Anonymous Sega Exec Says Gearbox Embezzled A:CM Funds

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Lol the blog is already gone. Anyways I have a hard time believing they funded multiple other AAA titles from one games seed money. It's likely that sega is just cheap and now they are having a hissy fit about the end product. If they can somehow prove that Gearbox did funnel money away from the project, only then will I believe sega. Another thing to mull over is: why would gearbox take the duke nukem project knowing they don't have the cash? They wouldn't and it's extremely malicious for sega to even suggest that gearbox is that kind of company. The day that gearbox knowingly accepts moneysinks just to find a reason to embezzle is the day that bill gates suggest an iphone to his wife.
 

memadmax

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In my opinion, both companies are to blame and heads should roll.
I have been a avid aliens(and predator =D) fan since Aliens came out. To "carrot and stick" people like this is a complete line of BS....
 

shikamaru31789

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As a huge fan of both Sega and Gearbox I really hate hearing about all of this. I don't know who the blames lies on and I really don't care. I just want to see them both move on and learn some valuable lessons from this.
 

m32

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So you not only you let one "Borderlands" title slip by you, but two? You need to be fired if you didn't hopped on it.
 
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I used to hold Gearbox in high regard because of Borderlands, I but I don't know what to think any more after this.
 

natoco

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Lessons will 'probably' be learnt by all involved, the question remains. Will gearbox be made to give the money back for every single copy? I definitly think they should. Laws should protect the consumer from bad products that say they do one thing and yet do another. It would be the best start in cleaning up this mess or even a free game or exchange.
 

bluestar2k11

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I laughed at that^^
Excellent hun^^

But to answer to other things you said, it's impossible to fund 3 games with the money of one title. Unless Sega just poured a few hundred million into the project, which I highly doubt. Plus one game would have required a significant buyout to obtain from 3Drealms and it's publisher.

There's just no way.

I think Sega is trying to play the blame game (No one ever blames themselves of course, esp companies), and Gearbox just happens to be an easy target atm.

I'm not happy Aliens failed, I don't think anyone would be. But I can't believe it was entirely Gearbox's fault, they'd made several high quality titles, and helped release others that were also of good quality, to blame ACM on gearbox is just absurd imo. They may have a share of fault, but not all of it, sounds as if there was a lot of problems in the whole development time that were shared between several companies.


[citation][nom]thor220[/nom]is the day that bill gates suggest an iphone to his wife.[/citation]
 

kinggraves

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[citation][nom]bluestar2k11[/nom]I laughed at that^^Excellent hun^^But to answer to other things you said, it's impossible to fund 3 games with the money of one title. Unless Sega just poured a few hundred million into the project, which I highly doubt.[/citation]

You don't get it. They don't need to use the money for ACM to fuel all 3 other titles completely. Funds that were given to them by Sega should have been spent entirely on ACM, but the accusation is that those funds and resources were moved to the other projects. If Sega gave them $10m and got a project that was only worth $1m, then where did those resources go? They are entitled to get the project they funded. AAA titles are made on very thin profit margins these days, all the money that funds a game needs to go to increasing the quality of that game so the end product can make back the expenses.

Of course this blog is not Sega's official stance. You can't speak about pending legal matters. Stiil, I can't imagine why anyone would play the apologist for Gearbox. If the game was poorly built, blame the people that built it. If they outsourced the project elsewhere, then clearly they were trying to produce the game for less.

On the other hand, if this slipped under their radar then Sega needs to learn how to manage their dev teams better. This isn't the only poorly crafted game Sega has released, even their flagship Sonic series has had some titles lately that weren't up to code. They should have dropped Gearbox the moment Gearbox started working on other games. A development team should only have one project at a time and should at no point be working for a different publisher. That was a conflict of interest from the start.
 

chibiwings

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Like we Care with their Corporate *BS the damages is done, They can just release a Patch to redeem themselves I bet they won't return my Pennies.. Just Fix the mess.
 

rantoc

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Without any facts on the table all that have been done from the developer / publisher is playing a blame game seen from different perspectives while the people who bought this title is the only proven victims thus far - And what is done to compensate them for buying a sub standard title sold at an AAA price point?
 

alidan

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[citation][nom]thor220[/nom]Lol the blog is already gone. Anyways I have a hard time believing they funded multiple other AAA titles from one games seed money. It's likely that sega is just cheap and now they are having a hissy fit about the end product. If they can somehow prove that Gearbox did funnel money away from the project, only then will I believe sega. Another thing to mull over is: why would gearbox take the duke nukem project knowing they don't have the cash? They wouldn't and it's extremely malicious for sega to even suggest that gearbox is that kind of company. The day that gearbox knowingly accepts moneysinks just to find a reason to embezzle is the day that bill gates suggest an iphone to his wife.[/citation]

gearbox released 3 games, borderlands 1, 2 and dnf in the time between when they were suppose to do acm to when it was released.

i can assume that acm was a 30-50 million $ game, at least, and seeing borderlands 1 2 and hell even dnf (even though it was pieced to together just good enough to work) were better games than acm (dnf at least was on the pc, console port sucked) i wouldnt be surprised if some of that money went to their own gamens and not acm...

considering what gearbox has done in the past, i really hope they screwed up big on this and sink. most of the developers wont have to much trouble getting a job, they have borderlands 1 and 2 on their resumes after all, but i doubt Pickford would get another job after acm, hell haveing anyone high up from gearbox would be a pr problem.

[citation][nom]sublime2k[/nom]I used to hold Gearbox in high regard because of Borderlands, I but I don't know what to think any more after this.[/citation]

look at duke nukem reloaded and than make a judgement call.

[citation][nom]bluestar2k11[/nom]I laughed at that^^Excellent hun^^But to answer to other things you said, it's impossible to fund 3 games with the money of one title. Unless Sega just poured a few hundred million into the project, which I highly doubt. Plus one game would have required a significant buyout to obtain from 3Drealms and it's publisher.There's just no way.I think Sega is trying to play the blame game (No one ever blames themselves of course, esp companies), and Gearbox just happens to be an easy target atm.I'm not happy Aliens failed, I don't think anyone would be. But I can't believe it was entirely Gearbox's fault, they'd made several high quality titles, and helped release others that were also of good quality, to blame ACM on gearbox is just absurd imo. They may have a share of fault, but not all of it, sounds as if there was a lot of problems in the whole development time that were shared between several companies.[/citation]


they were contracted to make the game, and than they passed it to someone else. gearbox is almost entirely to blame, sega only a little because they didnt have it in their contract they cant farm it out.

[citation][nom]kinggraves[/nom]You don't get it. They don't need to use the money for ACM to fuel all 3 other titles completely. Funds that were given to them by Sega should have been spent entirely on ACM, but the accusation is that those funds and resources were moved to the other projects. If Sega gave them $10m and got a project that was only worth $1m, then where did those resources go? They are entitled to get the project they funded. AAA titles are made on very thin profit margins these days, all the money that funds a game needs to go to increasing the quality of that game so the end product can make back the expenses.Of course this blog is not Sega's official stance. You can't speak about pending legal matters. Stiil, I can't imagine why anyone would play the apologist for Gearbox. If the game was poorly built, blame the people that built it. If they outsourced the project elsewhere, then clearly they were trying to produce the game for less.On the other hand, if this slipped under their radar then Sega needs to learn how to manage their dev teams better. This isn't the only poorly crafted game Sega has released, even their flagship Sonic series has had some titles lately that weren't up to code. They should have dropped Gearbox the moment Gearbox started working on other games. A development team should only have one project at a time and should at no point be working for a different publisher. That was a conflict of interest from the start.[/citation]

most bigger developers work on more than one project at once, and if they arent owned by a publisher, they work for whoever wants them to.

the art department and the coders finish at different times, haveing smaller projects or more than one major one isnt unheard of just because the size of these places and the fact that if you just have the people who are done sit on their hands its a waste of time.

 

IndignantSkeptic

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I wouldn't call this embezzlement but I would say some suing should definitely be happening now. I think I know what really happened and nobody is mentioning it. It looks to me like they decided to do console ports at the last moment and then realised that the game wouldn't fit on consoles so they stripped it down to fit them and then made the PC version identical to the console versions to simplify quality assurance testing. I blame this on the desire to have console versions which I blame on the ease of piracy on PC. If the game had been released now only for PC with the intention of porting to the upcoming console generation then I'm betting things would have gone fantastically. The people who should suffer are the ones who decided it was acceptable to compromise the game quality to get it on the current old console generation.
 

irish_adam

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[citation][nom]IndignantSkeptic[/nom]I wouldn't call this embezzlement but I would say some suing should definitely be happening now. I think I know what really happened and nobody is mentioning it. It looks to me like they decided to do console ports at the last moment and then realised that the game wouldn't fit on consoles so they stripped it down to fit them and then made the PC version identical to the console versions to simplify quality assurance testing. I blame this on the desire to have console versions which I blame on the ease of piracy on PC. If the game had been released now only for PC with the intention of porting to the upcoming console generation then I'm betting things would have gone fantastically. The people who should suffer are the ones who decided it was acceptable to compromise the game quality to get it on the current old console generation.[/citation]

Is that a trolling post or are you just retarded?
 

alidan

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[citation][nom]irish_adam[/nom]Is that a trolling post or are you just retarded?[/citation]
have to agree with you, i lost brain cells reading that... I WILL NEVER GET THEM BACK
 

ddpruitt

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Even if GBX used the funds for another game, and that's a pretty huge assumption (Borderlands could have easily paid for Borderlands 2 and DN was done before GBX got most of the A:CM money) it doesn't matter. I don't know the fine print of the contract but as long as they released A game, regardless of how uninspired, they fulfilled the contract.

If Sega really cared about the game they would have had someone at GBX full-time making sure they were getting their money's worth. They just figured they would slap the Aliens brand on something and they would have a cash cow, sorry but the real world doesn't work that way, as they've figured out.
 

mamailo

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I have just finished my run on A:CM on PC and, yes is only half baked.I did not find any major bugs that break the game but a lot of AI glitches. The game sold at steam for $50 is just a beta and can be finished in one afternoon.I want my money back or the DLCs for free.For those who haven buy it; wait until downs to $12 witch is what it worth.

6 years and the aliens are not animated right ?, the facial animation of the marines match the xenos, I mean they do not have any.And the final "battle" is just ridiculous. I haven't read the word "embezzle" before but it seem it was happens here.BUT; I think is too late for SEGA it should have refuse the game and sue the bastard and getting their money back.

Any way the game have his moments; the sewer level,the Giant's deliric ship and Hadley's Hope designs are OK, also the sound effects and music did. So people comparing A:CM to E.T. as the worst game in history are just talking from their asses.Either they haven't play E.T. or A:CM.

There is a lot of things wrong in A:CM, there was nothing right in E.T.
 
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What did you expect from Gearbox after the abysmal and horrible Duke Nukem Forever?
 
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Isn't Gearbox supposedly 'working' on a new Duke Nukem title, as well now? The"Now that DNF is out, we can make the Duke game that everyone deserves" title, that will save the franchise? Who's paying for that?
 

Anomalyx

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[citation][nom]Dave in San Diego[/nom]Isn't Gearbox supposedly 'working' on a new Duke Nukem title, as well now? The"Now that DNF is out, we can make the Duke game that everyone deserves" title, that will save the franchise? Who's paying for that?[/citation]
Don't worry, we won't have to deal with the next one for 14 years, if we're lucky.
 

childofthekorn

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[citation][nom]ddpruitt[/nom]Even if GBX used the funds for another game, and that's a pretty huge assumption (Borderlands could have easily paid for Borderlands 2 and DN was done before GBX got most of the A:CM money) it doesn't matter. I don't know the fine print of the contract but as long as they released A game, regardless of how uninspired, they fulfilled the contract.If Sega really cared about the game they would have had someone at GBX full-time making sure they were getting their money's worth. They just figured they would slap the Aliens brand on something and they would have a cash cow, sorry but the real world doesn't work that way, as they've figured out.[/citation]

Gearbox used some of the funds from a canceled RPG they were working on and put ACM on hold in order to work on borderlands while requesting more money from Sega to finish the product. So its not that they used the money to fund BL2. Once those funds were acquired they moved a large portion of the developers to other projects (borderlands 1/2 and DNF) while still receiving money from Sega. Once Sega refused to allow further delays they outsourced most of the game to TimeGate (I forget the other dev team that was involved) and then due to shoddy oversight and butting heads scrapped and rewrote the game a few times. Once GearBox received the game, they scrapped a large portion of it and then rewrote most. Once that was done they then had TimeGate piece together the E3 demo's to use far more resources than consoles can handle (False Advertising) strictly for the Demo. Once the killing of xeno's with a pulse rifle/smart gun euphoria wore off you can plainly see how the game lacked in a majority of content it should have had (for an aliens universe title) and that it was stitched together to just run. From what the developers were stating on the games mechanics and the finished product it was half baked. I still feel they should be held accountable and either provide refunds or allow DLC's for free and rewrite the content already released in the game. They have their money, now give us our product or pay us back.

It's just funny to me that, even though DNF was a different set of circumstances, that ACM turned out worse IMHO.
 
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