mean really, they saw no flaw in this? It's a third person PvP-Only shooter with a subscription fee. They made an MMO with one game mode, one form of combat(luck/spray pray) a Hellishly unbalanced matchmaker, It seems like it was sold on customization alone.

 

[Mariena]

When both the shooting and the driving parts of the game are bad, which by coincidence are the main parts of the game, I think it fails.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

From what I've seen, and I could be wrong, but no playable demo, no 10-14-30 day free trial?

you want me to lay down for the full game and some play time, and then decide if I like it?

If I am wrong, then marketing screwed up, covering so many sites with wall to wall screen covering ads, then not bothering to tell people 'hey if this looks at all interesting you should come try it free!'

Its a tired old cliche of an argument, but WOW offers free trials and does fairly well, tho I'm not stating that's WHY, just that it might help.

WOW needs to loosen up a bit tho, by level 20 you've not really seen much of the game.

Kinda reminds me of an old Lewis Black piece about Pepsi and Coke, why don't they just fire their marketing dept and send everyone in the world a $10 coupon with 'try our shit' written on it.

Trying something is always going to be better than any ad, video, or review.

I REALLY wanted to like APB, but I don't have the cash to lay down on something with bad word of mouth that I can't try for myself.

If it had bad reviews but I liked it, I'd still be in there!

 

[Blackjack 222]

When both the shooting and the driving parts of the game are bad, which by coincidence are the main parts of the game, I think it fails.

Don't get me started on the combat, i never saw a crim stop bitching about me tazing him throughout the entirety of the beta. The leagues system was a terrible idea(honestly, you did not think it would get exploited into oblivion?), the only good part of the game was customization and that required combat to do. The upgrades were shitty ideas to, by the end of beta i had more health than an fucking armored car.
@senseofhumor No game has a trial this early in release

 

[Psydney]

From what I've seen, and I could be wrong, but no playable demo, no 10-14-30 day free trial?

you want me to lay down for the full game and some play time, and then decide if I like it?

I played it for free for a while when it first came out - did they change that? I didn't enjoy it at all though - as other people have said the steering for the driving portions was awful, timed quests while you're repeatedly being ganked by higher level players are not my idea of fun and, well, I don't really like PvP so it was sheer masochism that led me to poke my target-shaped head in in the first place.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

Ah forced PVP , I'm out then, despite hypocritically loving TF2, I want to just be left the hell alone to quest in WOW, or co-operate with players, not fight someone who's spent their life analysing hit tables to beat me.

From what I've seen of APB, it seemed to be almost all about player on player conflict tho, how much 'content' was there in terms of missions etc that didn't involve just killing other players?

EDIT: I do think it's a shame, APB got a lot of stuff right, I was really impressed by the customisation options etc, although, they seem to forget the Rule of Crysis - the prettier your game is, the less people can actually play it, especially in MMOs when you have hundreds of people all wandering about with your high res armour on.