Frontier Developments makes 17 staff redundant
Cambridge studio Frontier Developments has not cancelled production on The Outsider, its founder David Braben has told Develop.
However, 17 workers at the group have been made redundant as Frontier rethinks its approach developing the game.
“There is still publisher interest in the project, and we haven’t cancelled it,” Braben told Develop.
“The priority has been reduced, but we’re still working on it,” he said.
“A publisher has not cancelled the project”, he later said when asked for clarification.
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The Outsider has been in production for six years.
Earlier Braben told games site Rock Paper Shotgun that the studio has "had to change priorities because of requirements on other unannounced projects".
He added: "Some people have been moved, and we are very sad to have made some people redundant.”
Making staff redundant is “a hateful thing to do” Braben told Develop.
“It’s gutting, but one of those things you are forced to do sometimes.”
Following redundancies, Frontier has over 210 staff at its studio, Braben said.
Announced in 2005, The Outsider was pitched as an action game with a political narrative. Speculation that the game has been cancelled has circulated for a number of years, not least because of the very few times the game had been demonstrated to the press.
The project was initially self-funded by Frontier Developments, and soon after signed to Codemasters. The Rock Paper Shotgun report said Codemasters dropped the deal, though it is suggested by Braben’s claim that another, unknown company has signed the project.
I worked on The Outsider for several years, and I never thought it would see release. Nothing has changed to make me think otherwise.
I have spoken to a few of the people on Team Outsider, and they seem to be under no illusions that the project is anything but 'dead', 'canned', and 'terminated'. Although, I'm not surprised at all to hear management speaking to the contrary, that's what management (of any company) always does.
Wish Braben had a bit more respect of the team than that. Admit it like they did apparently yesterday, be a bit more sorry for the people who have had to have left, make a point of how terrible publishers are or can be (though course, everyone knows that).
I don't believe for a second what they used to tell me, what happened and what the public are told are anything alike.. just means another person I cannot trust in this world. Shame - for so many of the guys there have hearts of gold. I expect Microsoft wil be picking up the pieces soon...
OPINION:
From the discussions I've had, I think it would be unfair to say the project has been cancelled.
And staff have not been ruthlessly kicked out, I'm told, but given help.
Also, Braben's a nice fella. Let's not smear him for facing the same economic realities as nearly every other game developer and publisher around the world.
Had to delete your last comment as naming a publisher could be commercially damaging.
Please feel free to make your point again if you like. It's not my intention to delete opinions that disagree with mine, far from it, this is a public comment section and I don't want to silence people.
I worked on the Outsider as well and I had serious doubts that it would ever get published.
I've seen several forum and facebook posts from Outsider team members who are under no illusions that the project has no one working on it now and is for all intents and purposes dead.
One team member directly laid blame at the publisher's feet while Braben says the publisher made no canning decisions. One of them is fibbing...Did they even have a signed publisher since Codies dropped the project? I heard one was interested but you can't blame them if after looking at the project they decided it was too risky.
DB isn't lying in the comments above, though he is being disingenuous. Looks like internal politics at pricktease publisher was what killed us.
FWIW Outsider really was nearing completion at last. Playable end-to-end, stable build most days, pretty fun. Took long enough I know. Sad to get this far and then fail.
From the comments above, sounds like outsider just needs some tender polishing to produce a fun experience
I can understand why you would delete my comments, although the publisher I mentioned is stated clearly in the link you've provided, and the other publisher I didn't name even though someone else in this thread has.
My point was that the blame lies at Frontier's door, not at any publisher's. This game has taken so long to develop, and at even in 2009 it still looked like a demo that had been put together in a week.
I wish someone would account for the other 18 people laid off in September due to this project. They seem to have conveniently forgotten about them.
"And staff have not been ruthlessly kicked out, I'm told, but given help."
Erm...that's not how I remeber it. "Don't come in tomorrow" is what I remember being told.
I made this point in the comment that was deleted and forgot to restate it in the new one!
'Economic realities' have nothing to do with this project being pulled. Publishers are not going to want to invest in something that has taken a bizarre amount of time to develop. They already *had* a publisher. As the years passed the project was seriously looking like a money-sink. Other publishers are likely to view the project as highly risky, even though it is almost done. Let's not forget, it was almost done several years ago.
Sounds to me like that the people who left a few years back have more of an axe to grind than those recently laid off!
Also sounds as if the project has picked up in recent times and done better than expected from a few years back? would be interesting to see how far its progressed from a 5 year old trailer!
For there to be clash there needs to be opinions to clash with. Perhaps the people who have just been laid off have more important things to be doing than posting on a forum.
I personally have no 'axe to grind'. I would love to see the game released - I spent quite a few years of my life on that game, I would love to see it on the shelves and play it.
Given that Frontier made 17 people "redundant" in September, and another 17 have gone this week, why do they have vacancies listed since the end of November???
http://www.frontier.co.uk/jobs/vacancies/?pageNum_itemlist6=0
They had to keep hiring because people were quitting every fortnight.
Any project which has been running that long, with decent resources, has to be seen as a failure of management. Most good teams with stable tech kick out a project every two years, six years in development is neary Duke Nukem Forever territory, and sounds to me like a lack of project vision, planning and drive to execute. Also, how did they get away with six years of team funding - a large amount of money - with no release in sight?
ITS DEAD.
I worked at Frontier many years, this game should have been thrown away three years ago. The company over stretched itself with this game, the in-house tools are next to useless, the engine is years behind rivals. Many good people worked on that project its a shame, so many talented, good and friendly people waisted by a company that doesn't treat its staff as well as it should. A large part of the management should be the ones to go, at best they are in experienced at worse incompetent.
I wish those still there and those gone all the best they work too hard for little reward.
No, thats not an insult ;-)
I see the 'useless' in-house tools being mentioned. I worked on the Outsider tools for some time, and I can tell you that the problem with the tools is a combination of not enough money spent on tools programmers, coupled with extreme over-ambition. Oh, and the little issue of being made to attend scrum meetings with the Art team, and being scheduled by the Lead Artist. As a coder those meetings were of no value, and scheduling was a sheer joy, having to explain to an artist why some code needed refactoring.
Guess that probably gives me away.
All Frontier had to do was make an X3-type-game, with an Eve Online-type-GUI, and seamless travel without warp gates.
Then call it Elite 4 and they'd be rolling in it. Even release it in episodic form if they don't have the cash to create a deep world at first.
DB is not a manager. Hes a one time successful and arguably brilliant games programmer whose basically climbed a tree he cant climb out of. His ceo DW is basically a used car salesman who couldnt run a bath. Not a great senior team hence no reworking of elite, 6 yrs wasted on a non starter and...... Funimals. Need i say more??
* waits for Microsoft to buy out Frontier *
Anonyrat:
Ouch, programmers in the artists scrum meetings..."Hey, we're working in sprints now, that means we can add to the sprint backlog at any time! (without removing any existing items of course), do away with specs and release all the time!" Agile, innit ;)
I really hope you're talking about stand ups and not the sprint planning meetings.
Anyhow, "what a shame" this is, all the best to the guys who've lost their jobs! I was quite excited about seeing this game.
I hate the fact that so many developers are dropping awesome hardcore thriller games for the kiddy kinect titles. Where's Elite IV? Dropped in favor of Kinectimals. Where's The Outsider? Dropped in favor of Kinect Disneyland Adventures! What the f-ck!
Also, in 6 years of development, why couldn't you guys get your sh*t together and stop arguing amongst yourselves. You all sound like a bunch of despicable hot-headed bastards that cared zilch and had no passion for the project you all allegedly worked on. And if you didn't think the game would see release anyway, why did you continue to work on it? Why didn't you leave ages ago?
Any game that's in development for six years must be carrying allot of dead wood, the outsider is not the kind of game that needs a bespoke engine, off the shelf engine with some mods would have done, elite does need a bespoke engine. David probably didn't act fast enough or quick enough to straighten this out. That sounds like quite a large team for the projects on at the moment ?
