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

[Child of Malkav]

nobody wants to buy the assets ( / at a fair market price )

I offer five dollars

That much?

 

[Nyast]

If they were smart about it they issued shares to a holding company granting priority for repayment of debt in the event it goes bankrupt. Much as some would like the company to simply be dissolved and shut down that often doesn't happen for years. Shutting their doors is a more likely scenario but we have no clue what is going on and any conjecture is wholly navel gazing.

Can you please not put "smart" and "Otherside" in the same sentence ? Pretty please ?

 

[Sonus]

And then there's the Digital Bros acquiring Smilegate's portion of the Starbreeze assets, and Starbreeze relying on sales of a single game to be able to move forward.

 

[thesheeep]

nobody wants to buy the assets ( / at a fair market price )

I offer five dollars

Let's combine our efforts and offer ten together.
We can then move on to inspect the goods and continue to publicly destroy those assets that would harm the System Shock legacy.

 

[LESS T_T]

Level designer of Underworld Ascendant started helping the development of SS3: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-pappas-49771a3/

Level Designer on System Shock 3
Dates Employed Apr 2019 – Present
Employment Duration 1 mo

Working in the outer reaches of the galaxy on a //REDACTED// that might //REDACTED//

He has set the end date of this supporting role. March 2020. Possibly something happened with SS3 this month. Officially shelved, maybe...?

He's still working on Boston's unannounced project (supposedly a Thief-life game) according to his profile.

 

[MasterLobar]

Just so I get this right:

Otherside are abandoning a game...

*which is their only game in the pipeline
*they have been working on for years
*a publisher has invested $6.8 million in
*they advertised at multiple gaming conventions and conferences
*they said was 'more than halfway completed' a year ago
*they say they have a playable pre-alpha
*they published trailers they say show "real gamplay"

Then they lay off almost the entire team, close the Austin studio and instead of trying to finish that game somehow, they are now switching their remaining staff to the development of an entirely new "unannounced project" without a new publisher or partner.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Got my monthly Otherside forum activity update.

 

[Sonus]

Just so I get this right:

Otherside are abandoning a game...

*which is their only game in the pipeline
*they have been working on for years
*a publisher has invested $6.8 million in
*they advertised at multiple gaming conventions and conferences
*they said was 'more than halfway completed' a year ago
*they say they have a playable pre-alpha
*they published trailers they say show "real gamplay"

Then they lay off almost the entire team, close the Austin studio and instead of trying to finish that game somehow, they are now switching their remaining staff to the development of an entirely new "unannounced project" without a new publisher or partner.

They have no money coming in, no support, little to pay out. Not sure how they could move forward. They had another game being conceptualized at the Boston branch.

 

[Child of Malkav]

https://www.videogameschronicle.com...sists-marketing-boss-but-no-word-on-dev-team/

System Shock 3 firm ‘still here’, insists marketing boss, but no word on dev team

System Shock 3 developer OtherSide Entertainment has provided its first update since claims that the bulk of its Austin development team had been let go.

Earlier this year one anonymous developer suggested that OtherSide Entertainment’s Austin team was “no longer employed” and LinkedIn confirmed an exodus of senior leads, including System Shock 3’s writer and director, lead programmer, design director and more.

Since that report OtherSide has failed to respond to requests for comment and studio director Warren Spector hasn’t been active on his social media channels for more than three months.

OtherSide’s official Twitter, Instagram and Facebook pages haven’t been updated at all this year.

At the time of publishing, just four people, including Spector, are listed as working at OtherSide’s Texas studio on social network site LinkedIn.

One unconfirmed report from a Twitter user later claimed that OtherSide Austin’s office has been empty for some time.

This week the company’s marketing and business development VP Walter Somol broke the silence, insisting: “We’re still here.”

Somol is based in OtherSide’s primary studio in Boston, Massachusetts, which worked on 2018’s critically panned Underworld Ascendant, and not the Austin, Texas-based System Shock 3 team.

The VP said in a forum post related to layoffs: “We’re still here. We’re all working remotely right now, probably like most of you. Our new concept is coming along nicely and we are really excited about it.

“We have cool and we think distinctive art style for it and we have that and gameplay coming together in UE4. I know it’s a tease, but I just can’t really say anything about it at this point.”

Somol’s comments don’t appear to be related to System Shock 3, and the marketing head made no further reference to reports its team had been let go. VGC has reached out for comment.

System Shock 3 was most recently shown at GDC in March 2019, when Spector confirmed it was being made with the Unity engine.

The System Shock 3 studio had been searching for a new publisher for much of 2019, following its separation from former partner Starbreeze in February of the same year.

Warren Spector told VGC in May 2019 that talks were progressing with “a lot” of interested publishers. He claimed that OtherSide had enough capital to fund itself for “quite a while” and didn’t rule out the studio self-publishing the game itself if it had to.

According to an anonymous developer post in February 2020 (confirmed as legitimate by OtherSide’s former community manager), System Shock 3 was “critically behind” in content creation, and its development team was “no longer employed.”

The System Shock remake from Nightdive Studios remains in development and is due out this year.

 

[Nano]

I think that this is a good time to recommend this extension for people who don't want to worry about accidentally clicking on AMP links.

 

[LESS T_T]

Some reddit commenter claims: https://old.reddit.com/r/Games/comm..._3_firm_still_here_insists_marketing/fnpqkrj/

I can't provide any sources or proof bc I want to be anonymous, but I was at one point close to the situation. So you can either believe this or not.

Basically there is no studio developing the game, but there is still a core team that still exists, but they're more like publishers or IP holders at this point. I'm not sure the extent of who or how many remain, but it's my understanding that they're higher level producers/designers. They're looking for a co-developer- a studio who can provide programmers, artists, QA, etc etc to get the game made, while the remaining guys provide design and other direction.

Co development isn't uncommon in the industry, and I don't have enough details to know if they could ever get the project off the ground. It depends on things like profit share, who eats the cost and whatnot. But that's pretty much where the game is now- I'd say it's more or less in limbo or arrested development.

 

[Roguey]

Clueless idea-men sounds about right for Otherside.

 

[Semiurge]

We can then move on to inspect the goods and continue to publicly destroy those assets that would harm the System Shock legacy.

Give them back to the fans, at TTLG forums. I'm sure they'll pool their resources and make something out of them. Something better.

 

[Blaine]

Clueless idea-men sounds about right for Otherside.

Every Joe Blow walking down the sidewalk is an idea man, which means that OtherSide is nothing at all, other than the name "Paul Neurath" and a fistful of money. In practical terms, it's just a bunch of nobodies in an office producing nothing worthwhile.

If their ideas were so good that they could get by on ideation alone, they wouldn't be rehashing ancient IPs; if they were any good at developing games, they'd have produced something better than one mobile game that nobody played and an absolute disaster of a PC franchise reboot.

All of this is pretty self-evident from where I'm standing, but one can't always account for the "Maybe THIS time..." contingent.

 

[MasterLobar]

What happened to "If we're not finding a publisher, we are going to self-publish"?

 

[Eli_Havelock]

What happened to "If we're not finding a publisher, we are going to self-publish"?

Off getting drunk with "We're making a real sequel to Ultima Underworld."

 

[Egosphere]

They had cool concept and 3d artists on the team. Shame.

 

[Mightmagic]

2020-04-09
business development VP Walter Somol

We’re still here. We’re all working remotely right now, probably like most of you. Our new concept is coming along nicely and we are really excited about it. We have cool and we think distinctive art style for it and we have that and gameplay coming together in UE4. I know it’s a tease, but I just can’t really say anything about it at this point.

I hope you all are staying safe and healthy in these unfortunate times. Maybe even gaming more than usual, I know I am.

https://forums.otherside-e.com/t/layoffs-at-otherside/10096/45

 

[vortex]

I'd say Arkane is the best studio for co-development.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Arkane is more than perfect to develop these games. They're the only ones that still adhere to this design philosophy. Unlike these other hacks.

 

[DalekFlay]

I'd say Arkane is the best studio for co-development.

I know people hate them when they do this stuff, but imagine Bethesda buying the System Shock IP and having Arkane make a AAA reboot out of it.

 

[Wunderbar]

They won't do that after Prey's commercial failure.

 

[Nano]

Stop acting like Arkane is as good as Looking Glass. They're not in the same league as Looking Glass.

 

[DalekFlay]

Stop acting like Arkane is as good as Looking Glass. They're not in the same league as Looking Glass.

They're not as good as Looking Glass, but they're pretty near the top of what's out there today.

 

[Duralux for Durabux]

Slightly better than abysmal is still not that good.