Aliens: Colonial Marines and Sega

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Originally Posted by NeoVamp

The gaming world really needs more honest people, this entire mess could have been saved if Sega had just come out and said :
Hello Sega/Alien fans, Sega here.. yeah we got screwed by Gearbox Software, the game is only half finished,
blame Gearbox not us, We at Sega decided to sue Gearbox Software to get our money back, Sadly this means
that Aliens Colonial Marines has been postponed for at least another year, sorry..
We had to, it looked and played like a last gen game.

People would have been upset for sure, but also been put to rest because of the honesty.

Not sure why they didn't just take this approach. (they probably just wanted their investment back asap)

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Yeah right, nobody would have believed that.

Before this debacle Gearbox was a golden child of the industry with the success of Borderlands 1 & 2, people would have just though Sega was trying to pass the blame for their (possible semi-valid) mismanagement of the game up to that point.

Not that I've got any specific ire for Gearbox, and I feel bad for the people who bought the game (but that's why I rarely buy games at release ), but I think Sega made the best of this they could. They had already soaked so much time into this game that they probably just wanted it off their books as a continual drain on resources. Hopefully the rest of the industry has learned that Gearbox is not the developer they thought they knew as well.

I'd love if Sega decided to delay a year and try and retool the game, but in business you need to know when to cut your losses on a project.

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Originally Posted by xelement5x

Yeah right, nobody would have believed that.

Before this debacle Gearbox was a golden child of the industry with the success of Borderlands 1 & 2, people would have just though Sega was trying to pass the blame for their (possible semi-valid) mismanagement of the game up to that point.

Not that I've got any specific ire for Gearbox, and I feel bad for the people who bought the game (but that's why I rarely buy games at release ), but I think Sega made the best of this they could. They had already soaked so much time into this game that they probably just wanted it off their books as a continual drain on resources. Hopefully the rest of the industry has learned that Gearbox is not the developer they thought they knew as well.

I'd love if Sega decided to delay a year and try and retool the game, but in business you need to know when to cut your losses on a project.

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Six years of development hell supervised by a lazy-ass outsourced developer who behind your back STOLE your investment money you poured your heart in and used it for an modestly successful IP that you didn't get to publish. The same developer overpromising,overhyping and conning their ongoing delayed project while spending a year assuring consumers the game wouldn't be cancelled and would definitely see light of day while delaying it further would be bad for investors.

Its pretty clear that this was a no-win situation for SEGA. Cancelling a project that took longer than ANY game SEGA has ever developed in house or a console would have hurt them. The investors wanted their money, the game had been through delay after delay, and Gearbox kept telling fans the game would be released. SEGA had no choice regardless of its shape. Cancelling it would have likewise reflected negatively on SEGA. And considering it took 6 years to develop, there's a strong possibly that SEGA was in the dark regarding its quality and was lied to by Gearbox. Its pretty easy to be fooled into thinking a game in development that long will have strong quality.

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Originally Posted by MrSega

there's a strong possibly that SEGA was in the dark regarding its quality and was lied to by Gearbox.

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You know I was gonna say "Sega could have send people over during regular intervals to keep track of the quality of the game"

But you know what? I think they did, they probably did send people over, then threathened to kill the project, then were talked into letting Gearbox continue, etc etc.

In the end it all boils down to one thing, Sega trusted Gearbox, but the costumer ended up paying the price for that.

Does anyone know how much ACM has made so far? did Sega get their investment back yet?

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Originally Posted by NeoVamp

Sega should be blamed, they should have kept a closer eye on the developments of the game.

Gearbox fucked up, but Sega allowed it and still gave us a shitty game.

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Exactly this. Even if Sega truly didn't know how bad the game was going, that just makes things worse as they should of had a better lid on things. Especially on a game that had a six year dev cycle. No excuse.

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Originally Posted by NeoVamp

You know I was gonna say "Sega could have send people over during regular intervals to keep track of the quality of the game"

But you know what? I think they did, they probably did send people over, then threathened to kill the project, then were talked into letting Gearbox continue, etc etc.

In the end it all boils down to one thing, Sega trusted Gearbox, but the costumer ended up paying the price for that.

Does anyone know how much ACM has made so far? did Sega get their investment back yet?

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Considering that its topped the UK sales charts, I'd say the game likely has sold incredibly well.

So if SEGA got their investment money back, it would be cold comfort. If I were Sega West, I'd DEMAND that Gearbox churn out FREE DLC to the consumers who wasted $60 on their dated,lackluster piece of shit.