Driver Madness

The Guardian made a write up about Reflection's past and present just today:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... ey-used-to

Pauline Jacquey, Reflection's managing director, said that they would like never do a 3 year project like DSF again. She also said that while the game was somewhat successful it still undersold the expectations.

"Jacquey acknowledges it is unhealthy for a developer to feel its future depends on a single three-year project, like 2011’s Driver: San Francisco: “Driver: San Francisco was not the commercial success we wanted it to be – it was a success, but not enough to cover the spending on it. It led the team to feel a bit that if it failed, it was a big catastrophe, and I worked really, really hard to make them understand that it’s OK to fail."

Does she seriously think a great game can only be developed in just 2 years or less?
By the way. Driver SF may not be the Driver game we were all expecting, but I think it is still one of the most innovative and fun racing games I have ever played, with also a ridicolous but well-crafted story. It had some flaws, but profits or not, the people loved it either way.

PS: Broken PC port tho

Maybe she doesn't have what it takes to endure big projects such as Driver San Francisco.

I think that working on Ubisoft bigger projects like The Division, Far Cry,... is the only way for the developpers to still have work, to "survive".

While i don't like the idea, it's logical to not bet the life of your company with 1 game.
But i still hope for a new Driver even if it's not from Reflections but from multiple developpers (and with Martin Edmondson as creative director of course !)

Vortex wrote: But i still hope for a new Driver even if it's not from Reflections but from multiple developpers (and with Martin Edmondson as creative director of course !)

Ubisoft owns the IP, and Edmondson jumped ship and moved to mobile games (!) eons ago. Not happening.

I was thinking that i would be developped by multiple studios of Ubisoft of course.

And Martin came back for Driver : SF.

But well, only my wishes

What a way to motivate their workers, let's not make this game because it takes so long and we want a quick buck. If you want a polished and good game it obviously will take time, especially sandbox games. Having low ammount of employees isn't a excuse either, you can check 2K Czech and R* North numbers. They don't need the entire studio to focus in a single game, for a game like Driver with on foot for example one studio can focus on driving while the other can do the on foot and city modelling.

If they want to bury the Driver license at least sell it to some studio before the name becomes forgotten by the mainstream players. Her comments contradicts with the publisher announcement that the "DSF sales were "better than planned". Approx 2 million copies isn't bad considering Driv3r sold around 2.5 million. They can't expect huge sales like back in the PSX days when Driver sold more than 10 million with the first two games, a lot of time has passed since a big launch Driver announcement and many people have put the focus on other games.

They just care about good sales and money as usual.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun wrote a cool article about Reflections' vehicle expertise.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/0 ... ving-team/

.....the Driver series comes up a lot. It is perhaps the series that Reflections is best known for, even though it’s a developer with many notches on its belt. Yet it’s been five years since the last one – possibly even the best, as experimental and loopy as it was. Will we get another one? Is the team just biding its time, paying its dues to its publisher with work on Watch Dogs 2 and Wildlands?

“There is always interest in Driver,” Merrick tells me. “It’s a brand that is intertwined with Reflections’ history, and there’s still a lot of affection for it.”

So, maybe?

Riiiiight. Ubisoft has a gun to their head more or less, using them as slave labor on their other IPs, and with Driver Speedboat Paradise being the most blatant "let's see if we can get one more dollar out of this IP before we send it to purgatory" move ever, it's fate is sealed.

Sad to see Driver being killed by publishers. The original Reflections devs were very talented, but both Atari and Ubisoft ruined everything.

Heck, the new Reflections developers don't even know how to make proper driving/car physics. Call the original guys back, they'll know what to do.

I think they can still do proper driving but like it's said in the article today you have to be "easy" with the players if the game isn't only about driving.
It's sad but the casuals players killed modern video game's industry.

Sad interview. Jacquey clearly has no real passion for games, just business.

“We have 35 openings today, and we have a pretty ambitious growth strategy for the future. We’re not looking for juniors – we’re looking for seniors and experts, so that makes recruitment harder, of course,” she said.

Juniors are the next generation of your seniors and experts; what a short-sighted, profit-oriented business model.