http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/achim/moller  their upcoming game is definitely a Wii title.

well that settles the 2 rumors sorta.

Factor 5 is still alive & they are currently working on a Wii title.

time to go update the rumor thread.

What is the relationship between the two companies exactly? I'm confused.

Also, in before the "hah! they failed because they spent too much money on the HD generation" comment.

Oh no, who will make Kid Icarus for Matt now.  :'(

According to http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21435, Factor 5 had been working on some games for Brash Entertainment when Brash went bankrupt. Factor 5 basically got screwed out of money they were owed (and they weren't the only ones, at least two development studios plan to sue Brash for unpaid work). Factor 5 was already in tough financial situations after Lair bombed, so losing money and resources from Brash going bankrupt really hurt them.

So does the German branch have the talent of the California branch?

FLOP A COIN, I DON'T KNOW

It's like wondering if New Rare could come up with Goldeneye on their own.

Well last I heard everyone at the Cali branch was let go unless they were specifically working on the Wii title(s).
So maybe while the branch is officially closing, some people will be moving to a smaller satellite location to continue their work.
No need to pay for big office space if you only have a fraction of the people to fill it now.

It was their starting branch, depends on how much talent remained there and how much migrated to the US.

Couldn't those key members also travel back to Germany to work with the main studio?

Depends if they ever picked "new" key members who were West Coast natives.

Even if they were US native, wouldn't moving to Germany for a job beat being jobless in a poor economy?

Depends, do you have a family that is deep rooted in its community? Friends, job, school, extended family?
But on the other hand school is almost out, and Summer is almost here, so making a move in a month might not be all the hard, unless the spouse has a really great job that they love and don't want to quit.

Well, if spouse has a good job then there wouldn't be the worry about being jobless in a poor economic climate.

Language might also be a barrier as well because you would have to learn German.

Matt isn't that deserving. =)

What about the rest of us, are we deserving?

psssshh naw

nows a good time for nintendo to pull out its pocketbook and open a new studio

Here at Nintendo, we move to the beat of a different drum.  So while our competitors throw large sums of money in exchange for diminishing returns, we aim to grow new ideas into quality products by seeking talent.

We didn't find it in San Rafael. :reggie:

Damn, did someone just turn the heat on, its starting to get real warm in here.

Why isn't anyone blaming the REAL cause of this?

Lair and the PS3 being expensive as all hell to develop for.

Pale wins.  :D

I dunno pap.  It certainly seems to be the purple elephant in the room nobody wants to consider or see.  I mean, somehow the economic climate is to blame for their money troubles, right?  A downturn economy forced them to make Lair for the PS3?

I mean this is like hearing news of Kurt Cobain's death and going "First!  In before drug-addled suicide!"  But that IS what happened, right? 

The fact that it was even in Pale's mind and he was the first to bring it up sort of legitimizes the issue, now doesn't it?

Lair will save the PS3.

I was kidding when I made that post. I thought Pale was making fun of people blaming HD gaming on the closure of some gaming studios, and the minute I saw S_B's post I had to bring that up.

I do agree that the high costs of development played a part in Factor's 5's closure.

I think Pale was more joking about how this topic will inevitably ride off into a Wii Vs. HD cost/dev discussion.

It's already happening.

And yet some people are not only predicting an HD-compatible Wii is coming, but is also needed.

So, question about Lair. If Sony published it then wasn't F5 paid for it's production? So there wouldn't be money troubles, right? Or do they receive a cut of each sale? Because if it's the former then it's Sony who took the brunt of it.

Factory 5 had a deal with Sony for about 20mill and 3 games. Development of Lair was more expensive and took longer than expected, using about 12million on just the first game. It was also kinda rushed out the door leaving you with an unpolished as most people seem to refer to it as. After Lair had less than expected sales results, Sony cancelled the deal, which left Factor 5 with no active income and no projects with set publishers, atleast nothing that was gonna cover the mass amount of people hired on to work on the PS3 projects.

Enter Brash Ent. and whatever Factor 5 was doing for them, like Superman and a few other games. Once Brash Ent, went under, that left Factor 5 with unfinished, under funded projects and once again, no active income to pay all those people with. Thats when rumors of people going un-paid and layoffs started surfacing.  There were several projects left on the table when Brash went down a F5 had a lot of money invested in those titles. This left them in a very bad predicament where they were once again scrambling around looking for a publisher to help them fund these games to get them out the door. Unfortunately, a company that can't pay it people looks desperate enough to turn out any piece of shit it can to make money and that looks like a risky development to attach yourself to. No publishers took the bait.

Factor 5 GbmH then get re-opened. Factor 5 GmbH was the original Factor 5 before they relocated to San Rafael. Factor 5 GmbH apparently went dark up until late last year when it opened it doors again after Factor 5 LLC, (now Factor 5 Inc.) started showing signs of unrecoverable financial trouble. All IP's and trademarks have just recently been transferred over from Factor 5 Inc. to Factor 5 GmbH, which is now acting almost like a holding company while they sort out the development issues which seem to have continued uninterrupted. Moving all assets to their "holding company" seems to have protected them from any negative financial obligations, and allows them to keep operating at the lowest possible overhead until they can get active projects sorted out.

It is sort of rumored that "key" "ex"-Factor 5 Inc employees have already relocated and started a new development house called Whiteharvest LLC. It is unknown what they are working on or if it is still working under Factor 4 GmbH, but it is known that Factor 5 does still have active development on an unannounced Wii game which might be revealed as soon as E3, but more likely at GC in Liepzig.

-------------------------

What it all boils down to is that Lair was a big project that Factor 5 took a big gamble on, it didn't pay off, and that led to circumstances that put them in even tighter situations which eventually bankrupted the company leaving them in the state they are today.

I think you can blame it on both to be honest. Maybe some of these companies could have survived (though not "well") if it wasn't for the economic climate after their HD games lost them a ton of money but with the current climate it was too much to get through.

Factor 5 GbmH always existed, it was the parent holdings company and R&D team. Factor 5 Inc in CA was the developers that did all the Factor 5 developed LucasArts games.

I smell Karma. ;D

This is why publishers scare the ever-loving shit out of me.

I'm guessing Factor5 would've gladly held onto Lair and polished it until it was a good game but no doubt Sony gave them a deadline because it was just getting too expensive.

So if we want to get technical about it, Sony killed Factor 5.

I think Factor 5 could have saved themselves if they released maybe a Rogue Squadron Trilogy for Wii. Atleast a RS3 port since it was rumored that they had already ported the code over anyway.

If they had debuted their Wii engine with a RS game, they probably could have gotten onto the middle ware game for lazy 3rd party people that want good graphics with minimum effort. I mean they did RS for GC in 17 weeks and it is still one of (if not) the best looking game on the system and it was a launch window game. Why they never got into middleware tools is something I'll never understand.

The RS3 on Wii wasn't a rumor. One of the guys was on the IGN podcast and falt out said they did it. And didn't they make RS2 in only nine months? I recall a quote that they make the game faster than it took to make a baby. Maybe that was the engine and the first playable demo at E3.

I would have bought an NPC RS Trilogy game. I'd mostly like to see the N64 one and the Battle for Naboo sequel remade.

It is too bad, I know people like making stupid jokes about IGN but other sources did get the information in regards to Kid Icarus even if it was just an unofficial build to try and sell it to Nintendo. Really I would like to know all the games that were early on with no publisher that had potential but were never picked up.

Well, we know about Winter.

IGN had been talking that one up as THE secret 'dark game' for at least the past year on the 'cast.

Plus regarding Icarus, there were the leaked concept art pieces showing 'Man-Icarus'.

Those were hideous, maybe we are lucky it may never come out lol.

Well, they were concepts. I've seen a lot of concept art that is really terrible. But the designs go through an evolution process that becomes the final image.

I've never quite understood what it is that publishers do...

So... the developers actually make the game.  What is the publisher's role?  Financing?  Marketing?  Liquoring up the Walmart rep to get the game into their stores?

The developer handles the creative aspects of making the game, the publisher handles the business aspects. When the two areas come into conflict the publisher wins.

This.

Bottom line, the publisher is the one paying for the game to be made so they call the shots and reap most of the profits as well.

At any time, a publisher can say "You have a a month to make it shippable." which is exactly what Sony did to Factor 5.

I'm sure they could've made Lair infinitely better had they more time to polish the game.

I doubt Sony gave them a deadline, just a budget and they went over that budget.

Depends on the specific relationship, often a publisher "hires" a developer to make a game, then markets, distributes, etc. Some developers make their own games on their own budgets and then hire a publisher to do the marketing and selling for them.

Think of them in a similar light as authors and book publishers. One writes a story and the other prints, publishes and promotes the book. Most of the financial risk is placed on the publisher so that is why they take more of a cut from profit.

Yeah the publisher/developer relationship can take various forms. The publisher do tend to reap the benefits (and get hurt the most) in regards to a games sales.

Maybe 3D Realms and Factor 5 are joining forces to make a SUPER UNRELEASEABLE GAME.

Hm.. It would have to have Duke.. and flying. I'd buy it!

KID DUKARUS

Megaton.

Throw some man-beams in there and we've got a killer app!

It's not like Factor 5 didn't know how much it would cost to develop Lair.  If they didn't then they're the idiots, not Sony.

If they would have developed a crappy Wii game that bombed, the only difference would have been the amount that they were in the red.

They took 20 million for three games, of course that's not enough.

Thats not even enough for 3 AAA Wii games which range between 8-10 million