Raven Software

[Infernis]

Hello,

I read on a Dutch news site that Activision is firing a lot of Raven's employees. I also read that the studio will make DLC for other games in the future instead of big budget games. Can anyone confirm this? If so, that sounds like the end of a once classic studio.

Inf

[o'dium]

Its true, yeah... But after the recent Raven games, what can I say? Its always a terrible thing when somebody loses a job they love, so really, my heart goes out to them... But after Wolf and Singularity, its about time Raven woke up and saw it wasn't 1999 anymore...

IMHO of course.

[Dessicated corpse]

IMO they aren't making good games anymore, they need to start making games like they did in the 90's.

[o'dium]

No the trouble is that they are STILL making games like they did in the 90's, gameplay wise. They haven't adapted to the changing times at all, which is why they were left behind.

[Dessicated corpse]

No they're not, the games are nothing like they were in the 90's and their new stuff isn't fun. I don't think it's anything like the 90's.

[Tabun]

I see your 'yes' and I raise you a footstomping 'no'. :]

[obsidian]

I think they should not have sold out to Activision, that was probably their primary mistake. The success of a developer often depends on the whims of the publisher (they supply the funding and advertising, so when they say "jump" you jump). Bobby Kotick is one greedy jerk who doesn't understand the gaming industry in the slightest bit and has even said that he is only interested in publishing cheap sequels and franchises.

With respect to [the dropping of] the franchises that don’t have the potential to be exploited every year across every platform, with clear sequel potential that can meet our objectives of, over time, becoming $100 million-plus franchises, that’s a strategy that has worked very well for us... I think, generally, our strategy has been to focus… on the products that have those attributes and characteristics, the products that we know [that] if we release them today, we’ll be working on them 10 years from now.”

Wolfenstein had a rough start, it was started as something that was very different but then for whatever reason it was scrapped and was pieced back together with duct tape into something else. It's quite evident from playing the game that parts of it were of very high quality while other parts looked completely amateurish. I can only guess at what was going on at Raven, but the development reboot occurred shortly after Raven did the first series of mass layoffs. I suspect something very wrong occurred either internally at Raven or something between Raven and Activision. Regardless, they were never quite the same company after that.

Best of luck to the Q3W members who are at Raven, hope you still have your jobs or have something better with another company with a non-shit publisher. I know that pjw, and wviperw (also Lunaran and raven??) are at Raven.

[Infernis]

Lunaran left a long time ago. Or so I read on his website.

I played Wolf half way through and stopped. It had far too many quirks to make me want to finish. But there were some levels that were truly amazing. Singularity lasted about 20 minutes before I deleted it and to be honest, Quake 4 dissapointment me as well. I finished it, but I won't be coming back to that again.

So in retrospect, it's not that we didn't see it coming, it's just sad when it's finally there.

[obsidian]

Looks like Raven is working at Ubisoft Montreal. Lunaran is in Austin Texas, lots of game dev companies down there.

[4days]

where's rgoer, isn't he a raven bod? hasn't posted for ages.

[Hipshot]

Too much money in this biz - for the last ~10 years.
Consoles strong position doesn't really help...

[obsidian]

Yes, roger worked at Raven as well but left a while ago. Google search shows he went to work for Red 5 and is now with LucasArts (Star Wars: Jedi Knight sequel perhaps?!?!).

I think sock also worked at Raven, but not sure exactly when.

[Kat]

I think they should not have sold out to Activision, that was probably their primary mistake. The success of a developer often depends on the whims of the publisher...

...Best of luck to the Q3W members who are at Raven, hope you still have your jobs or have something better with another company with a non-shit publisher. I know that pjw, and wviperw (also Lunaran and raven??) are at Raven.

What he said. ++ same sentiments to the guys we know landing on their feet

[Lunaran]

sock, rgoer, pjw, raven (ford, right?), Hellchick, kungfusquirrel, ken20banks, and myself were all at raven at the same time. I think wviperw started after rgoer left, but otherwise we all overlapped. I don't if pjw and wviperw are still there after the last round of layoffs, but raven went in the first round and all the rest of us had already moved on in 2006-7.

I'm pretty sure rgoer is at Blizzard now.

[obsidian]

Lunaran! How are you! What are you up to these days? People should visit more, I'm lonely.

Didn't know Hellchick was there too. And kungfusquirrel, haven't heard from him in forever. I don't know ken20banks.

I'm not sure about wviperw, but I know pjw was still there at least when Singularity was released. Hope he's doing okay, I haven't seen him anywhere online, so I hope he's just laying low for now.

[MKJ]

Hellchick was at Raven? Really?

[Eraser]

She left PlanetQuake to rot

[MKJ]

true dat, PQ went downhill fast after she went to GSI

[fKd]

that pappy guy does what he can. the lone watchman if you will, but yeah not much traffic around those parts these days...

sock worked on wolf, then off to crytek i think... could be wrong

[Eraser]

Pappy-R is awesome. He's really doing a lot to keep things in order, but IGN is picking his domain apart bit by bit. They single handedly killed an entire community by removing all the hosted sites from their network. Dumbest move ever, but I guess the execs in the suits don't care.

So Pappy-R is the last to blame, but it's really a shame that PQ went down the shitter (and all other planet sites to be honest).

[Dark Metal]

I've met Pappy-R. He's cool.

[pjw]

Edit: ^^^ Haven't met him in person, but he's always been very cool to me.

Oh hi.

Gee...I haven't even been here in a surprisingly long time. wviperw and I are indeed still at Raven. I'm still enjoying going to work--can't say much more than that.

NDAs suck balls like that.

Let's see if I can wander through a little more often in the future, since I'm ostensibly a mod and all.

[Kaz]

As a member of the forum I vote we have public shamings when inactive mods return.

Boooo!!!!!!

[pjw]

*waves* *smiles*

Thanks man!

[obsidian]

Public shamings, huh? Boy, I have a list of stuff that we can do that I've been saving for YEARS!