Epic Announces Closure of Impossible Studios, 'Infinity Blade: Dungeons' Put on Hold

[Lesser Evets]

Who still plays games?

Originally Posted by TennisandMusic

Sounds to me like the studio was incompetent, Epic realized this over time, and simply cut their losses.

I'd bet on this.

[petsounds]

Well, "it wasn't working out, now it's on hold" is a political way of saying, "The Big Huge Games guys we hired sucked, so we had to fire them. Now we have no team to make the game."

[jonnyb098]

Infinity blade was fun while it lasted. But honestly the hardware can do so much more now that IB is feeling a little stale. It's kind of a silly game but with amazing graphics. You just repeat the same crap over and over. They could have made it first person with the iPhone 5 and iPad 4 hardware and the game would be a whole new beast. Plus they wanted to rape you for money to advance quicker. I would gladly pay 10 or even 20 bucks for a game that would just let me play the damn game and not hamper it with IAP.

[StephenCampbell]

I guess they shouldn't have named it Impossible Studios....

[TimTheEnchanter]

I want my MTV

Money for nothin' and your chicks for free

[Ryth]

Originally Posted by TennisandMusic

Sounds to me like the studio was incompetent, Epic realized this over time, and simply cut their losses.

It's almost always that...along with too much unbilled overhead and honestly salaries that are unsustainable.

Best thing studios / post houses can do is not have non-billables , especially those with large salaries and lots of mid/upper mgmt.

[Stella]

Maybe Infinity Blade: Dungeons was just too ambitious for the iOS and the devices as they stand today?

The other Infinity Blades were very limited in game play - on rails - almost technical demos.

Nice graphics though - but graphics don't make game play.

[Saladinos]

Originally Posted by Lesser Evets

Who still plays games?

Have you even looked at the AppStore top 100? Almost all of the paid apps are games.

[unobtainium]

Originally Posted by Lesser Evets

Who still plays games?



.

Most iphone owners?

[Nunyabinez]

Originally Posted by petsounds

Well, "it wasn't working out, now it's on hold" is a political way of saying, "The Big Huge Games guys we hired sucked, so we had to fire them. Now we have no team to make the game."

Pretty sure this is exactly what happened. When you fire people you risk the potential that they will claim discrimination or that they weren't give time to improve their performance, etc. So, sometimes it is hard to get rid of the "dead wood." But, if you fire everybody, start a new company and invite people from the old company to apply, then it's a lot less risky. I'll bet this is what happened.

[SockRolid]

Sorry to hear about the layoffs.
But Infinity Blade was seriously boring. And ponderous.

[HiRez]

I'm just blown away that you can do that on something that weight about 10 pounds (probably significantly less in the next gen.). It's true you need great gameplay that keeps you engaged to have a great game, but that just looks amazing. There really is almost no limit to what you can do now on an iPad. I mean based on that you could literally play World of Warcraft on an iPad (those graphics technically look beyond WoW).

One thing I think can be a liability is the lack of physical buttons or joysticks, for some game genres (like this one). I never end up liking virtual joystick type games on iOS, that interface always seems clunky and unnatural to me (although there are things that are equally clunky doing on physical joysticks, like gestures). The other is mobile devices with cellular connections still have more latency than home ethernet/WiFi connections, making it difficult to do multiplayer action games well, especially those that are server-based.

[Smigit]

Originally Posted by TouchMint.com

How could they fail with all the free promotion they got? They pretty much had endless apple promotions. Constant features as well as tv ads and even apple keynote promos.

A few people seem to be mentioning how popular Infinity Blade is and the like. Keep in mind Infinity Blade 1 and 2 are made by Chair Entertainment, not Impossible Studios. Chair also created the fantastic Shadow Complex for the XBox 360. While Infinity Blade Dungeons was mentioned at a keynote last year at one point, the ads you see on TV and the titles (IB1 and IBII) featured in most other Apple presentations is by a different development team.

What that all means is they still have the original games developer there and as such, I see no reason to suggest Infinity Blade as a franchise is dead. Impossible Studios was a new studio and all I'd really read from this is that as with many startups, they have failed to bring product to the market and Epic doesn't want to continue investing money in an unproven development team.

It wouldn't surprise me if the game gets handed over to Chair or another one of Epics development houses to finish, depending on the current state of the title. It looked like a good departure from the existing formula so I'd be keen to see that happen...or better yet a Shadow Complex 2.

[roadbloc]

The only game other than Angry Birds that iOS really had going for it.

[Renzatic]

Originally Posted by roadbloc

The only game other than Angry Birds that iOS really had going for it.

Not true. Any platform that plays host to any Metal Slug game instantly becomes the most awesome thing ever.

iOS has TWO of em, man. TWO! That mean it's awesome times infinity.

[Mabus51]

Originally Posted by StephenCampbell

I guess they shouldn't have named it Impossible Studios....

No the name fit the studio perfectly. It was Impossible for them to make a game

[uknowimright]

Originally Posted by Smigit

A few people seem to be mentioning how popular Infinity Blade is and the like. Keep in mind Infinity Blade 1 and 2 are made by Chair Entertainment, not Impossible Studios.

that's what I was thinking

[iSee]

That's too bad. I hardly ever play games anymore but had been looking forward to this one. I hope it's picked up by another development team, but obviously that's very, very unlikely.

[Fatalbert]

Epic Games? That name is so creative!

[Renzatic]

Originally Posted by Fatalbert

Epic Games? That name is so creative!

They used to be Epic Megagames back in the day.

[uknowimright]

Originally Posted by Fatalbert

Epic Games? That name is so creative!

says the guy with an animated character's name as their screen name

[blackcrayon]

Originally Posted by jonnyb098

Infinity blade was fun while it lasted. But honestly the hardware can do so much more now that IB is feeling a little stale. It's kind of a silly game but with amazing graphics. You just repeat the same crap over and over. They could have made it first person with the iPhone 5 and iPad 4 hardware and the game would be a whole new beast. Plus they wanted to rape you for money to advance quicker. I would gladly pay 10 or even 20 bucks for a game that would just let me play the damn game and not hamper it with IAP.

This game was to be quite different than the first two Infinity Blade games - so I don't think your analysis of those applies here. It was a free roaming "Diablo-like" RPG as opposed to a "Punch-Out!" with swords of the first two games. (Call me crazy, I liked Punch-Out!, and i liked the first two Infinity Blade games).

[apolloa]

Oh man!!! I was looking forward to this one! Well Cliffy B leaves and this is what happens... closure closure closure... lets hope they find a way to make it worth while to continue developing the game

[coder12]

Oh man! I have been waiting for IB: Dungeons for a long time now! Hopefully it doesn't get delayed too much longer.

[apolloa]

Originally Posted by Lesser Evets

Who still plays games?

Erm? The millions and millions of people that globally every year help drive the multi billion dollar industry that is worth more then the TV industry I guess?