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In the weeks leading up to the studio’s closure, the staff of Visceral Games had crunched hard, working long hours to make a demo for Ragtag that they hoped might impress EA. Alongside the Canada-based studio EA Vancouver, Visceral’s employees made a set of high-octane demos in which Ragtag’s main characters would get chased by an AT-ST walker, get into a shootout on the desert planet Tatooine, and embark on a rescue mission within the dungeons of Jabba’s palace. One person who worked on the game described these demos as a “sampler platter,” something that would show EA’s executives what Visceral’s vision of Uncharted Star Wars could become.

The demos weren’t enough. Former Visceral employees don’t know when EA made the decision to shut down their studio, but on October 17, 2017, it became official. Visceral, which employed around 80 people, was no more. Staff say they were given three weeks to put together portfolios and look for other employment, both in and outside of EA.

This news immediately led to a glut of opinions and editorials about the death of single-player video games. Visceral, best known for making a linear action-adventure game series called Dead Space, did not fit into EA’s focus on “games as a service,” a common phrase referring to games designed to be playable, and to generate money, long after they’ve launched. EA’s statement made the same implications, stating about Ragtag:

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In its current form, it was shaping up to be a story-based, linear adventure game. Throughout the development process, we have been testing the game concept with players, listening to the feedback about what and how they want to play, and closely tracking fundamental shifts in the marketplace. It has become clear that to deliver an experience that players will want to come back to and enjoy for a long time to come, we needed to pivot the design.

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“Honestly, it was a mercy killing,” said one former Visceral employee. “It had nothing to do with whether it was gonna be single player. I don’t think it had anything to do with that. That game never could’ve been good and come out.”

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Looking back at the last few years of Visceral, people who worked for the studio have a lot of opinions. They have a lot of fingers to point: at EA, at Patrick Söderlund, at Amy Hennig, at themselves. One common theme, conveyed to me by at least three different people, was that changes should have been made years ago. “I think EA gave us too much leeway,” said one. “If anything, EA should’ve probably canceled this project earlier. I think Söderlund and them were too nice, gave us too many opportunities.”

Perhaps it was inevitable that, in 2017, a game like Ragtag wouldn’t be possible at a publisher like EA. It was too big, too expensive, and too risky. Seeing it to completion might have cost $100 million, by one person’s estimate, which was a huge investment for a game that people might play just once and then trade into GameStop, costing EA a sale. “Ultimately, the idea of doing a game of this scope, this expense, this fidelity, at this studio never made sense,” said a former Visceral staffer.

Posited another: “The only way we could’ve made this work was to say, ‘Hey everybody, Ragtag’s not gonna make money. But we’re going to add a ton of features to Frostbite that’ll make [EA Motive’s] big adventure game possible, and amortize the costs over the future. Think of this as an investment product.’”

Great read. EA mismanaged this project for sure, but it sounds like they gave them a chance, so to speak, and this project was way overdue to be killed.

There's a part where they say their demos for Ragtag looked way too much like Uncharted for EA's taste. Lots of people would love that, I'm sure, but it seems like they hired the right people to do the wrong things.

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Posted by Parmen

Member since Apr 2016

18317 posts

Posted on 10/28/17 at 8:59 pm to sicboy

Can we get a tl;dr?

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Posted by athenslife101

Member since Feb 2013

20391 posts

Posted on 10/29/17 at 1:02 am to Parmen

The game wasn't good and EA gave Visercal too much leeway to turn around to the point where continued development wouldn't have been cost effective.

I will say, it's pretty bad to see developers bitching about GameStop. I thought it was going under.

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Posted by hawgfaninc