It looks like one brave (if foolhardy) decision to set a game in Iraq has spelled death for one poor developer. While those that gathered around to criticize Six Days in Fallujah like flies on dogsh*t would likely be glad to hear this, it's sad that Atomic Games is now "pretty much dead."
"Out of 75 people, less than a dozen are left and about a third of that isn't even developers," a source told Industry Gamers. "The remaining team is basically a skeleton cleanup crew that will be gone soon too. They are trying to downplay the extent of these layoffs, but the reality is that Atomic is pretty much dead."
This word from the inside follows the news that Atomic had suffered staff cuts, but the extent of the damage was not made clear. If this source is to be believed, then it looks like Six Days has proven fatal for the studio. From the sounds of it, Konami has essentially hung Atomic Studios out to dry, killing off the entire company due to cold feet.
It's really sad, too. Konami had no real business attaching its name to the project if it didn't have the balls to see it through. Atomic's dead in the water because it dared to try something different, even if it did so with a slight naivety in regards to the backlash that was in store. Sad state of affairs indeed.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
Likes
PS2, iPod Touch, Silent Hill 2, Metal Gear Solid, Dynasty Warriors 3
Meet the rest of the team
| BBcode help |
| [b]Bold text[/b] |
Bold text |
| [i]Italic text[/i] |
Italic text |
| [url]http://www.dtoid.com/[/url] |
http://www.dtoid.com |
| [url=http://www.dtoid.com/]Web link[/url] |
Web link |
|
| [img]http://www.example.com/robot.jpg[/img] |
 |
Post a comment! You can also post a photo below:
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
30 comments | showing # 1 to 30
|
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
Comments policy
Destructoid is an open discussion community. You don't need to "audition" to post a comment - just speak your mind. We respect differing opinions on the site, so have at it. Be smart, funny, insightful, clueless, or cute -- but back it up with substance. Keep your cool, keep it fun. We only ask that you act respectfully and above all: don't be a troll and ruin it for everyone else. Don't bring down gamers or we'll, you know, gently shoot you in the face and stuff you into a flaming mailbox. Each comment is your opportuntity to make this community awesomer. Is that even a word?
Avoiding the banhammer only requires common sense: spamming, trolling, racism, NSFW stuff, and other forms of sucking will not be tolerated. If anyone is griefing please report abuse. Be good. Don't suck!
Contest:
10:00 AM on 08.08.2009
| 
If Activision made an idiot one why can't these people file a decent lawsuit. The fact it might be the first sensible lawsuit should help the game more.
Its a sad day. I'm not usually into war games, but the premise of this got me interested. If it was executed properly it could have been the kind of thing that shot some sense in the more cynical faces. Now we'll never know.
Such a shame that those damn whiny people. Undeniably, majority of them (most likely) being Muslim, no disregard to the religion or the entire community. But when these topics get backlash, the people who cause it are usually Muslim.
I know I'll probably get my wrists slapped for being faith-ist or something. But it's merely a case of monkey-see monkey-do, or rather monkey-parrot... or something... o_O
Anyway, it's sad to see another company killed by a parasitic offspring that they couldn't amputate. Too much dedication is lethal.
I guess taking a risk that big rarely pays off.
How can we, as an industry, declare our rights of freedom of speech if we're the ONLY media in the world that can't touch the subject of Iraq without renaming it?
I think Activision more than proved with CoD4 that you can make a game with settings that are Iraq, just don't call it Iraq. They could have called it Six Days in Fucking Zabubustan, keep everything else the same, and there wouldn't have been one bit of outrage.
And speaking of fucking liberals, their main argument against this is was that it glorifies the deaths of our soldiers. Even though the team at Atomic worked closely with actual United States Marine Corps deployed in Fallujah.
CoD4 is fiction. The main draw Six Days in Fallujah was the fact that it IS a true story. It's supposed to be a faithful retelling of the actual events at Fallujah, which is ground ripe for a film or novel, only the chosen artistic medium was a videogame. The battles were supposed to mirror the ones that actually happened, and you would be fighting in them alongside NPC's based on real marines who were actually there. Placing it in Arbitrary-stan would not only defeat the point of the entire game, but also fail to help establish videogames as an accepted storytelling medium, which is the only reason the game would have any reason to exist in a market already inundated with samey war games.
-
I think the most pathetic part of the situation is that the actual opposition to the game was relatively small compared to the general "violent videogames are evil" rabble. Obviously this will get more attention because of its immediate political relevance. The actual soldiers who's story would be told in the game, however, were totally supportive of it. And frankly, who's opinion aside from theirs could POSSIBLY matter?
Yes, CoD4 was fiction, the American levels were CLEARLY BASED ON IRAQ. The point is that video games aren't to the point yet where the despised general public no matter what proportion actually gave a rat's ass, can accept real, on-going wars as subject matter.
The medium is in transition, and Modern Warfare was a perfect piece for a transitional period, attempting to capture at least the aesthetic of the Iraq conflict but not being bogged down in the demagoguery of the moral imperatives, or lack there of in the Iraq war.
This all or nothing, take no prisoners approach you're espousing is not going to get the medium to the point we'd like it to be any faster, and societal change typically moves at the speed of a crawl. Moving it to "Arbitrary-stan" would have helped advance the ball down the field a bit more, as it would have likely avoided controversy and would have been able to stand on its own merits, as well as actually seeing the light of day.
All indications were that the project, despite the high rhetoric we were getting from the studio, was that the game was well on its way down the path of becoming a Gears clone. But ultimately, I would say that based on the impressions of the game that other people had who had seen it, its better that we've not had to force this argument with the mainstream. Lets save this fight for something that was worth it, and indications were that 6 Days in Fallujah simply wasn't that game.
Tenuous economic times make tough subject matter a risky gamble...but like you said, I believe this to be more of a “monetary” thing than a “censorship” thing.
Pff, industry bullshit.
Oh, and for emphasis:
FULL SPECTRUM WARRIOR WAS BASED ON IRAQ, AND IT CAME OUT YEARS AGO.
What pray tell makes you think it was "liberal" protesters that brought this game down? I recall that Fox News did a pretty good job of raising a (unresarched) stink about this game, and last time I checked, they were laughably anything but liberal.
I understand your "philosophy" that as we keep pushing the lines, eventually we can do this stuff. It's a sound theory really and has no conflictig data within any medium ever seen by mankind. Except, well, all of them really.
There are roads a media has to follow. Those that are paid do as they are paid to do. Some have argued gaming has never had a period when monetary pushes have overrided artistic pushes but these people, frankly, are idiots. Ask yourself this, why is sooo much of the historical artwork religious or of royalty? Because the Church could afford to finance artistic pieces. And art was supposedly the one truely free realm, correct? Now consider this. Changes in artistic movements never came by evolution, but rather revolution. Someone did something radically different and so other people, in turn, followed and expanded. The point to all this?
What you are advocating is the exact same reason why this game was canceled. Games are new, games shouldn't speak too loudly or step out of line. Our medium, essentially, is the child bursting with energy he needs to express but should be grateful for the belt across his face from his abusive father mediums anytime he tries to speak for himself. Gaming, as a medium, is too young and stupid to have anything VALID to say on the state of the world so we should just either shut up or essentially hide what we are talking about. Sort of like how Kelly's "friend" on Saved by the Bell had a pimple problem and needed to get rid of it by homecoming.
Oh yes, I dropped a Saved reference. Why? Because the very notion that we should rename a middle eastern conflict as "Kerplunklapistan" so that we don't offend fucking idiots is every bit as juvenile as Zack Morrisse using subliminal advertising to get a date for the big dance. The question you have to ask is simple. Who was offended? Certainly not people who played the game or who could consider the medium as something more than something to do in the frat common room. Fuck those people. This is like willingly accepting advice from people who have no clue on the medium whatsoever. And so long as people like yourself say we need to take middle steps, the opinions of those who wouldn't be interested anyway will continue to hold this medium back. I pity the fact that you've fallen for their trap. Just remember this the next time we get a belt across the face.
@shogunu
I know it's the hip thing to blame the liberals for everything including your jar of pickles being far too tight to open, but this time you're wrong. The biggest and most venomus push came from Fox News. And they are far from liberal.
The game could not be fun and stay true to the real thing. It's a good thing that this sort of game is not coming out because it would lose all credibility if it claimed to be anything like "real war".
Except for the fact that most of the people who were actually there supported the game, and in fact had been actual consultants on the game. The only people who objected to it were people who weren't there and the families of the ones who died and were angry about the futility of the entire war.
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. "
The anti-war message is important, and I would be glad to see it in a game.
Here's hoping by some miracle they manage to publish it.
And I am honestly starting to not like Konami for their business model. My interest has been circling the drain with them, and this doesn't help matters any. Ruining Clover Studios was bad enough, but they haven't been stopping since then, either.