News

Black Hole developer blasts UbiSoft's actions during Heroes VI development
Posted: 17.04.2012 21:49 by JonahFalcon Comments: 14
The developer who worked for Heroes of Might & Magic VI for UbiSoft, Black Hole, has gone bankrupt, and one of the alleged members of the studio is blaming the publisher on NeoGAF.

As is usual for a developer starting a major IP, the project started out as a "dream project", with some of the crew having "played it since the original King's Bounty on Commodore 64."

Things started to allegedly go south in 2008, when "during the contract negotiation process, UBI business decision makers didn't want to hear about making it into the contract that in case of any UBI delays there would be any penalty for UBI. This was a stupid decision of a business development boss (she said "UBI would never be late with any deliverables".... HAHAHA)."

The developer received what they considered false reassurances from UbiSoft ("no worries, guys, there would be more time and budget, just do what we say") when cuts were made as UbiSoft delayed development.

"It was then that one faction, Academy had been removed from the content list, as well as many other things. And then, at half of the development, (Ubisoft senior producer Romain de Waubert) suddenly quit, (producer Erwan LeBreton) was removed from the project - he was "elevated" to the position of Might and Magic Brand Director, which meant his direct involvement in the development was over -, and BH was left there with the blame. Just an example, the final story script - which was UBI responsibility - was delivered to BH after 27 months... while originally there was 24 months for the whole development. No comment."

The developer then accused, "BH used up all its 6 months reserves just to be able to finish the project... this was more than 1 million Euros!!! And they (we) did this knowing it would never be payed back, as royalty would only be paid after 2M Heroes sold at full price. We all knew 2M copies would never be sold (neither at full price nor at reduced price), still we wanted to finish the project."

The team then, according to the developer, worked without compensation because they wanted the studio to survive Heroes VI. Even then, the game, which included 1.5-2 million lines in the source code, was buggy, ad part of it was, according to the developer, UbiSoft constantly adding new features, leading to the inevitable feature creep.

The developer listed the following examples of what the studio added at their own cost to make the game better:

* Town screen (we hate the current version, but it is still better then the "let's make a screen shot from the adventure map 3D town and use it as a town screen" that UBI wanted - we could have made a much better one, but didn't have money and time).
* Additional ingame cutscenes (I know cutscenes are not great, but again, we received the story after 27 months... we only had a couple months to make the cutscenes from scratch, and a very limited budget - and I think that the overall visual quality of the game proves to anyone that we could have made really great cutscenes if we had had the time and budget).
* 300 unique Combat Maps (there were 20 in the contract)
* 3D animated Main Menu (UBI wanted a simple still image)
* Additional NPCs
* Campaign Overview Map (Campaign Window)

He then accused UbiSoft of giving them less resources, no fullscreen town screens, only five factions - which he blamed as a consequence of the continuous delays of UBI deliverables - and a creature pool.

The developer went on to note other developers who worked under UbiSoft who refused to work with the publisher anymore, including Capibara (Clash of Heroes), Eugene Systems (R.U.S.E), and Techland, whom he notes only completed 47% of Call of Juarez: The Cartez, which was thoroughly savaged in reviews for being an incomplete mess.

To top it off, "We heard the UBI guys blame those developers (and Nival) many times... I guess BH was blamed the same way to those developers."

UbiSoft has yet to respond to the rumors.

Comments

By obiwanmccartney (SI Veteran Newbie) on Apr 18, 2012
obiwanmccartney
Ubisoft feels jealous of EA and Activision for all the gaming anti-christ credibility, and wants to try and make themselves the worst of all.
By darranged (SI Newbie) on Apr 18, 2012
darranged
We can hope that kickstarter becomes the savior of gaming.
By JonahFalcon (SI Elite) on Apr 18, 2012
JonahFalcon
No. Kickstarter will never make the equivalent of games like Halo or Call of Duty.
By FoolWolf (SI Elite) on Apr 18, 2012
FoolWolf
That's the good thing about Kickstarter in many' opinion Jonah - we are not looking for more COD's or Halo's we are looking for fun games that are developed for gamers not maximum profit for shareholders...
By JonahFalcon (SI Elite) on Apr 18, 2012
JonahFalcon
Games don't work that way - look at movie studios. How many "Paranormal Activity" films could you stand - REALLY?

You certainly won't have games on the artistic level as, say, Assassin's Creed.
By Cepheus (I just got here) on Apr 18, 2012
Cepheus
Nice work on the article, JonahFalcon, with one (albeit very important) caveat: we do not have any confirmation at all, beyond his own word, that the source of the posts in question ("Derpson") is actually affiliated with Black Hole.

I would be very careful to note this before saying so unequivocally that "one of the members of the studio is blaming the publisher on NeoGAF".
By darranged (SI Newbie) on Apr 18, 2012
darranged
All Kickstarter or a like service needs to do is have 2 or 3 really successful projects come out of it to create a foundation for a paradigm shift in how games are made. One day big publishers will realize their games lack sales because they lack passion and creativity. When a kickstarter game reaches 1 mil sales, publishers will take note.
By JonahFalcon (SI Elite) on Apr 19, 2012
JonahFalcon
@Cepheus: The words "allegedly", "accused", etc are used liberally in the article. It's quite clear that this is taken from one point of view that may or may not be 100% accurate.
By FoolWolf (SI Elite) on Apr 19, 2012
FoolWolf
Comparing to movies isn't exactly the best option when speaking to Europeans Jonah ;)
We have plenty of small independent studios and even movie theatres across the entire area that shows only independent movies. Independant and artsy-movies is really big here in Europe. Sure - it is for smaller audiences - but I think that gaming doesn't need to make another Cameronnesque production to be a good game. And after all - how many COD games or Halo games or Assasins Creed games can we stand? - Some will stand for all of them, others can't stand any of them...

To say that games don't work that way is to say - it doesn't work that way NOW.
You point to movies - I point to music. Easier to make music today than several years back. The huge real orchestra recordings don't exist today except we a few bands - but mainly the costs has gone down, the know how is easier and the channels are not as groundbreaking if you don't go via the huge publishers - but enough for many artists to get their music out to their audiences.
Balance is the key and as long as their is a potential market - their will be an interest to supply to that market.

Kickstarting won't save the gaming - it is new and to survive the trend - it has to survive the first defeats - the ones that doesn't lead to anything. But if it do survive - it can be part of the game making and lead to interesting games coming out.

Just take Sword & Sworcery EP, it's not COD but many people loves it and plays it... It's not COD - but it doesn't try to be - because it doesn't have to be - thankfully.
By ywhtptgtfo (I just got here) on Apr 19, 2012
ywhtptgtfo
I don't read Strategy Informer, but registered just to comment on this bit of journalism.

>@Cepheus: The words "allegedly", "accused", etc are used liberally in the article. It's quite clear that this is taken from one point of view that may or may not be 100% accurate.

I hope you aren't being serious Mister Falcon... You used the words "alleged" and "accused" in totally different contexts with respect to what Cepheus complained about. The point is you are placing uncertainty on the accuracy of this alleged BH dev's account of events and have totally neglected to mention that we aren't even sure if he's a BH developer in the first place.

If you want to write like a tabloid journalist and deliberately leave out some facts to create a (marginally) more exciting story, then well... it's your choice.

But at the moment, your title states, without any degree of uncertainty that:
"[A] Black Hole developer blasts UbiSoft's actions during Heroes VI development"

and your topic sentence states, without any degree of uncertainty that:
"one of the members of the studio is blaming the publisher on NeoGAF."

I don't mean to sound rude or anything, but that's just not acceptable journalism. Or perhaps you've misunderstood the posts in AoH - then in which case you probably should make the corrections...
By Cepheus (I just got here) on Apr 19, 2012
Cepheus
@JonahFalcon: my hangup is very specifically that we don't even know if this person is from Black Hole at all - he may well be a random lunatic for all we can confirm - whereas in your lead section you write with absolutely no ambiguity that he is from BH, and you continually refer to him as "the developer".
By Quantomas (I just got here) on Apr 20, 2012
Quantomas
Well, we do not know whether Strategy Informer has a real source at BH. The article reads like they have.
By JonahFalcon (SI Elite) on Apr 20, 2012
JonahFalcon
On a side note, the original post was deleted by the user making the allegations.

"Accused", "blaming", "allegedly", "according to", these are all subjective terms.

UbiSoft chose not to rebut.
By ywhtptgtfo (I just got here) on Apr 21, 2012
ywhtptgtfo
> "Accused", "blaming", "allegedly", "according to", these are all subjective terms.

Right... and Alaska is a microcosm of America. What a relevant response.

So... I see that you added the "alleged" in the topic sentence but yet refused to correct the title. I suppose you'd still like to keep a misleading title around for whatever reason.

Oh well. It's your article and your choice. I don't grab 10 packets of ketchup from a McDonalds table but there's bound to be people in the world who think it's a smart thing to do.