People News Brian Mitsoda fired from Bloodlines 2

[cyborgboy95]

Well, at least we still have an unannounced horror-themed game that may be set in the world of darkness from Harebrained Schemes (who is owned by Paradox now) in addition to Vampire The Masquerate Swansong from the maker of The Council (if you are into narrative-RPG)

 

[Jedi Exile]

It just came to my mind that they used Brian to promote this game because he worked on Bloodlines and he is well known to the fans of the original game, they don't just used his work and ideas, but also his name to sell this game to the fans, and after he contributed to all this (although he acknowledged that marketing was very hard for him to do because he is not a people's person), they just got rid of him.

I am not sure about cancelling my pre-order, because I think there still would be work by Brian and other good people in the game, and I want to see it.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

 

[Tacgnol]

It just came to my mind that they used Brian to promote this game because he worked on Bloodlines and he is well known to the fans of the original game, they don't just used his work and ideas, but also his name to sell this game to the fans, and after he contributed to all this (although he acknowledged that marketing was very hard for him to do because he is not a people's person), they just got rid of him.

I am not sure about cancelling my pre-order, because I think there still would be work by Brian and other good people in the game, and I want to see it.

It was always a dangerous proposition to pre-order this (or any game in this age). Safer to cancel the pre-order and see what the game is like when it's out.

Goes double with them fucking Brian over.

 

[Smejki]

Wait. I wasn't paying much attention to the devment outside watching the noclip shillmentary and trailers being released at major conventions, so I didn't even know MCA was involved, but after some quick search I see this:
June 2020: After the MCA kerfuffle, Paradox announced all MCA written content will be removed from the game.
July 2020: Mitsoda goes bye bye.

Smells like

Remove all MCA stuff, the PR God demands it!

Over my dead body, maybe, kinda.

Kinda it is then.

 

[Tacgnol]

Wait. I wasn't paying much attention to the devment outside watching the noclip shillmentary and trailers being released at major conventions, so I didn't even know MCA was involved, but after some quick search I see this:
June 2020: After the MCA kerfuffle, Paradox announced all MCA written content will be removed from the game.
July 2020: Mitsoda goes bye bye.

Smells like

Remove all MCA stuff, the PR God demands it!

Over my dead body, maybe, kinda.

Kinda it is then.

It's a distinct possibility. My respect for Brian would increase dramatically if turns out he had stood up for MCA.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

It just came to my mind that they used Brian to promote this game because he worked on Bloodlines and he is well known to the fans of the original game, they don't just used his work and ideas, but also his name to sell this game to the fans, and after he contributed to all this (although he acknowledged that marketing was very hard for him to do because he is not a people's person), they just got rid of him.

I am not sure about cancelling my pre-order, because I think there still would be work by Brian and other good people in the game, and I want to see it.

You can just pirate it.

 

[Kuattro]

Wait. I wasn't paying much attention to the devment outside watching the noclip shillmentary and trailers being released at major conventions, so I didn't even know MCA was involved, but after some quick search I see this:
June 2020: After the MCA kerfuffle, Paradox announced all MCA written content will be removed from the game.
July 2020: Mitsoda goes bye bye.

Smells like

Remove all MCA stuff, the PR God demands it!

Over my dead body, maybe, kinda.

Kinda it is then.

There's always been this tensions between the "old guard" and the new developers, who more than once have mentioned how they would like to "correct" the mistakes the first game made, something that I expect Mitsoda, as one of its creators, probably didn't enjoy at all.

I remember one of the new developers going to twitter to mention how disgusted he was when he saw he had to share a project with MCA (instead of recognizing the opportunity of working with someone who has more talent in his appendix that the little toad has in all his body). He probably didn't say anything about it when he was right in front of him, and they certainly used him as a PR crutch as much as they used Mitsoda, but once down, all bets were off.

I don't think the development team was a happy family, and there were a lot of people hoping to "dispense" with the "baggage" so they could make the game they wanted to make, which as I said sounds more like a "correction" of Mitsoda's work than a continuation. He was the weakest link in the chain (especially after MCA's damnatio memoriae) and they probably used any excuse to go crying to management with the platitudes of how "it's not working out". Might as well have been him refusing to unperson MCA.

I bet that in the next days we'll get plenty of developers of the game talking about how it was horrible to have to work with two dinosaurs with old ideas, and how now they will really bring their vision of what Vampire and the WoD should be.

Expect shenanigans

 

[Infinitron]

Some wishful thinking ITT right now re: Mitsoda. The guy had no problems dispensing of his own baggage.

 

[True Ukrainian]

Mitsoda was probably sacked for mismanaging the project. Its been caught in development hell for sometime already and Paradox probably lost patience.

 

[Tacgnol]

Some wishful thinking ITT right now re: Mitsoda. He is one of them, folks.

Sadly, probably true. It's a nice thought that he may have stood up for MCA though.

Also ultimately pointless to consider, as unless someone spills the beans we'll never know happened.

 

[luj1]

Alright, any chance of this being good just completely evaporated.

Let's be real here with or without Brian this would have never been good

 

[Smejki]

There's always been this tensions between the "old guard" and the new developers, who more than once have mentioned how they would like to "correct" the mistakes the first game made, something that I expect Mitsoda, as one of its creators, probably didn't enjoy at all.

Oh, believe me, unless you are making a simple tiny game, devs always see their past games as a deeply distorted and broken image of their original vision. Cut content, changed content, unrealized scope, unreached design goals, shit that worked better on paper, plethora of minute inconsistencies you see but players miss, underdeveloped shit you had to rush through.
Mitsoda likely saw a lot of problems with the original.
Whether there was a major agreement or disagreement between the new and old devs as to what needed fixing, that's a different question.

 

[Kuattro]

Some wishful thinking ITT right now re: Mitsoda. He is one of them, folks.

I see where you are going and yes, he (and Annie) are very much in the "woke" department. The first Bloodlines was a pretty woke game by itself, of course in the 90s-early 2000s way.

But I still believe in basic human decency. Just like Darth Vader, there's only so much shit you can endure and see before your lizard brain goes "hang on a minute".

Can a man really see some of his most memorable work, and work he probably was proud of at one moment or another, get shit on without really starting to resent it a bit.

I certainly don't believe the development of the game was a battle between the colour haired hordes and paladins of the industry like Mitsoda and Avellone in defence of purity and political incorrectness in a world gone mad.

But I can not believe that there were not tensions. Moments were the square peg did, even if politely and silently, refuse to go into the round hole. And I do believe that that is, at least partly, the reason of these news.

Otherwise, why fire him so fulminantly? Either he touched someone's anatomy when he shouldn't (and we've been told is not that), or this was brewing for quite some time and only now has had consequences.

It cannot be that the game is in development hell because, as he himself has said, he is not in charge of programming or anything of the sort, he is just a narrative guy, so his firing has to have something to do with the narrative, the theme and the story of the game.

I don't know, and we probably will never know, but seeing how other developers of the game have spoken historically of the first Bloodlines, and seeing that this is all a Paradox operation (they already nuked White Wolf for the reasons we all know), I don't think it's completely unreasonable to venture the reasons why the axe has fallen on him and one of his close collaborators, and no one else, was because they were not "a good fit for the team".

Or maybe he did just put his hand in the kitty, either the money kitty, or the other kind.

 

[Zed]

Paradox must have gone "you can do that??" when someone brought up firing Mitsoda and the other guy, considering Swedish law prohibits firing someone without disclosure (and good reason). I honestly think this is a Hardsuit Lab-related drama, with Paradox just okaying it. Something like the CEO of Hardsuit Labds being pissy about something (sounds like a person who could be that -- protected Tweets and a BLM banner: https://twitter.com/andykipling ).

Here's from a negative 2017 glassdoor review:
Studio heads and management are from Zombie Studio. Reasonably nice people. However those staff members haven't shipped a game from "start to finish" in over 5 years. They are a bit out of touch and inept. Understanding of basic order of operations/development and dependencies!

From mobygames:
Zombie Studios shut down in January 2015 with its owners' retirement. Former staffers of the company subsequently founded a new studio, Builder Box Games (now Hardsuit Labs)

These people seem to be aforementioned Andy Kipling and Michael Athey (Studio VP). Pretty sure they cooked this up, whatever the reason.

 

[Infinitron]

It cannot be that the game is in development hell because, as he himself has said, he is not in charge of programming or anything of the sort, he is just a narrative guy, so his firing has to have something to do with the narrative, the theme and the story of the game.

Brian said this:

I was not part of the conversations that led to the decision to delay production, and to my knowledge, there were no delays caused by the Bloodlines 2 narrative development.

One way to interpret that statement is as something like "Our narrative team was doing just fine, it's these other guys who failed to support our vision!"

In other words, he and Cluney might have been seen as unlikely to cooperate with what needs to be done to ship the game (ie, cut lots of content). And he hints at that right afterwards:

When that work will be seen and what form it will take is unknown to me.

Something similar happened to Kevin Saunders on Torment: Tides of Numenera.

 

[Smejki]

It's a distinct possibility. My respect for Brian would increase dramatically if turns out he had stood up for MCA.

Not necessarily. It's quite possible he stood up for the art and the process, not for Chris as a person.
MCA's stuff might be so essential cutting it would ripple through almost every other piece of content. Just rewriting a game after a major change might take up to a year, not to talk about re-implementing all the new and changed stuff. The game was supposedly in the final lap (very likely in beta stage) that means close to everything was already implemented.
But it might be the case MCA just wrote one side character that can be easily cut, so this is all just speculation.

 

[Kuattro]

It cannot be that the game is in development hell because, as he himself has said, he is not in charge of programming or anything of the sort, he is just a narrative guy, so his firing has to have something to do with the narrative, the theme and the story of the game.

Here's another way of looking at it. Game is behind schedule. Content needs to be cut. So what Brian might have been implying there is, "Our narrative team was doing just fine, it's these other guys who failed to support our vision!"

In other words he and Cluney might have been seen as unlikely to cooperate with what needs to be done to ship the game. And he hints at that near the end of his statement:

When that work will be seen and what form it will take is unknown to me.

Something similar happened to Kevin Saunders on Torment: Tides of Numenera.

So either, as I venture, the "evil wokies" have added Mitsoda's scalp to the collection, and they are now going to turn the game into shit.

Or the incompetent managers of the studio (still "evil wokies" though!) have fucked up so royally that they are now forced to bring the guy with the chainsaw to start cutting, and the only ones who actually said that this was not ok have now been sacked. And they are now going to turn the game into shit.

Yours sounds more reasonable, especially seeing how the industry works, but I'm not letting go of my pet theory, dammit.

This is like Alien vs. Predator, isn't it? Whoever wins, we lose.

Nah who am I kidding? When this garbage is released we'll have a party the size of the one we had when Andromeda was ripped apart by players and critics. We'll have entertainment for a week, and without having to pay a cent. I'm ready for the memes.

 

[Heinrich]

Ever since having to deal with some developers of spin-off games of their titles fucking with them and draining resources without really doing anything for them (for example Magna Mundi) earlier in their history, Paradox have developed a very cutthroat approach to troubled productions, both in-house and for the games they publish (the exceptions to this are their core in-house IP's, which is why Imperator is still getting updates).

These games either get cut ruthlessly if there is nothing to be shipped yet (like Runemaster or East vs. West), or dumped out and forgotten if something can be salvaged from them (March of the Eagles, Sengoku, Magicka: Wizard Wars).

The development of the game was fucked, it was decided something could be salvaged from the wreck so development will continue at the cheapest possible level, the game will later be dumped without much fanfare and support in order to recoup some losses, without wasting more money on marketing for a failed project.

And the people they think are responsible for this get the axe. I don't think it's more complicated than that.

 

[Anthedon]

 

[jac8awol]

It's great that we don't know the exact details, we can all revel in our own versions of reality. For me, it's completely obvious what happened. Mitsoda and Kawaii, despite being completely subjugated SJW sockpuppets, were the only members with any sense of internal logic (repressed manhood) and wanted to stick to a version of reality-based writing that may, may have almost made this game playable.
To the feminists and he-shes, this was absolute heresy.
"A male character with agency?? Portrayed in a positive light? GTFO straighty!"
The chicks with dicks firing squad assembled and heads rolled.
Leftists will always devour their own. The longer this project went, the more chance of a menstrual hissyfit blowing up and tanking the project. In hindsight, this was inevitable really.

 

[Infinitron]

Or the incompetent managers of the studio (still "evil wokies" though!) have fucked up so royally that they are now forced to bring the guy with the chainsaw to start cutting, and the only ones who actually said that this was not ok have now been sacked. And they are now going to turn the game into shit.

Yours sounds more reasonable, especially seeing how the industry works, but I'm not letting go of my pet theory, dammit.

I really hope that I'm wrong and that the game content is mostly complete and intact. The best case scenario here is that this is a delayed overreaction from Paradox due to the game missing its release window, and that all it really needs right now is polishing. "You created too much content, it's too late to do anything about it but we're firing you anyway!"

The development of the game was fucked, it was decided something could be salvaged from the wreck so development will continue at the cheapest possible level, the game will later be dumped without much fanfare and support in order to recoup some losses, without wasting more money on marketing for a failed project.

I just find it hard to believe that they would take a shit on their first in-house World of Darkness game like that. They invested a lot into this, it's not some indie strategy game made by five people.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I like Bloodlines 1 as much as the next guy, but after Alpha Protocol and Dead State -edit: and let us not forget TToN!- (both of which I also actually like!) I'm pretty confused as to how the prevailing theory here is basically "BRIAN MITSODA DID NOTHING WRONG! IT'S A DEEP STATE CONSPIRACY!". Dude is a dumpsterfire fire, albeit a talented one.

Does anyone actually think Dead State is bad? I thought it was OK, just repetitive.
If you want to play a base-building RPG it's definitely one of the first I'd recommend.

 

[jackofshadows]

Mitsoda likely saw a lot of problems with the original.

Not with BL1 but I was amazed how accurate he recognized all the issues of Dead State in a "what went wrong" section of this postmortem.

 

[mondblut]

- The project is over budget / behind schedule.
- PDX is pulling the plug and wants the game released asap.
- Ubisoft guy is brought in as a hired gun who doesn't give a shit about the game and will do whatever it takes to get it out the door, even though quality will inevitably suffer.
- Mitsoda actually cares about the project, so PDX sees him as an impediment to the new strategic direction and therefore decides to get rid of him.

That's the most likely explanation, of course. Bringing in an external auditor always means "the project is deep in shit, it needs to be salvaged in whatever form, and the heads will roll".

But it's also very boring. I really wish the game to flop hard, then mr. Mitsoda to come here and play MCA. "What are you doing, Brian?"

Fuck games, only drama matters.