Max Payne 3 Studio Closing Its Doors

[Saviordd1]

This isn't bad news...

This, literally the only thing their losing is their name, whoopdy doo.



Captcha: Salad Days

Makes perfect sense

 

[RandV80]

As a BC'er I would imagine this has less to do with studio success and more with local provincial politics and corporate incentives. I don't know how much it effects the video game industry but in the film industry at least a lot of productions have been moving from Vancouver to Toronto for costs. A lot of this has to do with the HST sales tax in BC, which combined the previous government (federal) and provincial sales tax into a single more business friendly sales tax that was only in place for a year before people got pissed off about it and ran a successful referendum to appeal it. Don't remember the date but that will be happening this year.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

How is this bad news? It's just two studios merging into one bigger studio while retaining the original name of one of the studios.

 

[Moeez]

Well, fuck. I bought and loved Max Payne 3. I thought it sold well(?)

Didn't Max Payne 3 sell 3 million copies it's first week? Sad to see the studio close it's doors. Another studio down for the count, lets hope studios shutting down doesn't become too common, especially ones who just put out a great game.

lol Where did you hear that?

Max Payne 3 was a massive bomb, only sold 440K copies in its first month. It had a $105 million budget. It shipped 3 million copies to stores, and now all those 2.5 million copies are gaining dust.

http://www.shacknews.com/article/74374/max-payne-3-sells-440k-in-debut-month-called-a

 

[Ashoten]

This sounds more like the kind of thing a company does to lessen its tax burdens. Usually operation in the U.S. is more expensive then other locations because most state sees companies as Cash cows to be milked until dry. I don't know what Canada taxes for companies are like but Id be willing to bet it its better then Vancouver.

 

[Li Mu]

To those of you complaining about the sensationalist headline to this article, I ask you this; 'Are you really surprised anymore?'

The last few months have seen the headlines becoming more and more misleading.
Soon we'll have 'GABE NEWELL IS DEAD' and find out that the article is about Gabe Newell buying a new sink for his bathroom.

This has been mentioned time and time again, but the writers seem intent on ignoring the readers and continue to mislead us with the headlines. They're all trying to get jobs at Fox.

 

[The Last Melon]

While it's good that no one seems to be losing their jobs, it's no small endeavor for the people involved - to put it in perspective, the 2,000 mile trek between Vancouver and Toronto is roughly the same as the distance between California and North Carolina, give or take a few hundred miles.

Wait, how is redefining it in U.S. states helpful to anyone? I should hope that American Escapist readers know at least where Vancouver is in relation to Toronto, and for anybody outside of North America it just seems like swapping two vaguely familiar names for another two (North Carolina? That's the reference point?). Couldn't you have just said "across the continent"?

That said, this is more newsworthy than a lot of other stuff I've seen on the site, so good job on that much.

This sounds more like the kind of thing a company does to lessen its tax burdens. Usually operation in the U.S. is more expensive then other locations because most state sees companies as Cash cows to be milked until dry. I don't know what Canada taxes for companies are like but Id be willing to bet it its better then Vancouver.

You...you do know that Vancouver is in Canada, right? Is there a typo in here somewhere?

 

[Atmos Duality]

*snip*

This sounds more like the kind of thing a company does to lessen its tax burdens. Usually operation in the U.S. is more expensive then other locations because most state sees companies as Cash cows to be milked until dry. I don't know what Canada taxes for companies are like but Id be willing to bet it its better then Vancouver.

You...you do know that Vancouver is in Canada, right? Is there a typo in here somewhere?

I'm questioning this too, because I thought the same thing.
It's not uncommon to see a company relocate for better tax breaks, and Canada is one of the more game-developer-friendly countries in the world.

So now I have to question if Canada's tax programs and/or grant programs are universal, or if they're region/province specific.

 

[Vkmies]

Well, fuck. I bought and loved Max Payne 3. I thought it sold well(?)

Didn't Max Payne 3 sell 3 million copies it's first week? Sad to see the studio close it's doors. Another studio down for the count, lets hope studios shutting down doesn't become too common, especially ones who just put out a great game.

lol Where did you hear that?

Max Payne 3 was a massive bomb, only sold 440K copies in its first month. It had a $105 million budget. It shipped 3 million copies to stores, and now all those 2.5 million copies are gaining dust.

http://www.shacknews.com/article/74374/max-payne-3-sells-440k-in-debut-month-called-a

I said I thought it did well, due to being a critical success and got good reception from fans. That's sad news. It was a great game! I wonder why people didn't buy it...

 

[Lunar Templar]

so .... every things fine over there then? just moving every one to a bigger building?

not really a down side here that I'm seeing

 

[The Last Melon]

*snip*

I'm questioning this too, because I thought the same thing.
It's not uncommon to see a company relocate for better tax breaks, and Canada is one of the more game-developer-friendly countries in the world.

So now I have to question if Canada's tax programs and/or grant programs are universal, or if they're region/providence specific.

Now that I think about it, it'd make sense if it were provincial; the provinces have a pretty healthy amount of power in Canada. According to this website [http://www.pwc.com/ca/en/entertainment-media/film-video-tax-incentives-canada.jhtml], if I'm reading it right (tax code is a little arcane to me in general), Ontario seems to have a beefier tax credit than B.C. does. Assuming that Ashoten meant "Ontario" when he said "Canada," then, he has a point.

so .... every things fine over there then? just moving every one to a bigger building?

not really a down side here that I'm seeing

I mean, it's something of an inconvenience when the new building is on the other side of the country. Canada's pretty big.

 

[1337mokro]

Journalism. Whuts that? Here's what your article should have had as a title.

Rockstar merging Vancouver and Toronto studios. Vancouver employees will have to move to keep jobs.

That's an accurate title. That is what the article is actually about. The nonsense about the AAA industry going through tough times despite them selling millions of copies was just massive bullshit and a waste of digital ink.

 

[Rawne1980]

I said I thought it did well, due to being a critical success and got good reception from fans. That's sad news. It was a great game! I wonder why people didn't buy it...

Unfortunately Max Payne doesn't have that massive a fan base.

Max Payne 2 only shifted 650k units of which not all of them wanted Max Payne 3 by the dismal sales figures of that game.

(source so people don't ask ... http://video-games.findthebest.com/l/239/Max-Payne-2-The-Fall-of-Max-Payne)

Selling millions of copies isn't a common thing which is why so many studios that people think are great sometimes go under.

While Max Payne 3 isn't a bad game and did get decent reviews it didn't have a massive fan base to begin with so was going to struggle to shift the 3 million units they shipped out. I didn't think it would undersell as badly as it did but for a game that had the reviews it did the sales figures have Max Payne 3 as a flop.

 

[Woem]

Or how Gamespot says it: "Rockstar expands its Toronto operations"

Less sensationalist please.

 

[grigjd3]

$10000 per man-month with a staff of 150 over three years would come to 54 million in staff alone. That's a napkin-based estimate but a million copies sold would barely cover staff let alone advertising, packaging, distribution, facilities (building, electricity, computers and maintenance) and the 15-20 percent overhead associated with administration in large game publishers. I'd guess 3 million copies sold is the current magic number - unless of course you are talking about the super-budget games such as Call of Duty. Then you need much higher sales.

 

[Major_Tom]

A fitting punishment.

Care to elaborate? I thought Max Payne was a great game, even if it felt more like Die Hard than Max Payne, story and narrative-wise.

Exactly. A game called "Max Payne 3" should *shock* feel like a Max Payne game. I never actually played it (and never will), I knew it was a lost cause since they released the first screenshots and TB's WTF just confirmed my doubts.

 

[Major_Tom]

I understand that. Hiring Sam Lake on for the writing would have gone a long way to getting the feeling down right. It's still a great game, and if you're not buying it on the principle of supporting it then you should at least check it out used or something. The gameplay is still classic Max at any rate.

Fair enough, maybe I'll get it someday because of gameplay only (after all, TB said the PC port was superbly done, which is unheard of for a Rockstar game) but certainly not for a full price.