Vapourware System Shock 3 by OtherSide Entertainment - taken over by Tencent!

[ZeniBot]

Nordic. wait. Oh no.
EPIC STORE EXCLUSIVE

I'm joking by the way. I think Fug Starbreeze.

 

[MasterLobar]

I don't know where the idea comes from that the Epic Games Store is going to throw around millions of dollars to fund games no publisher wants to make. That's pretty ridiculous. EGS is certainly not going to bail out Otherside.

 

[ZeniBot]

Eh was just shitposting. I base that on nothing. I've been randomly going onto threads on codex and posting that just because I fucking despise what EGS is doing.
Well it'll be interesting to see what level of development hell this game comes out in I think Nostalgia can only take them so far but I think they've overall done a terrible job with the SS1 remake so I have no doubt similar has occurred here.
After Invisible War I've had my doubts of Warren's management.

 

[Infinitron]

but I think they've overall done a terrible job with the SS1 remake

Different studio.

 

[Steamboat Willie]

I don't know where the idea comes from that the Epic Games Store is going to throw around millions of dollars to fund games no publisher wants to make. That's pretty ridiculous. EGS is certainly not going to bail out Otherside.

Epic grabbing exclusives is all about being able to brag about it for PR. "New Game from the creators of Underworld Ascendant - only on Epic!" is nothing worth paying for.

 

[Infinitron]

All of the games Epic has signed up with have been fairly close to release (within a year). They're not a publisher-replacement.

 

[ZeniBot]

but I think they've overall done a terrible job with the SS1 remake

Different studio.

That came out a bit wrong. I meant the rights holder had handled it wrong and this is looking to be a repeat of that. Its why you have to have an element of accountability with your developers otherwise they get stuck producing bad work and having to start over. Looks like sames gonna happen here too.

 

[LESS T_T]

Pathetic. PC Gamer - OtherSide will self-publish System Shock 3 if it has to, but hopes someone else will do it

https://www.pcgamer.com/au/othersid...-it-has-to-but-hopes-someone-else-will-do-it/

Not PC Gamer: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/system-shock-3-has-a-lot-of-interest-from-publishers/

System Shock 3 ‘has a lot of interest from publishers’
BUT DEVELOPER HASN’T RULED OUT SELF-PUBLISHING

Sam (Community Manager)
Just stepping in that I believe this news isnt even new; we conducted the original interview with Warren back in February/March

It would break NDA to reveal who was interested as well as the terms...

 

[MasterLobar]

Still no deal after more than 3 months. It's fairly obvious that no publisher wants to work with them.

Btw, any publisher who agrees to fund SS3 would have to refund Starbreeze and thereby bail out a competitor.

 

[LESS T_T]

Btw, any publisher who agrees to fund SS3 would have to refund Starbreeze and thereby bail out a competitor.

Eh, publishers buying things from dying (or dead) publishers always happen. Case in point, Rockstar/Take Two just bought a studio in India from Starbreeze for $7.9 million.

To be honest, *unless* SS3 in its current state is a mess or unattractive, I'm not sure this is that of a bad deal for potential publishers. They would fund a new game for similar amount of money anyway. And in this case there's already a "half-finished" game that they can make more informed evaluation than a prototype or pitch documents.

 

[Safav Hamon]

Btw, any publisher who agrees to fund SS3 would have to refund Starbreeze and thereby bail out a competitor.

Eh, publishers buying things from dying (or dead) publishers always happen. Case in point, Rockstar/Take Two just bought a studio in India from Starbreeze for $7.9 million.

That was an art outsourcing company with over 300 employees

 

[LESS T_T]

That was an art outsourcing company with over 300 employees

Yeah. The point is company buying thing from other company.

 

[Nano]

Yeah. The point is company buying thing from other company

Unless said art outsourcing company had a disaster as big as Underworld Ascendant, it isn't comparable.

 

[LESS T_T]

Yeah. The point is company buying thing from other company

Unless said art outsourcing company had a disaster as big as Underworld Ascendant, it isn't comparable.

Sure. What I was trying to say is that whether SS3 will get a publisher or not is less about the situation of Starbreeze and more about the prospect of SS3 (and to some extent Otherside) itself.

 

[MasterLobar]

Eh, publishers buying things from dying (or dead) publishers always happen.

I didn't say it's never happening, I said it's an additional negative on a long list. Who wouldn't want to see a competitor go bankrupt?

Apart from that, funding SS3 is just a terrible idea:

- The franchise was buried for 20 years and is almost totally unknown among young gamers

- The first two installments both lost money

- No one wanted to touch it for 20 years

- Nightdive's remake was rebuffed by publishers last year

- Otherside's only product in the market is a broken mess

- Even 6 months after launch, it's still unplayable because of frequent crashes (that were introduced by their own updates)

- No one believes the "two separate teams" nonsense

- The UA and SS3 teams share personal resources and likely code bases (see my earlier post)

- It's obvious SS3 was meant to build on the development of UA (both run on Unity etc.), and therefore will be just as broken as UA

- No way is SS3 "more than halfway completed" given what Otherside has shown so far

- Otherside utterly ruined its reputation by scamming UA backers, it's name is now synonymous with lies and deception in the community

 

[Glic2000]

Ken Levine said they never made System Shock 3 because EA "didn't give a shit" about it. But I've also heard people say that they did start making SS3 and turned it into Dead Space. I don't think that's completely accurate, though (I think they just started making generic sci-fi horror assets).

I think one of the ways they could try to sell System Shock 3 (to a younger audience) is by promoting it as a sort of BioShock predecessor ("here's the game that started it all" sort of thing).

But yes, I still agree with the above that SS3 is pretty much doomed, unfortunately. I think it would be much, much better if the team doing the System Shock 1 remake was working on SS3, because they already made their mistakes, refocused, and then hit their stride awhile ago. Otherside has probably been mucking around doing pretty much nothing (except redesigning Shodan's face) for years. Y'know, like they did with UA.

 

[Bad Sector]

I think it would be much, much better if the team doing the System Shock 1 remake was working on SS3, because they already made their mistakes, refocused, and then hit their stride awhile ago.

Which makes me wonder what Nightdive/Stephen Kick's side thinks about all that. They own the IP nowadays after all.

 

[LESS T_T]

Follow-up from Disco chat:

Walter (VP Marketing)

We're being very picky :D

Sam (Community Manager)

Waiting for the new UA branch to upload on Steam so I can grab some more trailer footage;;
I'm relieved that we were able to buy back our IP rights while Starbreeze is working itself out, at least
This is somewhat related to the new thread on the OSE forums about the lessons learned from UA, but talking to publishers for Shock3 has been more thorough as we want to make sure our needs are covered. Having a more robust QA team, for example, would do wonders. (Austin's local QA is a little larger than ours in Boston, I believe, but it would still be immensely helpful to make sure we're covering multiple OS and hardware setups through a publisher, etc)

 

[Zep Zepo]

Follow-up from Disco chat:

Walter (VP Marketing)

We're being very picky :D

Sam (Community Manager)

Waiting for the new UA branch to upload on Steam so I can grab some more trailer footage;;
I'm relieved that we were able to buy back our IP rights while Starbreeze is working itself out, at least
This is somewhat related to the new thread on the OSE forums about the lessons learned from UA, but talking to publishers for Shock3 has been more thorough as we want to make sure our needs are covered. Having a more robust QA team, for example, would do wonders. (Austin's local QA is a little larger than ours in Boston, I believe, but it would still be immensely helpful to make sure we're covering multiple OS and hardware setups through a publisher, etc)

How in the living hell does the left hand not know what the right hand is doing? They just keep proving they are a giant cluster fuck of ineptness and mismanagement.

Otherside QA should encompass the COMPANY and their games. Not every "teams" dreams and wishes.

Zep--

 

[LESS T_T]

Another tech demonstration at Unity conference in Korea, by Unity developers. It's the same GDC demo but with slightly different, somewhat closer look:

 

[MasterLobar]

Two months after releasing their 30-second trailer, they are still showing exactly the same stuff.

 

[LESS T_T]

Two months after releasing their 30-second trailer, they are still showing exactly the same stuff.

Well I acknowledge your pessimism to some extent but it's not like this is E3 conference. It's just a local conference that Unity showing the mostly same things they've shown at GDC to local developers.

 

[Viata]

Tech demo always mean shit when the people that are going to use it sucks balls at making games. Be it peformancewise or gamewise.

 

[Katana1000S]

They said it was more than half finished ... Months ago ... They Lied ... Again ...

 

[LESS T_T]

Speaking of violence, I guess this is combat designer of SS3. Jimmy Sedota, worked on Middle-Earth games at Monolith, and Anthem and Andromeda at BioWare: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimmy-sedota-2558a71/

He is no longer working at Otherside.

Senior Game Designer
Company Name OtherSide Entertainment
Dates Employed Jul 2018 – Apr 2019
Employment Duration 10 mos
Location Austin, Texas Area

System Shock 3 (PC)

Looks like this indeed was PC only at least for initial release.