Ex Real Time World Employees tell a tale of mismanagement on APB

Novusod

Came across this Guardian.co.uk article that tells an inside story of the recent shutdown of APB. This article is a long read but it is pure gold and the comments at the end from the developers who worked on the game are even better.

 

From the Guardian.co.uk

Realtime Worlds: an inside story

 

How did this happen to Realtime Worlds? That's the question most industry pundits have been asking all week...

First of all, some employees saw this coming months ago. Amid all the pre-release hype surrounding APB, pockets of staff within Realtime Worlds were already scared for their jobs...

But from listening to staff, from following subsequent Twitter conversations and blogposts, it's clear huge mistakes were being made. "If we're being brutally honest, we didn't pay enough attention to the design of the game," says Gamesblog's source on the APB team. "When you're working for someone like Dave, it's all too easy to not believe what your ears and eyes, and QA and beta testers are telling you. You're like 'Dave knows what he's doing, it's going to be fine'. The team was saying for a long, long time that there were things that were not quite right with the game … It was never the case that the design was fundamentally broken, but in the execution of a lot of the features there are things that didn't quite come together, that weren't polished to the level that people expected."

Continued: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2010/aug/27/realtime-worlds-collapse

Then in the comments section and an ex APB developer posts the following:

Originally posted by Codeman

First of all, we did all the important stuff last. If you want people to play your game, customization should be secondary. Why did we have customizable cars, a music editor, and customizable death tunes before we had a game?

The fact is, we made a huge, slow system with no game design, and subsequently tried to experiment with different designs on this monstrosity, while under time pressure to finish the game. We would spend significant time implementing a game design, realize that it didn't work, and subsequently change it...

One problem leading up to launch was that most people on the team weren't willing to express any negative feelings about the game. In my opinion, there was a great deal of "team spirit", too much perhaps. You see, on the beta forums, there were many players that were very vocal on explaining why the game wasn't fun. Some were extremely constructive. For the most part, these individuals were brutally torn up by the APB fan base and forum moderators. Many threads were closed, and people with negative comments about the game were branded "trolls". Not many brave souls on the team were willing to stand up and agree with these trolls.

At APB and company presentations, management went out and cherry-picked only positive comments from forums to share with the development team. At one such meeting, one team member actually stood up and expressed concerned about the dismissive attitude displayed toward APB's criticism, and received a "don't worry" response. There was a culture of emailing around only positive previews and reviews of the game. I got the feeling that many people were in a state of denial, though the fact that the denial got stronger as the criticism for APB got worse indicated that people were aware at some level that all was not well.

Kanubis

Interesting. Though having worked for a well-known games development company (with both very well received and highly slated titles to its name) I can say that the practice of only mailing the positive feedback around happened there too.

BMoor

It sounds like the common case of project management failure.  I especially liked this quote:

"One thing I've learned is, you shouldn't confused creative genius with shrewd business sense."

It reminds me of the other posters on this forum complaining about the goal of MMOs in making money.

MMOExposed

Originally posted by Novusod

Originally posted by Codeman

First of all, we did all the important stuff last. If you want people to play your game, customization should be secondary. Why did we have customizable cars, a music editor, and customizable death tunes before we had a game?

The fact is, we made a huge, slow system with no game design, and subsequently tried to experiment with different designs on this monstrosity, while under time pressure to finish the game. We would spend significant time implementing a game design, realize that it didn't work, and subsequently change it...

One problem leading up to launch was that most people on the team weren't willing to express any negative feelings about the game. In my opinion, there was a great deal of "team spirit", too much perhaps. You see, on the beta forums, there were many players that were very vocal on explaining why the game wasn't fun. Some were extremely constructive. For the most part, these individuals were brutally torn up by the APB fan base and forum moderators. Many threads were closed, and people with negative comments about the game were branded "trolls". Not many brave souls on the team were willing to stand up and agree with these trolls.

At APB and company presentations, management went out and cherry-picked only positive comments from forums to share with the development team. At one such meeting, one team member actually stood up and expressed concerned about the dismissive attitude displayed toward APB's criticism, and received a "don't worry" response. There was a culture of emailing around only positive previews and reviews of the game. I got the feeling that many people were in a state of denial, though the fact that the denial got stronger as the criticism for APB got worse indicated that people were aware at some level that all was not well.

This red part IMO kills many MMORPGs, just like what happen to Warhammer.

 

The Developers are TOO EGO DRIVEN AND TOO ANTI-WOW now days

Klizzi

They tried to do too much too fast. They went for the fancy stuff before they even had a functional game, just as they said. You eventually get so time crunched that even ideas you know will fail get a green light because you don't have the time to go back and rework them. In the end it's EXACTLY as they said. They had great design aspects of the game, but the actual game was way behind the times. The engine was a mess and 6/10 key functions were broken.

Developers and company reps just need to realize that they don't need to spend millions on hyping the game up. If you make a good game, us, the audience, will do it a 1000x better than they ever will. RTW spent enough money on APB hype to be able to run their servers with 0 profit for a whole year or more.

Heretique

Originally posted by Klizzi

They tried to do too much too fast. They went for the fancy stuff before they even had a functional game, just as they said. You eventually get so time crunched that even ideas you know will fail get a green light because you don't have the time to go back and rework them. In the end it's EXACTLY as they said. They had great design aspects of the game, but the actual game was way behind the times. The engine was a mess and 6/10 key functions were broken.

Developers and company reps just need to realize that they don't need to spend millions on hyping the game up. If you make a good game, us, the audience, will do it a 1000x better than they ever will. RTW spent enough money on APB hype to be able to run their servers with 0 profit for a whole year or more.

 

This. Sad unfortunately but they got what they deserved. Played the game and enjoyed it but understood how it was going to fail very shortly after release, it was that obvious.

mmoguy43

Why don't they bring up major concerns of fans and only circulate praise? Were they too afraid to bring it up because it would mean the forbidden, delaying the project?

Thats a real problem to not be able to take all comments including criticisms at equal weight.

SnarlingWolf

Originally posted by Kanubis

Interesting. Though having worked for a well-known games development company (with both very well received and highly slated titles to its name) I can say that the practice of only mailing the positive feedback around happened there too.

 That is how pretty much every company works. You want to motivate your workers to keep them going.

 

The key difference comes when managment does read the negative feedback and acknowledges the broken parts and sets up a plan to fix those. But you don't want to bombard your workers with how shitty the thing they're working on is because their production will usually grind to a halt.

 

Also it's not like the people who worked there couldn't go read different forums on their own anyway.

Gorilla

Good read, though no great surprises. 

Klizzi

Who knows. Maybe they were banking on the hype to pull them through. That or the higher ups, including Dave, knew the company was dying regardless of what they did and just wanted it to push the game out and get as many sales as they could without wasting even more money.

TUX426

Originally posted by MMOExposed

Originally posted by Novusod

Originally posted by Codeman

One problem leading up to launch was that most people on the team weren't willing to express any negative feelings about the game. In my opinion, there was a great deal of "team spirit", too much perhaps. 

This red part IMO kills many MMORPGs, just like what happen to Warhammer.

 

The Developers are TOO EGO DRIVEN AND TOO ANTI-WOW now days

Agreed!!! There are always going to be "trolls", there will always be negative replies and there are some people who will simply be d!cks because its the interweb. Negative feedback is not "bad" feedback, it's probably the most important feedback you receive so you can improve your game and understand what people dislike about it.

Gorilla

Originally posted by BMoor

It sounds like the common case of project management failure.  I especially liked this quote:

"One thing I've learned is, you shouldn't confused creative genius with shrewd business sense."

It reminds me of the other posters on this forum complaining about the goal of MMOs in making money.

Indeed, add the fact that these "creative geniuses" *cough*  are fallible, but often to arrogant/egotistical to see it (Space cadet Brittish, The Jolly Green Ranger Brad Mc Grind etc.) Failure is pretty much the only possible outcome. What is particularly sad is that because of past success these guys are often given massive budgets to p*ss away.

Madimorga

I love The Guardian.  If there's muck that needs raking, they will find it.  No muck too big, no muck too small. 

 

That said, sounds like APB could have had it all (provided funding didn't run out or if they could have found more), if only they'd taken more time prior to release.  Customization is a worthy focus, imo, after other things, yes, but still, it's worthwhile to include at release.

 

eyeswideopen

Originally posted by Novusod

Originally posted by Codeman

One problem leading up to launch was that most people on the team weren't willing to express any negative feelings about the game. In my opinion, there was a great deal of "team spirit", too much perhaps. You see, on the beta forums, there were many players that were very vocal on explaining why the game wasn't fun. Some were extremely constructive. For the most part, these individuals were brutally torn up by the APB fan base and forum moderators. Many threads were closed, and people with negative comments about the game were branded "trolls". Not many brave souls on the team were willing to stand up and agree with these trolls.

 

All you fanbois who sat here and tried to shoot us down when we were showing you the truth that was right in your goddamn faces, please make note for the next game you obsessively defend.

fansede

So if you could pick a studio that could pick up the pieces and revamp this game. Who could do it?

eyeswideopen

Originally posted by fansede

So if you could pick a studio that could pick up the pieces and revamp this game. Who could do it?

There have been news reports of EPIC games looking to buy APB. However, nothing more has been said as to whether or not that is going to happen.'

Noone is going to buy this game for what the creditors want, so it's up to the administrators of the bankruptcy whether they want to sell the game for peanuts ( all it's realistically worth as a failed game ) or just kill it off completely.

Wizardry

I think there might be some truth to whatever you hear about APB,but imo this game was a horrible idea from day 1.Cheap gimmick games like GTA need to be first,those who try to copy that same atmosphere are bound to fail.

So what i am saying is that even the best management in the world would not be able to make that game successful,so now it is just sour grapes.

Some might say ,well look at Farmville who of sane mind would have guessed that crap would amount to anything,again you need to be first and have the right timing and a lot of luck !.IMO from what i have seen over many years is a lot of luck,only a handful of quality efforts have gone on to make it big/rich.

Gorilla

Bring in Derek Smart, the Red Adair of the game world hehehe. Couldn't resist in light of your signature.

alderdale

Originally posted by Klizzi

Developers and company reps just need to realize that they don't need to spend millions on hyping the game up. If you make a good game, us, the audience, will do it a 1000x better than they ever will. RTW spent enough money on APB hype to be able to run their servers with 0 profit for a whole year or more.

 This is so true if only game devs egos were under control they would realize this

Distopia

Originally posted by eyeswideopen

O. You see, on the beta forums, there were many players that were very vocal on explaining why the game wasn't fun. Some were extremely constructive. For the most part, these individuals were brutally torn up by the APB fan base and forum moderators. Many threads were closed, and people with negative comments about the game were branded "trolls". Not many brave souls on the team were willing to stand up and agree with these trolls.

 

All you fanbois who sat here and tried to shoot us down when we were showing you the truth that was right in your goddamn faces, please make note for the next game you obsessively defend.

I find it funny you say this as if fanbois are the problem. Fanbois are a symptom not a cause, it's the moderators of gaming companies that create these rifts and try to portray everything as A-Ok. It's the fact they allow Fanbois to say and do basically whatever as long as it's in support of the companies product. The companies enable their behavior, and in turn the fanbois enable the companies.

I am a bit speculative on this, as this is the norm with companies that go bust. There's always some deflective douche, pointing fingers and basically saying it couldn't of been me, it was him. I'll take these interviews with a grain of salt for now, as it's hard to say who is speaking out here, and the why of it.

alkrmr

Originally posted by eyeswideopen

Originally posted by Novusod

Originally posted by Codeman

One problem leading up to launch was that most people on the team weren't willing to express any negative feelings about the game. In my opinion, there was a great deal of "team spirit", too much perhaps. You see, on the beta forums, there were many players that were very vocal on explaining why the game wasn't fun. Some were extremely constructive. For the most part, these individuals were brutally torn up by the APB fan base and forum moderators. Many threads were closed, and people with negative comments about the game were branded "trolls". Not many brave souls on the team were willing to stand up and agree with these trolls.

 

All you fanbois who sat here and tried to shoot us down when we were showing you the truth that was right in your goddamn faces, please make note for the next game you obsessively defend.

did i hear ffxiv?

vanderghast

Originally posted by eyeswideopen

Originally posted by Novusod

Originally posted by Codeman

One problem leading up to launch was that most people on the team weren't willing to express any negative feelings about the game. In my opinion, there was a great deal of "team spirit", too much perhaps. You see, on the beta forums, there were many players that were very vocal on explaining why the game wasn't fun. Some were extremely constructive. For the most part, these individuals were brutally torn up by the APB fan base and forum moderators. Many threads were closed, and people with negative comments about the game were branded "trolls". Not many brave souls on the team were willing to stand up and agree with these trolls.

 

All you fanbois who sat here and tried to shoot us down when we were showing you the truth that was right in your goddamn faces, please make note for the next game you obsessively defend.

 

 

Head over to the FFXIV forums.  Plenty of that going on right now, bunch of fanboys saying the game is great and that if you don't like their messed up system it's your fault for being a crappy gamer.  Unfortunately i think FF has enough fans that no matter how bad the game is it won't fail.

 

APB though sucked right off the bat.  It was one of those that had potential but the core gameplay was heavily flawed.

Fdzzaigl

What I always wondered about, was why the game had so little content (both in the lack of areas and enjoyable quests or actual PvP objectives) while it did have a lot of funding, some talented devs and a full development cycle.

I guess they really went overboard with focusing on the customization here, though I still wonder how that could have happened.

alkrmr

on a side note, vanderghast u joined forums same day as me

bobfish

Easy to lay blame at someone else's feet.

grimboj

The clothing customisation had almost the full features of photoshop but the cars drove like a flash game - it was ridiculous. There was only ever 1 gun or 1 car everyone had that was worth having if you went by stats and the customisation just got thrown away after that. They did do a MUCH better job of rendering the customisations than second life - would you like to load a jpeg with your loading jpeg.