"Evolution have got a pedigree in racing games, and we like to think we know what's good and what's bad about them"
With the launch of MotorStorm, the off-road PS3 sensation developed by Evolution and published by Sony, getting closer, it was time to open up the forums for a live chat with several key members of the development team about the title.
On hand to answer questions were Simon Benson, producer, Nigel Kershaw, who was Senior Designer on MotorStorm and the Manager of all the other designers; Paul Rustchynsky, an integral member of the design team; and John McLaughlin, the SCEE associate producer.
While the forum was very free flowing and the questions covered a wide range of topics, here is what was gleaned during the conversation.
A brutal reset, a smarter story, and a return to what made it great—Mortal Kombat (2011) revived the series.
Underrated comment. I used to hate that game so much that any time my siblings asked me to play it, I just picked Hom and shut myself down mid-match.
15 years went by so fast. I remember playing through the story mode at launch.
Why did Sony push Shuhei Yoshida out of his role leading PlayStation's first-party games? He'd overseen some huge successes. Well, apparently, he didn't listen.
Yeah I can see that for sure. Shuhei Yoshida should have been in charge not Jim Ryan.
It should be free highway for him now.. but Sony are too stupid to see this, especially that moron Hulst
Wtf why all that anger. PlayStation is dominating on every level. Besides I think there is a little more to hiring a CEO than just who is available. Its not like its a athlete your team wants to buy.
S2Killinit
live service failures, chasing trends, closing studios. yes dominating
Sony is Dominating because competition is not existing. Compared to previous gens this is the poorest in terms of software offerings.
Last gen we got Uncharted 4 Lost Legacy and TLOU2 from ND alone.
This is so far a remasters gen, with no competition to lift up the quality
..."PlayStation is dominating on every level"....
...Really???
PlayStation are soon heading into a new generation in the not to distant future. They currently have the worst customer satisfaction they've ever sustained as a company. The company is heading for a huge crash while at the same time they'll need to be planning how they are going to try and win back that favour and the build up to their new releases.
Yes financially they're winning but they're going to have to ride out this complete public corporate disaster. No one has faith in the company or the product anymore. They've damaged their public image so much this generation. Greed can kill anyone.
He would've done the same thing and fire Jim Ryan and Shuhei would be the villain. Why?
Because Elite creates the narrative and distraction for gamers, users and citizens.
More confirmation that Jim Ryan is the culprit for what has happened to Sony. Hulst needs to go too. What sucks is that a lot of the good top heads at Sony are no longer there. I wish that guys that were forced out prematurely by Dumbo Jimbo like Shuhei and Layden came back.
Yep. Yoshida was responsible for bringing one of the best games of this generation to playstation (Stellar Blade). He is an actual gamer and is in touch with what gamers want (creative, fun games, not GaaS and agenda pushing). He also seems like a genuinely nice guy if you watch some interviews. Of course they got rid of him.
Makes you wonder if MS even thought about hiring him after Phil and Sarah were leaving. He certainly couldn't make their situation any worse.
All the gamer/consumer lead heads are gone across PS and Xbox. shuhei gone phil's gone (questionable) but gone. The future of gaming is somewhat uncertain across the board.
Former Naughty Dog artist Gabriel Betancourt explains why the "sweet spot" for game teams is under 200 people and how AAA "factories" kill creativity.
There’s definitely some truth to this. When teams get too large, coordination starts to outweigh creativity—layers of approval, risk aversion, and tight deadlines can turn bold ideas into “safe” ones. Keeping a team under ~200 people sounds ideal for maintaining clear communication and a shared vision. That said, massive AAA projects also come with huge technical demands and expectations, so scaling up isn’t always avoidable. The real challenge is figuring out how to keep that small-team creativity alive inside big studio structures.
More than that, it's logistically untenable. Inevitably, when teams get too large, how do you keep tabs on accountability? I suspect this massive team size is a consequence of the perfectionism streak Naughty Dog has.
I wish we could have so many people working on something and it turns out great because I'm all for collaboration in spirit - the problem is too many people as part of the larger team and smaller units. Suppose for example that you have too many people in the art department; you will very often come up against fiercely competing visions for how things should look. That competitive vision will cause friction between team members, team doesn't work as a unit, the back and forth can further delay parts that the other departments are waiting for, etc etc.
A 200-person team says, to me, that we need to scale back game development. Even if it means we go back to PS2 era costs and scale, why not? Those games are still great fun, the budgets were in check, and you could literally break the 200-man team into like 10 20-man teams working on different projects.
That was an intense interview. As soon as i joined in, which was right when it went Live, there were already 85 people in there waiting, and the max they could have on the list was 300. Luckily, I got one of my q's asked and answered, and although they never answered "Was it hard or easy to work with the Cell Processors,", they made it clear that they are PlayStation platform only team, and they couldnt say on how well the game might/might have not looked on other platforms. But still, I have a PS3, and im getting this, this is just awesome.
This quote made me curious for a second "We also use most of the Blu-Ray disk (thank God it’s not a DVD)!" since there's 8 tracks in the game. Then I realized that there's like 5 or 6 variations of each track (weather, time of day) and 35 vehicles (which probably have track-specific textures for proper lighting). I could go on and on, but suddenly I'm starting to realize why they love Blu-ray for this title.
P.S. Can't wait to do the night races. =]
they said they could squeeze quite a bit more yet out of the PS3. Man that will be great.
I'm a lil surprised that they had to use up all the blue ray for just 8 tracks. Day, night, rain, sunshine, etc... that shouldn't take much space at all. Many racers can do this and have more tracks. I seen about 4 tracks from the game and they dont look any bigger than most racers. I think this is a big blow to many fans who expected "more" from blue ray.
The onlie feature seems fun but I think PS3 fans would want to play with the every one who owns the game (ESPECIALLY JAPAN). Maybe Sony will get the online thing together.
I do not see this game selling too well. But we will see soon. Good times