Sometimes rumors aren't just rumors: Mitch Gitelman has announced that FASA Studio is no more. In a post on the official Shadowrun message board, Gitelman (FASA Studio) broke the news:
Today was the official last day of employment for those of us who had not moved on to other positions within Microsoft Game Studios. While the rumors have been circulating forever, we chose to wait on an official announcement because we didn’t want people’s attention distracted from our last product, Shadowrun, a game we love.
Gitelman goes on to assure fans of the game that support for the title would continue, as they'll be keeping their Community Manager and Technical Support Manager on the job. He also states that about half of the FASA team have moved on to other positions within Microsoft.
Seeing as how rumors have been circulating since earlier this year (when an ex-employee posted talk of the studio being cut from Microsoft), this isn't surprising news. Still, regardless of what you thought of Shadowrun (which was actually pretty good, despite early negativity), it's sad to see any losses like this in the industry.
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Contest:
8:08 PM on 09.12.2007
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Unless Im mistaken...
What is your favorite or one of your favorite gaming companies that went out of business?
He speaks the truth. Karma is a bitch.
What I would like to know is the BBcode for that indented quote thing. Anybody help me out. Please.
For the benefit of those who don't know what I'm refering to, here are a couple pics I found on the internets. I personally only got to play it once, but it was the coolest thing on Earth, circa 1997.
Interior
Here you can see a badass mechjock steppin out after blastin' your gyros
R.I.P. FASA - you will be missed :(
Although I don't see why this news is any different to the earlier news of that HAMMER game being cancelled, yeah I know one was out of unfortunate circumstances whilst the other was a deliberate choice. Butmy point is that there are always fundamental problems which lead to a shut down of a studio or a single game, it's never fabricated issues or distaste for a certain type of game.
I've worked on projects that were doomed from the beginning, it's not nice, but there are always good reasons, no matter how promising the product looks or how talented the team is. Game design really follows the rule of natural selection, sometimes companies have to lose in order to win, hopefully see where they were going wrong, then don't make the same mistakes in future projects.
I think that both Shadowrun and Project HAMMER had problems conceptually, they are fine ideas in theory but in practice something is evidently missing, making software compelling enough to dedicate entire teams and budgets on is very tricky, loads of designers are bursting with ideas, but few can execute something that translates into compelling entertainment.
Hope all the guys and gals (unlikely) who were working on this title find other work quickly.
I'm surprised Nintendo didn't get blamed for this also, based on the reaction to the cancelling of Project HAMMER.
Way to drop the ball gais.
Shawdowrun is a mediocre FPS shooter at best and deserves no more than a 5-6/10
(NOT THE DEMO)
Its not that big a disaster that the studio closed down,the talented employees will surely find work elsewhere in the industry.
The IPs are probably owned by MS, or will be sold to other developers. There is still a chance we will see the sequels everyone wants to see.
THINK OF THE MECHWARRIOR!
OH MY GOD! MY LIFE IS NOTHING WITHOUT MECHWARRIOR!
I OWN EVERY GAME AND ITS STILL NOT ENOUGH!
NOOOO!!!
fail
Did you even play the game for more than 5 minutes, and I'm not talking about the demo. The game itself is good AND does shit that no other console FPS does (or pc fps balanced). The only problem with the game was content vs cost in that it really should have been a $30-$40 game.
A. Never should have used the Shadowrun license
B. Should have been brought out at $40 or less.
If it had been an original IP (which it practically was anyway since they pretty much used the license in name only) and they hadn't insisted on selling at full price it would've done better. They also made some poor decisions on how the online play worked, and it didn't encourage community.
Coulda been a condendah.
suck :(
I wonder what happends to the mechwarrior books and table top games and such ( i don't play them, but I thought fasa still owned the license).
Also the Battletech license is owned by WizKids now but who knows if that means there'll be any more video games. And Day 1 made the Mechassualt games and they're still around so who knows. But yeah I'd rather have a Mechwarrior 5 as opposed to a new Mech Assualt. Its disappointing because 1up yours had a guy from FASA on in the spring and he talked about how they want to do a realistic Mechwarrior game.