Jumpgate silence broken.

[Mrbloodworth]

Read this, bit disappointed this may mean it doesn't come out.

[Hawkbit]

With that many delays, I never actually expected to see it go live anyways.  Black Prophecy stands to reap the rewards, possibly.

[Ghambit]

After BP came out of the closet JGE needed a redesign, simple as that.  Will they survive?? Well... did TR survive?   
When does DSmart's 3000AD come out btw?   

[kondratti]

Surprised this wasnt here

http://www.forerunnersnetwork.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=128:scott-brown-leaves-gazillion-entertainment&catid=45:jumpgate-evolution-updates&Itemid=178

Scott Brown, the founder of NetDevil, has decided to leave Gazillion Entertainment, NetDevil's parent company. Scott Brown founded NetDevil in 1997 and developed the company from a basement project to a multi-hundred person operation that produced many high quality games, including Jumpgate Classic, Auto Assault and LEGO Universe. Scott Brown has been the face of NetDevil for many years, and eventually moved into a position at Gazillion Entertainment when NetDevil was acquired. For unstated reasons, Scott Brown has decided to move on and explore other opportunities.

[NiX]

Can't imagine why he left...

[Samprimary]

it would be fun to still be working there right now. Since we were so obtusely separated from the workings of netdevil management and gazillion, it would lead to pretty much everything being disseminated via spiraling rumormill.

[waffel]

The publisher claims to have spent over $1.4 million on the interminably delayed project

[Sir T]

They were claiming it was ready to go over a year ago, they just wanted to polish it. I can't imagine what the hell the delays are if that was true.

[NiX]

They were claiming it was ready to go over a year ago, they just wanted to polish it. I can't imagine what the hell the delays are if that was true.

They went back to the drawing board after the Friends and Family phase because they all said it was terrible.

[Ingmar]

This makes me sad. I was looking forward to Eve-with-actual-fun, which I'm sure this wouldn't really have been but is what I was hoping for.

[Draegan]

I played the game back at NYCC in 2009 (Feb'09) and I had fun the 20 minutes I had at it.  Scott Brown was there and seemed like a nice guy too.  He seemed pretty excited about the game in the 20 minutes I talked to him.

[UnSub]

How did Lego U go for NetDevil / Gazillion? It really seems to be a title that sank without trace, but we may just be in the wrong demographic to notice it.

[Samprimary]

I don't know. I certainly never hear about it anymore. I imagine, given the extremely tiny amount of game world and content to explore on release, a holiday zone and a retread of the newbie ship aren't enough to keep subscribers interested in significant numbers, and I don't think the game's property building mode really appeals to the core demographic. I've always been notably pessimistic about it, though. I'll wait to see if there's any public info that gets released about subscriber numbers.

[ghost]

That's a bummer.  I was looking forward to this game releasing at some point. 

And there's lot's of fun in Eve.  You just don't know what you're doing    <-  sarcasm

[Rishathra]

How did Lego U go for NetDevil / Gazillion? It really seems to be a title that sank without trace, but we may just be in the wrong demographic to notice it.

I think it's just the wrong demographic.  I babysit a friend's kid a lot and commercials for it are on ALL the time on Nickelodeon.

[UnSub]

I don't know. I certainly never hear about it anymore. I imagine, given the extremely tiny amount of game world and content to explore on release, a holiday zone and a retread of the newbie ship aren't enough to keep subscribers interested in significant numbers, and I don't think the game's property building mode really appeals to the core demographic. I've always been notably pessimistic about it, though. I'll wait to see if there's any public info that gets released about subscriber numbers.

Didn't you work on it though? Or am I confusing you with someone else?

[Samprimary]

I did! I was quality assurance under Lego at netdevil studios for about 8 months.

[Ghambit]

How did Lego U go for NetDevil / Gazillion? It really seems to be a title that sank without trace, but we may just be in the wrong demographic to notice it.

I early betaed L:U.  Then Minecraft: Alpha came out.    

[LC]

Scott Brown, the founder of NetDevil, has decided to leave Gazillion Entertainment, NetDevil's parent company. Scott Brown founded NetDevil in 1997 and developed the company from a basement project to a multi-hundred person operation that produced many high quality games, including Jumpgate Classic, Auto Assault and LEGO Universe. Scott Brown has been the face of NetDevil for many years, and eventually moved into a position at Gazillion Entertainment when NetDevil was acquired. For unstated reasons, Scott Brown has decided to move on and explore other opportunities.

[UnSub]

Gazillion bought NetDevil some time in March 2009.

Would Scott Brown be walking away because he's served out some sort of period of time since that buy out (I would have thought the standard period would have been 2 years) or is it because NetDevil is failing to deliver and heads needed to roll?

[Samprimary]

It could also be neither; in his position, I'd want to leave that whole organization behind independent of those situations, especially considering that ND's inability to produce JGE is now no longer your problem the second you want to walk away from it. You have already successfully sold the entire operation to a company that expects niche mmo's to become cash cows.

[tgr]

I keep stumbling over rumors saying that JGE was sold to hangames sometime in january. I haven't seen it being backed up anywhere by an official statement (but I haven't been looking that hard).

Does it even matter at this point though?

[Stormwaltz]

I heard some nasty rumors at PAX East that despite claims to to the contrary, NetDevil was either gutted or sold off by Gazillion. Not just Lego Universe, all projects.

[tgr]

The rumors I saw also mentioned that literally everyone at netdevil had been fired, but I thought this was common knowledge.

[Dark_MadMax]

Well, if it were truly right it'd be zero factions and let the players sort themselves out or just get lost in space doing their own thing.
Anyone understand what their plans with stations are?  Seemed kind of vague.  Did they inject avatars?

 Player based faction do not work. You get the usual -sheep with sheep, wolves with wolves. Wolves praying on sheep till extinct (Shadowbane and Darkfall style).

[Mrbloodworth]

That's sad, that was an original IP for the house. :/ I hate reading stuff like that.

[Stormwaltz]

The rumors I saw also mentioned that literally everyone at netdevil had been fired, but I thought this was common knowledge.

After those rumors, there were official statements that there were only a few outright job losses, and the LU team had been... transferred, or something, to the new owners.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/33195/Lego_Buys_NetDevils_Lego_Universe_Team__Lays_Off_Staff.php

There's also this:

To set the record straight and for rumor control here are the facts as I have them:

    * As of February 10, 2011, Istvan as well as most of the JGE team was called at home after work and told not to report to work the next day. This was expected by many for some time, but still sudden.

    * There is presently no active support or development occurring on Jumpgate. Istvan is now not an employee of Gazillion and is without general access to tools or systems.

    * Gazillion’s President and the Acting Studio Director have agreed with Istvan that control of the Jumpgate should be passed to the community. Istvan has been working to facilitate this transition but many details remain to be arranged.

We still have very little information from Gazillion as to how and when any transition will take place. Gazillion currently appears preoccupied with shuttering the former NetDevil studio, which they purchased in 2008, as further and larger layoffs of staff have taken place this week.

http://www.confluxwar.net/

[Mrbloodworth]

Well, Gazillion has done great so far, its great they have been putting so many houses under that one roof.   
 

[NiX]

Are they trying to get JGE to become open source?

[Mrbloodworth]

Sounds like the original only.

[Ghambit]

Why would they give up the original IP and not the now defunct one as well?

[NiX]

They may have plans to give it to another team or sell it.

[UnSub]

Oh Gazillion, you scamp! That's two studios (out of four) that you bought and then cut back to the bone. John Needham's announcement as Gazillion's new CEO came with the official news that Slipgate Ironworks really is dead (won't link them, but I saw some ex-Ironworks people on LinkedIn with recommendations that said, "When Slipgate Ironworks had to fire go from 13 developers to a team of 2, X was one they decided to keep..."). Romero is off hiring attractive industry women for his social game studio Loot Drop.

That article also indicates that Gazillion's focus is now the browser-based F2P market. That's something I think is a good move, but it isn't a strategy that includes Jumpgate: Evolution at all (unless all that retooling was turning a client-based title into a F2P one you can play on Firefox, but I doubt it).

I don't think NetDevil is entirely dead, but the team working on Fortune Online probably has lots of spare offices to put their stuff in.

Gazillion has also been restructuring its management - Rob Hutter (who helped found Gazillion) has gone from CEO / President to CEO and is now Chairman. It's probably a sign that he did a good job of raising investment capital, but has little idea about running game studios. David Brevik (ex-Blizzard, ex-Flagship) is now Gazillion's President / COO. Needham (ex-Cryptic) is now the CEO. That's a lot of top people for a company that's released so little.

Amazing Society's Super Hero Squad Online was originally scheduled for a Q1 2011 release, but they've only really just announced beta.

Secret Identity Studios doesn't even have a website and they are working on Gazillion's most valuable property, Marvel Universe Online.

It's a bit of a mess, really. I suspect all the layoffs are an attempt to find the cash to get MUO out the door. NetDevil launched a flop with Lego Universe (which, honestly, should have been F2P, not box + sub) and are now being excised for it.

[tgr]

Hah. I didn't realize Romero was a co-founder of gazillion.

That explains a few things.

[slog]

How can you believe that Netdevil isn't totally dead?  It certainly looks to me like Gazillion had a business strategy that looked like this:

1) Convince investors to give us money.
2) Skim 10% off the top for "executive compensation"
3) Buy a bunch of smaller developers
4) ????
5) Profit

They are now at stage 4.    The new plan looks like this:

1) Rush all the existing projects that might be profitable to completion
2) Lay everyone off.
3) ????
4) Profit.