Ex-Sony Cambridge Dev: PSVR’s RIGS ‘Never Got The Chance To Grow’

Speaking of studio closures, Ex-Cambridge devs share their thoughts on the studio being shut dowin here.

Revealing the game to Eurogamer, however, Jones took a bit of time to reflect on the closure of Guerrilla Cambridge, noting that RIGS “never got the chance to grow and go to where we wanted it to be”.

While positive about the game and understanding of Sony’s decision to close the studio, Jones described working on RIGS as “challenging”.

“I think we made a great game which is why it was sad the studio shut,” Jones said. “We were still working on more stuff for it, getting more levels and more DLC out for the community.”

It sucks that RIGS was VR only. I would have liked playing it and it looks like it would have continued getting a lot of support after release.

“The thing that’s the saddest, perhaps, is that RIGS never got the chance to grow and go to where we wanted it to be, but it did a good job of pushing VR and setting a benchmark, perhaps, for other developers to follow,” Jones added. He said that, while the decision to close the studio was “surprising”, he didn’t think that Sony took it lightly.

“Fortunately, most of the people there have gone on to other things now, but these things happen,” Jones concluded.

Apparently Jones and another developer started a new studio and are developing a game called Roki. So at least it ended up working out for them and most who worked at Cambridge.

What no drama from the cow faction?

Sony employees of 14 years lost their jobs over this. Sony apparently doesn't like risks as much as the fanboys here seem to think either.

Let's blow it out of context and talk about how Sony is abandoning PSVR now.

Sony is notorious for not having the confidence to support its smaller projects, either with hardware or with software. It's why I never feel confident buying any of their systems that aren't their flagship consoles, or their games that aren't their tentpole first party games, at launch and/or for full price.

It would neither be out of context, nor is Sony 'abandoning' PSVR. It's already abandoned. The system launched with nary a sight nor peep of long term committment for it from Sony's end. At least with the Vita, Sony pretended to care for the better part of the year, the PSVR was just put out there to die.

I understand they want to push VR, but that game looked cool and couldve used a VR-free version.

I usually dont play multiplayer games but watching that trailer and gameplay made me want to try it out.

I remember folks praising the PSVR for being out of stock as a great sign of PSVR doing well. Hmmm interesting. Reminds me of another out of stock item.

This is fakenews, anyway, because we all know Sony would never cancel a game. That is a MS exclusive.

TIL: 900,000 units stocked and sold out in over 7 months (indicative of a product failure) = 2.74 million units stocked and sold out in 28 days

LOL but it didnt get a drama queen reaction from the internet.

Anybody with common sense knows there is a double standard.

You know Spencer is doing a lot of interviews and even if drama queens that dont read entire interviews go off the reservation with out of context shit, it makes me think of the old saying, "there is no such thing as bad publicity". I think he wants to stay on the tip of everyone's tongue. It keeps the light on Scorpio and we know its going to make games look good on consoles, its going to boost BC titles as well. Cannot wait to see Sea of Thieves on the open seas at night on a Scorpio, dude. Remeber how beautiful the sky and ocean are?

@cainetao11: I'm as willing to call Sony out on its bullshit as I am Microsoft and Nintendo

@Pedro said:

I remember folks praising the PSVR for being out of stock as a great sign of PSVR doing well. Hmmm interesting. Reminds me of another out of stock item.

This is fakenews, anyway, because we all know Sony would never cancel a game. That is a MS exclusive.

Been waiting for anything LOL

The ClosedStation 4 strikes again.

No offense brother, but your Spencer sp games thread was pure click bait. Reading the entire interview clearly showed he wasnt sayin SP games arent important to his or gaming in general. As Kvally showed by posting that part of the interview in your thread. It was blown out of context/proportion dude.

I didn't read the full interview and just went off of the quote posted on GAF. I already admitted this. I made a mistake.

That said, my general worry regarding the future of Microsoft's first party lineup continues, and shall until I have hard evidence to allay those fears a bit. As I keep saying- bring on E3.

Meh, the game wasn't that good. It's a decent VR game IMO but the fact it's limited to being an arena based shooter played online or with bots offline doomed it. I would have liked for it have a more traditional campaign mode and more open levels. While I do agree Sony should have given them more time to grow, I'm not sure that would have helped much. The market is too flooded with VR arena shooters even if RIGS was one of the more unique titles in that genre. I'm more excited to play more games like Farpoint in VR.

The studio closing that really annoyed me is the closing of Evolution Studios. Driveclub sucked when it came out but subsequent updates made it legit good. In VR the game is even more awesome. I'll never forgive Sony for closing them down. Hopefully GT Sport in VR carries the torch.

I apologize dude, I didnt see that post. My bad.

Well as I said to Quadknight, why be bothered in any way about what Xbox is doing? You dont own the console; all I read is how incredible 2017 is anyway; PS is getting exclusives faster than they can be played. Why let it affect you at all?

The point is, letting the market decide might have been far better than Sony just unilaterally deciding the game wasn't going to make it. The market may be flooded with VR arena shooters, but a first party flagship carries far more weight, and you know it- the market is also flooded with open world action RPGs, and yet Sony had no problems pushing Horizon. The market was also flooded with zombie action games, and Sony had no problems pushing The Last of Us.

They f*cked up here, bro. Plain and simple. Let's not make excuses for them.

It was in a different thread, so I honestly can't blame you :P

I can't answer for QuadKnight, but i can for myself- I personally want to be interested in an Xbox, I want to own one (I believe I am getting one next month for my birthday), and I am a fan of the Xbox 360 (though the new batch of Xbox fans on here probably won't believe that even if I cry myself hoarse trying to say that), and most importantly, I am a fan of games and this industry, and I truly feel that it is tantamount to the health and growth of this medium for all three platforms to do well, which means I am in fact concerned when I feel Xbox is going in a direction where it may be hard to achieve success. That, plus I am on System Wars, so of course I will bitch- but I bitch about whoever is pissing me off the most at the time. Right now it happens to be Microsoft. Not even three full years ago, it was Sony (in fact I even remember in early 2015 when SolidGame_basic made a thread about me wanting to ride on the PS4 hype, because that was when I finally came around to the system). For the longest time, it has been Nintendo until the Switch.

I am not like a lot of posters on here- I am fully willing to be won back over by Microsoft, some of my fondest gaming memories are on the 360. I bought an Xbox 360 over a Wii with Twilight Princess back in the day. Whether or not they do so is ultimately contingent only on them, however.

@charizard1605: I'm not making excuses for them. They did screw up but I don't miss RIGS is all I'm saying. Read my updated post though where I call them out for closing down Evolution Studios and Driveclub. That to me is a bigger travesty than closing down Cambridge.

@charizard1605: Fully understood. It seems to me though, that since beginning the xbox uservoice forums, much of what we vote on or bring up to them is either implemented or explained to insiders why it maybe cannot be. I read stupid things on the internet and this forum like in the HW2 hype thread "nobody asked for this game". Yet it was asked for repeatedly and heavily voted for from 2014 to announcement. MS is not going to come and read SW. Get involved. Post on their uservoice forums. Meet others and admins and members of the Xbox team see who is serious and who is ridiculous and they answer those that are serious.

I guess because I'm not a huge racing game fan, I preferred Cambridge. KZ Mercenary is my favorite Vita game.

@cainetao11: ?Vita?

jk bro ?

I see where you're coming from. I guess we won't be seeing KZ in PSVR anytime soon.

LOL I know, I know. But I do love the tech of the vita. Granted most of my 64 gig contains PSP BC games LOL. I would've handed KZ off to Cambridge since Guerilla made the GOTY contender Horizon. Oh well, us armchair CEOs LOL

@Zero_epyon: It definitely sucks. Sony made the decision, and I don't really know what all was involved, but when people lose their jobs like this the reasons don't really matter. It just sucks. Hate to see it happen.

At least most of the team got swooped up by Codemasters after Evolution closed. I'm hoping they have them make a new arcade franchise in the vein of Motorstorm, and not just simcade stuff like Dirt. Pacific Rift is my second favorite racing game of all time.

Just wait for Scorpio. It likely going to be 399$ Xbox one is cheaper, but it's old tech now.

Yup. But on the bright side, these guys seem to have something going. They don't seem all to bitter about it either.

@charizard1605: it would be out of context. One studio shutting down does not mean they are abandoning PSVR. I'm not even a PSVR fan and I wouldn't make that far of a stretch.

I think they'll give it one more big push at E3 this year. They still have Farpoint the VR Halo killer (?) to headline their show this year as well as GT Sport VR.

This might be its last big push though.

They also laid off VR teams in two other studios. They said the projects were done so no need keeping those devs around, supposedly.

Care to elaborate on the fear for MSFT 1P lineup? I am biased of course as I am an employee but I would like to hear what you believe the issue going forward is.

They opened a new Studio in Manchester which will be making PSVR games. They also opened a new studio in San Mateo, and ForwardWorks in Japan and not to mention Kojima Productions. If Sony closing a studio means they'll get two more to take their place then I hope Bend closes down soon too!

Well Cambridge hasn't made a traditional game for a console in a long time either, they've been making handheld or PSVR titles too, so they're not exactly a loss if you're just into traditional console games. Manchester Studio will simply be taking their place. The other two haven't done anything yet, they just opened those last year.

And yes, I know Kojima Productions isn't owned by Sony, but Sony does own Death Stranding which will surely be the franchise they'll be working on for the decade to come, so for all intents and purposes they are a Sony studio in everything but name. Heck they even have a office in the Guerrilla Games building so they can collaborate on the engine.

I would like a varied lineup of first party exclusive games (they can be shared with PC, that is a non factor to me) that I find appealing- so I would say, more things like Fable, Forza Horizon, ReCore, or Scalebound, less like Quantum Break, Gears of War, or Halo. Essentially, I like long, single player adventure games- games like Quantum Break are a supplement to that. Multiplayer games like Halo and Gears are good, but they are not my gaming diet, they are additives to it.

I want my gaming diet.

@davillain-: I have to say that's not a bad effort but ultimately failed attempt at damage control there manticore lol.

Another multiplayer game killed by Sony, PSN and now PSVR.

They are not Japanese

Lol, I thought MS were the ones who closed studios and Sony was "all for the gamer". Lmao... Sony is all for closing studios and abandoning platforms sounds like.

Wow, I didn't know this. Sounds really awesome! Really looking forward to Death Stranding now.

Objectively speaking Microsoft Studios lineup up this generation has been varied. Now you may not like all the titles and that is fine but so far each year Xbox have given their customers plenty of variety to play. Now based on the things you mentioned it just takes time and effort, it will take the right combination of creators to come up with the next wave of great games. Xbox has not hit a new great title yet but it has not been due to lack of effort. They tried throwing money and resources at a project and you got Quantum Break probably the most expensive game of this generation, they tried a fun 3rd person traversal game in Sunset Overdrive, they tried a collecta-thon game with Re-Core. The thing is they went to proven developers for each of these games and that still did not hit a note with gamers. Creating a new studio to would not change the outcome of what these games are, the problem with these games if you can say so was just the basic design of the game. That is not on Xbox that is on the game creators. All Xbox can do is keep trying. They also work in reverse. For MSFT/Studios they build studios to manage IP they will keep trying until they find the next thing.. and then build a studio to push the IP forward.

@oflow: Your post is actually on point. PSVR has not failed by any means. It leads in sales among all upper-tier VR headsets, a point fanboys fail to admit. When E3 rolls around, we'll see Sony's commitment to the tech.

As an aside, VR is fun, but don't let them put a microchip in your head. Transhumanism is no joke.

What a stupid move from Sony. Rigs is one of the best PsVr games there is. Why would they discontinue that studio and with it the game? One could think PsVr is another thing Sony made and abandoned shortly after *has Move flashbacks* *has eye toy flashbacks* *has eye of judgement flashbacks* *has Vita flashbacks* ...

That's why I added the 3 dots at the ned. There's probably a lot I forgot, like home and wonderbook you mentioned. The PS2 internet adapter also didn't get a lot of support.

Wait what? If a game like graivty rush 2 is out for example and it's not a tentpole first party game, it's laready out and you can play it, you act like games need dlc to be worth playing. (gravity rush 2 has free dlc)

It was Codemasters. Criterion would have been cool too though :)

http://blog.codemasters.com/community/04/codemasters-welcomes-the-team-from-evolution-studios/

MuthaF*ckin BOOM

Really well said.

Now how did you get that from what I said?