Back in March, there were lots of rumors floating around that there was trouble in Redmond as employees had been leaving Microsoft owned FASA Studios just a few months prior to Shadowrun’s gold status. Corporate minions were quickly dispatched to put out the fires as best they could, but today the hammer finally dropped on the studio as Studio Manager Mitch Gitelman announced that today was all remaining production staff’s final day:
It is my sad duty to announce that FASA Studio has officially closed its doors. Today was the official last day of employment for those of us who had not moved on to other positions within Microsoft Game Studios. While the rumors have been circulating forever, we chose to wait on an official announcement because we didn’t want people’s attention distracted from our last product, Shadowrun, a game we love…
We have kept our Community Manager and Technical Support Manager on the job to aid and support you and will continue to do so while people continue to play our game. I am pleased that about half of us have found great positions elsewhere in MGS and Microsoft where they can share their experience and passion with the great people there.
This obviously isn’t a huge surprise, as not only have the rumors been circulating for a while, this isn’t the first multiplayer only title developer to be dissolved this year (Warhawk developer Incognito was disbanded and largely folded into Sony’s Santa Monica studio earlier this year, with their studio head going on to head up Eat Sleep Play with David Jaffe). Still though, for those of you who loved the Mechwarrior series in the 90s, and for those of us who loved the MechAssault games and Crimson Skies games during the last console generation, it’s sad to see another unique developer with their own personality folded into the larger development collective.
It also speaks volumes about Microsoft’s commitment to Shadowrun; while FASA did finish three content updates for the title prior to today’s closure, the title’s release at a too high for first party multiplayer only sixty dollars and their poor marketing support for the title outside of halfheartedly using it to push Vista spoke of a company hedging the four year gamble that Shadowrun became (at one point the game was also rumored to have had a full single-player component). This reminds me of the turbulent second half of the first party environment during the original Xbox’s lifespan, and should stand as a warning to second and third party developers that align themselves too closely with Microsoft.
What do I mean? I’ll put it this way: Pyschonauts was a Microsoft second party title until significantly late in its development cycle; the Oddworld series was second party for about 16 months until Munch’s Oddysee failed after the Xbox launch; Ninja Theory, developers of Heavenly Sword, were a Microsoft second party in a former life who were let go after Kung Fu Chaos failed to meet expectations. Oh, and what ever happened to Tao Feng’s developers? The point is, Microsoft doesn’t tolerate failure, even if your games are good.
Unless you’re Rare (I love you Viva Pinata).
-Aegies
