Topic: Free Radical is Closing Shop

[Chessa]

Poor game reviews and loss of LucasArts contracts forces them to close their doors.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=17419

 Free Radical, creators of well known titles such as Second Sight and TimeSplitters were forced to close their doors for good today.    

Early this morning the staff of Free Radical discovered the building's locks had been changed with no explanation and were heavily guarded by security. A notice taped to the door informed them of a meeting that was to take place at a local hotel.    

Co-founder Steve Ellis was described as "visibly upset" as he delivered the news to the staff, and apologized for the situation. The company had known for several months of the trouble after unfavorable reviews of their latest game Haze, along with the collapse of an exclusive contract with LucasArts Entertainment. They had been struggling to find a publisher for TimeSplitters 4, but without any financial backing were forced to close doors.    

The company employed between 150-200 people and an inside source described them all as "shell-shocked" by the incident. Twenty employees are rumored to have been offered new positions at Ellis' new company, Pumpkin Beach while the rest of the staff received termination notices. Employees are expected to receive compensation through December, but no further.

[Nick DiMola]

[NWR_Neal]

I really wanted Timesplitters 4...

[Enner]

Releasing a poorly received PS3 exclusive and being in these dire economic times has taken quite a toll. I hope some body helps either the company or its employees out. While Haze was a blemish, Timesplitters 2 and Future Perfect were good shooters. Also, Second Sight was fine as well, from what I can recall.

[nitsu niflheim]

Just goes to show.... PS3 will ruin your business.  Seriously, though, when you spend so much on visuals and then spend the rest of your time/money to create a game/story around them, you are just asking to be punched in the nuts over it. 

If companies were more apt to take risks, and I don't mean by backing the Wii, I mean internally, like getting rid of deadlines, release the game when it's ready instead of when you need to hit a certain selling season.  If more companies thought like Nintendo, then there would be a lot better games out there.

[Kairon]

*sigh*... they should've bet on the Wii...

ACTUALLY... wait... should Nintendo pick them up? Should Nintendo buy the company and take TS4?

[GoldenPhoenix]

*sigh*... they should've bet on the Wii...

ACTUALLY... wait... should Nintendo pick them up? Should Nintendo buy the company and take TS4?

Many of the guys at Free Radical made Goldeneye and PD right? If so they could be Nintendo's action FPS developer.

[Djunknown]

They had been struggling to find a publisher for TimeSplitters 4, but without any financial backing were forced to close doors.

Can't tongue-in-cheek FPS sell themselves? Must everything fit a Halo/Gears/Resistance Call of Duty mold?

Somebody want to do a eulogy for Free Radical? They were one of the good ones...

[broodwars]

Damnit, that's one gaming company going under that I actually liked.  I was really looking forward to Timesplitters 4 on the Wii, based on how well-done TS 2 and TS 3 were.  Nintendo really should think about picking this company up, as it would shore up their FPS resources.

[MaleficentOgre]

personally i'm glad these failures don't have a job anymore. Merry Christmas to them, hope they enjoy ramen and hot dogs for Christmas dinner.

[jakeOSX]

personally i'm glad these failures don't have a job anymore. Merry Christmas to them, hope they enjoy ramen and hot dogs for Christmas dinner.

well, that is a nice thing to say.

besides, what's wrong with ramen and hot dogs? that's been family tradition for me.

[Kairon]

personally i'm glad these failures don't have a job anymore. Merry Christmas to them, hope they enjoy ramen and hot dogs for Christmas dinner.

T_T Harsh man...

[Shecky]

*sigh*... they should've bet on the Wii...

ACTUALLY... wait... should Nintendo pick them up? Should Nintendo buy the company and take TS4?

Little too late for that...  Sounds like the boss jumped ship to a new small company with some of his closest buds and will probably work to take the trademarks with him.

[Nick DiMola]

personally i'm glad these failures don't have a job anymore. Merry Christmas to them, hope they enjoy ramen and hot dogs for Christmas dinner.

Wow, really?

[King of Twitch]

Goodbye Free Radical
Though I never knew you at all
You had the grace to hold yourself
While LucasArts around you crawled
They crawled out of the woodwork
And they whispered into your brain
They set you on the PS3
And they made you change your game

And it seems to me you dev'd your life
Like a flying monkey shootout in the wind
Never knowing who to cling to
When HD set in
And I would have liked to have played you
But I was just a Wii gamer
Your profits burned out long before
Your heir apparent to Goldeneye ever did

Haze was tough
The toughest game you ever made
Gamestop created a superstar
And pain was the price you paid
Even when you died
Oh the press still hounded you
All the papers had to say
Was that

the building's locks had been changed

Goodbye Free Radical
From the gamer in the 22nd row
Who sees you as something as more than hardcore
More than just our FPS Miyamoto

[White Mage]

SUPERB!  That had me laughing from the beginning.  I wish I had the talent to write stuff like this.

[Ian Sane]

ACTUALLY... wait... should Nintendo pick them up? Should Nintendo buy the company and take TS4?

That would be cool (though apparently impossible according to Shecky) but if they did that why bother with TS4?  Timesplitters doesn't really have much name value.  Might as well have them make a new FPS IP that Nintendo owns.

But then a new FPS IP from Nintendo is a good idea anyway.  We'll never get it though.  I just don't think it's something Nintendo is interested in.  If they did they would have given it a serious shot sooner.  Goldeneye was a huge hit on the N64.  If NCL was interested in first person shooters they would have made sure to keep that FPS success going on the Cube and they didn't.  The genre is too American for NCL to pay attention to it.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

"The genre is too American for NCL to pay attention to it."

Agreed.  Nintendo has expressed spreading more "Japan" to the rest of the world than vice versa (DQX).

[MaleficentOgre]

no, I'm not serious. but that's what some of you guys really enjoy saying for developers you don't like. I hate seeing people lose their jobs, but I've not really enjoyed many free radical games so I figured I'd give them the awesome gamer treatment.
Hope they become well ingrained in the San Francisco bum community.

[NWR_Lindy]

You can't blame this ALL on the PS3.  Free Radical had a contract to produce multiple titles with Brash Entertainment, who went under a few months back, and they also had a contract with LucasArts that fell through.  Releasing a critically-panned exclusive FPS on the lowest-selling platform certainly hurt them, but external factors also played a huge role.  Haze put them in a hole, and then all of their future contracts dried up so they couldn't dig out if they tried.  This story simply isn't as one-dimensional as the dozens of Sony haters on here want it to be.

[KnowsNothing]

Hey Ian, wasn't Geist a new Nintendo published FPS IP?  That game wasn't the best in the world but I think it has potential.  They should get these dudes to make a sequel

[GoldenPhoenix]

You can't blame this ALL on the PS3.  Free Radical had a contract to produce multiple titles with Brash Entertainment, who went under a few months back, and they also had a contract with LucasArts that fell through.  Releasing a critically-panned exclusive FPS on the lowest-selling platform certainly hurt them, but external factors also played a huge role.  Haze put them in a hole, and then all of their future contracts dried up so they couldn't dig out if they tried.  This story simply isn't as one-dimensional as the dozens of Sony haters on here want it to be.

I don't blame Sony but I blame the overall structure of next-generation games. Budgets are so massive now that some companies, even moderate sized ones, could go bankrupt on one game alone. It is something that needs to be curtailed, because it is getting out of control.

[Kairon]

"The genre is too American for NCL to pay attention to it."

Agreed.  Nintendo has expressed spreading more "Japan" to the rest of the world than vice versa (DQX).

Actually... I sorta buy that...

Iwata is the guy doing like, loads of aggressive maneuvers. Developers in Japan are the recipients of his beneficent gaze. On this side of the pacific ocean though, Nintendo's subsidiaries are more tied to mandates from abroad. Though it sounds like NoA definitely had some initiative in the Mystery Case Files: Millionheir partnership.

[Deguello]

You can't blame this ALL on the PS3.  Free Radical had a contract to produce multiple titles with Brash Entertainment, who went under a few months back, and they also had a contract with LucasArts that fell through.  Releasing a critically-panned exclusive FPS on the lowest-selling platform certainly hurt them, but external factors also played a huge role.  Haze put them in a hole, and then all of their future contracts dried up so they couldn't dig out if they tried.  This story simply isn't as one-dimensional as the dozens of Sony haters on here want it to be.

Nah it's pretty straightforward that the PS3 sunk them.  Since the PS3 is a lowest selling platform, when third party games flop on it, it is solely the platform's fault.  It's Sony's responsibility to make their console desirable and make its userbase large, not the other way around.  This is even worse than when it happened on the GameCube, because they would just cut GC support and focus on the market-leading market leaders.  In this brave new generation, you seem to only get one shot on the PS3, and if you fail you die.

Good times.

[Mario]

Thank you very much once again Sony.