LEAKED: SEGA Attempting to SELL HYENAS to Tencent

More HYENAS leaks.
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[@Volound]

someone filed a "defamation complaint" against this video, resulting in it being blocked in the UK..... kzbin.info/www/bejne/gomXgpifqJaKabc

[@Person01234]

I think you misunderstood, Sega are trying to sell Hyenas for ten cents, but they still can't find any buyers.

[@danielmokobia106]

lol

[@dwmarch]

If you didn't say it, I was going to.

[@compatriot852]

With every leak, Creative Assembly is being exposed for being comically corrupt and idiotic

[@Volound]

you said it all. it really is no wonder people impaled upon that very same stupidity end up wanting to speak out about it. i laugh while reading kids (or just warhammer incels) on forums incredulous at the prospect of leakers speaking out against CA. it perfectly proves that they have paid zero attention to anything at any point, exactly as claimed.

[@GeraltofRivia22]

Yeah, this goes beyond the usual corporate laziness and greed. You almost have to try to be this incompetent.

[@foxdavion6865]

​@@VoloundI've been aware of these problems for years, but said nothing and still say nothing because I don't want to be banned for having a critical opinion. But, I also refuse to be a part of the slanderbus; I simply ask people to be polite, civil and make their own judgement based on evidence, I find CA tends to leave me alone when I take this approach.

[@Volound]

the chilling effect in action@@foxdavion6865

[@Hypagon]

​@@VoloundAs you mention the Warhammer incels... I once uploaded a critique a about WH 3 and took it down, because hundreds of them were defending it. Defending beyond any reason. The game was a DLC at best, just like Pharao. The graphics haven't changed since Attila, only the performance got worse. I'm glad someone finally talked about it and gave us some answers.

[@centretotheleft]

Mismanagement rewarded with staff layoffs…. *slow clap

[@rumplstiltztinkerstein]

When the company goes well. The CEO gets a raise. When the company goes badly. The employees are fired.

[@hi5dude2]

Don't worry, upper management still got their hefty bonuses I'm sure.

[@GeraltofRivia22]

OK, but CA never should've hired that many employees in the first place. A company of that size does not need 800+ employees.

[@Subject_Keter]

Imo those people dont deserve life. I am not a Total Nut but i still have flashbacks of Rome 2.

[@joshuahstubbs6753]

Got to pay those rich ceos more

[@bubbasbigblast8563]

The failure of Hyenas made me think that Sega would try to sell CA; I don't think Sega has the ambition or ability to try and fix it.

[@lcmiracle]

They now make so much money from their resorts and pacinko machines, I won't be surprised if they just transition to those safe sectors entirely and abandon the video game market, at this point

[@foxdavion6865]

​​@@lcmiracleSEGA's involvement in the video game sector has been tokenistic for a decade now, doing it mostly out of passion. Rumor has it they plan to sell half their IP to Tencent and the other half to Nintendo. The only thing stopping it are the board and investors being made up of hardcore old school fans. But that same level of love doesn't extend to their western owned IP and studios. I suspect SEGA will pull a Phillips in a decade.

[@Dregomz02]

@@lcmiracle Yakuza, Miku and Personas (SMT and other side games not so much) are still bringing them a lot of money not gonna happen any time soon, but they will ditch Creative Assembly like Square Enix did with Crystal Dynamics that's for sure, actually CA situation is much worse since they spend way more money than CD ever did on their games plus all recent titles are financial flops.

[@skywalker6119]

It comes down to whether they think Total War will still be a consistent moneymaker or not. Selling Hyenas to TenCent or Nexon would be easier for them to do, especially since it's in UE5. They might get $5 mil back.

[@bubbasbigblast8563]

@@skywalker6119 The question is the degree CA was deceiving Sega about the viability of Hyenas: consistent money is good, but a management that's taken to hiding serious issues is pretty much a time bomb, and Sega needs to worry about the precedent ignoring such a serious failure will set for its other companies.

[@maxmagnus377]

Honestly, if I were part of that 42% of the company getting cut over mistakes and hubris by the higher ups, I'd get together with my "former" colleagues and immediately start brainstorming for Middle Ages: Absolute Combat (working title)

[@rageagainstmyhatchet]

Indeed, a company of 20 or 30 can do amazing things, and luckily they would have to start from scratch as the code is CA property.

[@MoreEvilThanYahweh]

How many of these people are actually from Shogun 2 or earlier though? No point in a spiritual successor if they're still participants of the decline era of CA.

[@Tom_Quixote]

Yes, but they might not be interested in medieval combat at all. Modern game development is just an industry where many people are just working on doing textures or animations or whatever, and they don't really have any involvement with what the end result will be.

[@NATIK001]

@@Tom_Quixote You are right, but there might be some older people higher in the company who still care about specific products who could leverage personal respectful relations to some of the people going out to start something new. It's not worth betting money on it though.

[@etienne8110]

The issue is not having the 20-30 talented people. It s to have the money to sustain these 30 peoples for one to two years (let s be honest proably 3 if they need to build a engine)

[@AlexanderTheGoodEnough]

dude. you were all over this before it blew up. perfect reading between the lines to be ahead of the news...to the degree you ARE the news. well done! takes an enviable level of insight to get where you've gotten.

[@WileyBoxx]

Not just insight but experience interacting with CA over many years

[@MarioLeCarre]

You could substitute CA for Bungie and it would all make sense. Plus, substitute Sony for Sega. lol

[@AHersheyHere]

CA trying to make an ‘Escape from Tarkov’/Fortnight hybrid is hilarious. About as far outside of their wheelhouse as one could be.

[@MediumRareOpinions]

I thought the same upon hearing it

[@IceLizardsUnited]

Their description of Hyena sounds a lot like Bungie's new Marathon reboot.

[@JewTube001]

its so random i still don't know how they even came up with the idea.

[@SmoughTown]

Omg Volound, CA will soon be hiring hitmen to take you out. Cannot believe this Saga (excuse the pun) is never ending

[@Volound]

youre not the only person joking along these lines 🤣

[@PageIsYourGod]

​@@Voloundwell considering Wizards of the Coast sent the god damn Pinkertons after someone, I wouldn't be surprised.

[@WhatDarrenPlays]

Whoever said Halo Wars 2 was successful is out of their mind. CA and Microsoft had a multi-game deal to take over Halo Wars. They purchased a building for the team to expand into and named it Spartan House. Halo Wars 2 was developed by CA, the Story was by 343 and the cutscenes were by Blur. SEGA were funded upfront for the game and CA used as a mercenary studio. Similar to Relic (owned by SEGA) making AOE4 for Microsoft. Anyways, Halo Wars 2 critically was mixed, and commercially was a massive flop. I think it topped out at 300K sales. Considering Blur charge about $1m for 1 minute of cutscenes this was a financial disaster of a game, and Microsoft pulled out of making Halo Wars 3. This didn't hurt CA directly considering they were paid upfront for HW2, and they decided that after working with other people's IP for so long, they wanted to work on their own. Also, Alien Isolation was a critical success, but a financial failure, only breaking even several years after release. These leaks are interesting for sure, but there's so much misinformation in them in my opinion. No fault of your own, you can't know and are just reporting what people are saying, but I'd love to know where some of this info comes from.

[@Volound]

the context is hyenas. HW2 seems pretty successful in comparison. id like to know what misinformation there is though. surely you didnt just mean that one comment about HW2? and ive even got people in brand feeding me stuff at this point but you could probably tell. all the same information controls from your time there are still in place at the company. not that it has helped.

[@WhatDarrenPlays]

@@Volound A game that was a massive financial flop, killed the planned sequel and effectively ended the "Halo Wars" IP isn't what I'd call successful even when comparing it to Hyenas. Both are just failures, maybe one less so than the other... I guess, but that's not what the person quoted said. They said they 'believe it was somewhat successful because 343 was in control and competent in the direction'. That's just not the case though, they weren't in control (they made the story and reviewed the project as they are the IP owner, but didn't design any gameplay elements) and they weren't very competent clearly because it was a financial flop and killed the franchise anyways. So that's why I felt the need to comment this particular time. Generally I'm seeing "misinformation" that's only very slight, where every leak seems to come attached with what feels like guesswork or editorialization, but one that feeds the overall narrative not just from your channel by the way, I'm not taking any shots at all, its the leakers I'm having *some* issues with. I may have been there from 2015-2017, but I live 5mins away and have friends still there. I know what the next three titles are, I knew there'd be TW layoffs before Hyneas even closed down... and I think because of this extra info I have I get frustrated at the false comparisons drawn between the shutdown of Hyenas and the impact it has on TW. From my understanding there's virtually no correlation between the two, they have separate budgets from SEGA, don't siphon money from one another, and have no bearing on fiscal reports (the idea that Pharaoh was to make up for Hyenas or something is ludicrous for reasons that would take up two more paragraphs here) and yet TW channels love to report on this because it has the name CA attached to it. Which is fine, but its feeding a narrative that isn't the reality inside for the TW teams at least. They actually have a much bigger issue at the moment than Hyenas and I'm waiting to see if anyone will leak the real "danger" TW is facing for its next few titles. But as far as I know, the Sci Fi project is still being developed, the 3rd person unreal engine game is still being developed, and the next 3 TW titles are still going ahead as planned. It is interesting to see employees get to vent their frustrations though and how stupid the decisions for chasing the live service bag have been. That is interesting and good reporting, even if some leaks aren't fully accurate, they mostly are. But I guess I wish people / the community for TW knew that Hyenas isn't really relevant to Historical Games or Warhammer Games.

[@Volound]

well, mike simpsons done now apparently. no involvement on hyenas. robs gone. he was there for total war this entire time. nearly 400 people are gone, all in. massive load of total war people are being made redundant and i know that myself just from clicking around linkedin and seeing people with 10-15 years on TW who are losing their jobs now. and this is all so close to hyenas that it isnt a coincidence. warhammer 3 didnt just become completely shite overnight. SEGA gave CA space to fuck up. they fucked up. things are being tightened up now. short leash time. "I expect SEGA to get more involved with CA and intervene more in the upcoming years." - what the person that first told me about rob being sacked (i trust them implicitly) just told me earlier today. hyenas snapped SEGA to attention. clearly.

[@WhatDarrenPlays]

Unfortunately it is a coincidence. I'm telling you its a coincidence, its not guesswork on my part, it is a coincidence. Total War has a few big ongoing issues right now, that meant they were going to face layoffs regardless of Hyenas. For one, their original Game Director for the next historical game left a few months ago, and has left the project in a bad state. I won't go any further into that. The other issue is the simultaneous development of the next three titles. This is also causing an internal tension. As well as this, many studios around the world are going through periods of layoffs right now. It's a combination of factors, mostly due to bloat and over-hiring during covid. The increase in cashflow is typically spent on investments and employees to lower your tax burden. This is certainly the case for CA. Their teams have ballooned up, and productivity has gone down. Case in point would be the DLC team is 3x its size during Warhammer 1's lifecycle, and yet DLC releases far slower and its sales have been slowing down too. Three Kingdoms 2 was announced in the Future of Three Kingdoms video, but its been quietly cancelled. The issue with the next Historical game has also drawn the ire of SEGA who are apparently much more cutthroat now with CA, whereas before they were very passive. This is for a few reasons, and is happening with companies like Sony and Tencent who are getting more involved with their western studios, because the Yen is massively suffering right now, and they need to cut costs. You're correct that Mike Simpson is retiring, he sent an email about it early in the year and its taken effect just before Hyenas announcement. Anyone who works on TW will tell you he hasn't really been involved with Total War creatively since Shogun 2. He's brilliant though, but I think due to SEGA he never got involved seriously with TW again. Rob B was removed of leadership, but in the email about that to the studio, there was mention he may be taking a role at SEGA. From my understanding, about 10% of TW teams are being let go, mostly in the ancillary areas like marketing, live ops and QA. Marketing has been gutted. @@Volound

[@Volound]

wow some interesting things there, and some things i can dig in deeper with to see what else i can find. the rob role at SEGA sounds extremely fishy though. ill be checking that and id advise you maybe to do the same, im assuming you havent seen that email and someone just offhandedly remarked along those lines? either way it sounds off based on what ive seen and heard. its possible i just seriously doubt it and have reasons to. we will see. thanks anyway, i just care about reporting whats apparently true.

[@kraftyevan]

Corporations have the same issue as governments, no PERSONAL stake. As I saw a guy put it, executives don't OWN the company, they are temporary managers, so they don't act in the interest of the company because the company isn't their PERSONAL stake. When there is an OWNER like Larian for example, the games being good and the longevity of the company is a personal importance.

[@JewTube001]

yes exactly. the majority of people who work for a corpo don't care whatever the corpo is suppose to do. this is why you see this so often. the vast majority of it's members are 9-5ers who screw around on their phones/social media all day, management included.

[@Orendiz]

the irony of having footage of intense high micro managment done right while talking about CA's Mismanagement.

[@iwankazlow2268]

I kinda disagree. What we see is people being fired or disgruntled for not "using modern tools". And how those people talk about management and "the old geezers". All who made statements about how long they were in CA said about a decade. Sooo... To put it bluntly, they haven't worked on anything good (Warhammer relies purely on the brand), the first result they could have worked on was Rome 2 Total war, which was an insult. And they are those people who CA brought in in massive hiring sprees. I see young people jumping into CA for a cushioned job, hoping that all the work would be done by the seniors. And than they realize that those "geezers" have no plan themselfes, those who had already left the ship a looong time ago. Instead of a chushioned ride they have to row endlessly and stop the water from leaking into the ship constantly. I do not see any people who would be able to remake such a detailed game as Shogun or Medieval Total War, nor make new progress into Rome, nor refine it in something like Medieval 2. I see a company 800 people strong whos best achievement to fix anything is to simply cut it. No free armies, no population control, single City empires in Warhammer, Doomstacks and Single entity Units, forced army composition... everything to not fix ANY problems.

[@Orendiz]

@@iwankazlow2268 wow that's a lotta words too bad i'm not reading em. 😎

[@MrSierra116]

@@iwankazlow2268 too long, but i agree, Total War was playing it too safe/irresponsible (Rome 2) now after Shogun 2

[@r3dr4te963]

@@iwankazlow2268 yea, I feel CA's modern games have worse mechanic/ gimmick than older games. If it's not for Warhammer fans, TW probably already down long time ago

[@kkirT]

Hyenas sounds like one of those fake games they have as a plot device in a movie or TV show

[@mathieuwe]

Might as well have named it Battlenite or Fortgrounds or something, lol.

[@HowardBaxter]

The story about the brand managers trying to get the CPO to change course, then being made redundant now that the shit hit the fan just boils my blood. A very similar thing happened to me in the automotive industry. I despise the corporate structure of zero accountability of large companies.

[@wile123456]

Everytime a company approaches tencent, the Chinese companies reaction must always be "You must surely be desperate to ask for my help" lmao

[@JewTube001]

tencent is basically the bank/pawnshop of the gaming industry. if you need money, you go to them.

[@wile123456]

@@JewTube001 meanwhile Embrace group is the rich Arab oil prince who will give you money and invest because he isn't very smart, then ruin your company and withdraw everything when his bugatti crashes for the tenth time 😂

[@headlessfool7050]

Wait, did you just say WotC ?

[@abarker1805]

What a dumpster fire...

[@patrickswayze3086]

That last part is so sad, brand team saying early to cancel the game before the money gets spent. Money gets spent, game gets cancelled, the people who warned this would happen are the ones who pay for it. The people who pushed for this game to happen should resign

[@foxdavion6865]

Brand team were hanging out at Nottingham too much; Games Workshop's toxic middle management yuppies had melted their brains.

[@ltcinsane]

It's fascinating how short sighted corpos can be.

[@aleale6277]

As I see it, SEGA corporates stepped in and tried to put a stop at the mismanagement, or at least sent warnings to CA. I dont think the disaster is at corporate level, it seems they gave CA a lot of freedom...

[@Legio_Purpura_10_28]

One could Wonder how they even became big in The First place.

[@crackshack2]

@@Legio_Purpura_10_28normoes are impressed by mba’s

[@JewTube001]

many corpos are essentially welfare programs. most people on them don't actually do any work. this is why they screw up like this. because nobody actually does their job.

[@alexandermedvedev8018]

I used to work for CA in the console team and left after Halo Wars 2 just before Hyenas development started. I think on one of the company meetings the head of CA said they had enough money to buy themselves back from Sega. I don't know the legal nuances but you should understand that there was plenty of independence for CA. Sega was more like a minority investor when it comes to decision making. Or this was my impression.

[@r3dr4te963]

So like, Sega probably don't really know what's going on with Hyena, then found out recently and decided to pull the plug. Then CA get panic, and all shits go down.

[@alexandermedvedev8018]

What I was trying to say is that Sega most probably can't sack CA's tops. It's not that they don't want to. They just can't do it legally I think.

[@crackshack2]

@@alexandermedvedev8018So total war is in the hands of greedy corporate idiots.

[@r3dr4te963]

Ok. From what I see is, while Sega can't intervene in CA internal development, they still can decide how the game being launched. I guess Sega choose to cutloss after calculating the numbers, and seeing how other live service games perform.

[@RambleOn07]

I'd bet that Sega wishes that CA bought them out.

[@fyiicheckforspies]

Ironic that their ESG-core character designs were called out as "potentially offensive".

[@GeraltofRivia22]

You can't ever please that crowd. No matter how hard you pander.

[@chasingthefish9042]

​@GeraltofRivia22 true, the harder you pander the more people you insult. Esg also hurts bottom line because instead of hiring the best you hire based off skin and sex. The only people who will find this comment "problematic" are the people who only have their job because whatever esg requirement they used to get their job.

[@MK_ULTRA420]

@@chasingthefish9042 That's why you also shame your target audience into buying your product.

[@chasingthefish9042]

@MK_ULTRA420 can't shame people in today's society man. It's impossible. We got dudes cutting their peens off and dry freezing them for key chains. I do see what your saying though. Only people buying esg products are esg products.

[@Tomezilla514]

@@chasingthefish9042 Nah, I find it problematic because it is untrue. But feel free to cite your sources.

[@Pilps]

This just keeps getting better and better 🤣

[@Volound]

what an absolute fucking shitshow

[@mashizzung9911]

Probably one of the most embarrassing game companies in human history. Even Blizzard would be humbled.

[@angshumanroy277]

The anguish and disillusionment of these hardworking people is so much palpable in their statements....it's both sad and infuriating how much this pioneer company in gaming world has fallen.

[@nickbarone6206]

As someone in the industry its almost always executives and they also never suffer any reprecussions

[@gavinadams4572]

I feel sorry for the people with familys to support who lost their job.

[@PageIsYourGod]

Keep this in mind next time someone says business owners take the largest risks in business. Those poor people.

[@desnicar]

@@PageIsYourGod I mean, they do. Unless the employees bankrolled the game.

[@PageIsYourGod]

@@desnicar They don't. People build their whole lives around their jobs. People probably moved to CA, got a house, have a kid and we're expecting to work for a year+. Some fat cat who put down some collateral and can write it off in bankruptcy hasn't sacrificed nearly as much. Respect yourself as a worker dude.

[@nvmtt1403]

he DID say, people see CA as a way to settle down and have a family. in a quiet english town. and that is not how you usually run a game studio.

[@JewTube001]

@@desnicar But it's equal. If we both lose our incomes then we both lose our incomes. But I suppose this will be different if you think the life of a billionaire is worth exactly 1000 millionaires.

[@HisRotundity]

The phrase "assume incompetence before malice" is and has always been a sham when so much evidence of incompetence joined to malice at the hip exists.

[@The_Crimson_Fucker]

This echoes what I pointed out before about the Brand team being scapegoated to cover up general incompetence. Everyone's story is "it wasn't me, it was those people over there! It was the executives, they did it to us!" but then when they talk about company culture and other developers they say "nobody wants to learn anything new, nobody's comfortable with new technology, everyone's complacent and banking on never being fired, it's a sleepy job in a sleepy town, there's too much cronyism" and these narratives don't track together. The Total War team is saying "the guys doing Hyenas are no good, they've got no experience!" the Hyenas guys are saying "the Total War team is a bunch of lazy old dudes that can't stand change", everyone is trying to play a narrative that makes them and their friends look good and shuffles all the blame onto another part of the company. The sad fact is that none of these people will learn anything from this, they'll just disperse into other companies where they'll continue to be incompetent. Eventually some of them will fail up enough that they'll destroy another studio with their antics.

[@peterruskov]

Good point, some people may miss the fact that some of these leakers are responsible for the cringe that is Hyenas and that they cashed their checks for 6 years without complaining or doing anything. Where were the leaks before they knew that they can lose their jobs if the things in CA were so rotten? 🤔

[@sebastianprimomija8375]

The fact that 343 was more competent than CA is shocking.

[@Crucial_End]

The more leaks the more all of this makes sense. Its baffling how people can be this incompetent, I find hard to beleive despite it happening in front of my eyes. Its such a ridiculous situation that it almost looks like the evil plot from a moustache twirling evil cartoon villain. If I did not know any better I would say it was intentional. Its like jumping into a lake and get surprised that you are now surrounded by water. The incompetence is just incredible.

[@alexanderward3147]

Things that are factually correct can still be unfathomably idiotic sadly

[@erikrandall7650]

So for Hyenas they were willing to upgrade the engine, but the past decade of TW we haven't gotten any change???

[@Legio_Purpura_10_28]

One could see where their "priorities" were. Disgusting wokeists.

[@tuppytheducky]

I’m so glad I didn’t get the job applied for at CA earlier this year, I got through to the final rounds of interviews and met a lot of people who were mostly wonderful but I’m really glad I didn’t uproot my life where I am to move to Horsham to be in the firing line now.

[@bustabusts]

All they had to do was make medieval Total war or a new empire. It can't just be upper management. All they had to do was just make a reskin of something like Attila.. like the 1212 mod but with more features.

[@firefang225]

Upper management decide what projects do and don't get greenlit. There's a decent chance even the incompetent middle management raised the idea for games people would actually like, only for the old, bigger idiots up top to dismiss them

[@siegessaule]

16:09 I was certain the decline of TW was because the original devs from the RTW and TWM2 moved on. Sounds like they or their friends got promoted and they just grew fat on TW's reputation from the 00s. That makes the decline even worse!

[@peterruskov]

All of them moved on except Mike Simpson. The devs that made Medieval 2 are not even in gaming anymore.

[@seeinred]

I've been in the industry for almost a decade now, and following this tragicomedy was very enlightening. I've kinda got used to reading on big studios making tremendous fuckups and generally being a scum of the earth (Blizzard, EA, Bethesda), but this story hits different for some reason. Maybe because it's much lesser scope of the studio? Unsure. Regardless, thank you for bringing this story to our attention. And have a wonderful day!

[@ravanpee1325]

Because they already had a money making formula with Warhammer 2 and all the DLCs - and messed up so heavily for nothing

[@markcummins4037]

noooo don’t badtalk the heckerino corporation!!!! I have a parasocial relationship with them and have gaslit myself into liking their games! JUST LET PEOPLE ENJOY THINGS!!!! 😡😡😡

[@strugglesnuggledslime7040]

What annoys me the most about all this honestly is that SEGA didnt step in sooner. Would have been better for all involved(well the two companies anyway). We could have gotten Vanquish 2 and 3 with all that wasted funding ffs.

[@Pers0n97]

The stereotypical dragqueen didn't got changed, they even made him one of the figurehead of the game.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

In Holland, we have aa term for this situation where higher ups keep each other out of the wind. It called the job carousel. Once you get on it, everyone else keeps you on, because theyre all scared to fall off. Its one of the main reasons I prefer working for smaller IT companies.

[@WorLadCiz]

I don’t know many family oriented businesses like CA who have so many disgruntled employees and ex employees too…

[@SpudCommando]

You should check out what's happening with Sega and Phantasy Star. Many of CA's downfalls are echoing with Sega's own internal MMO team.

[@supersardonic1179]

Nice one SEGA, we don't get a new Jet Set Radio game but you'll blow 100M on this. Couldn't have happened to a better company.

[@sionbarzad5371]

full priced and full of microtransactions?? So happy it flopped then, CA totally deserved to lose 100 millions LOL

[@Darkflo23]

Between CA and Bungie, these few months have been pretty interresting to watch.

[@GodofToast]

Every time it looks like it can’t get worse… it gets worse

[@hbfb1123]

Most gaming companies problem is the higher,parent company meddling in their business ex: deep silver convinced volition to make saints row about friendship instead of gang warfare like the old classics. CA's problem seems to be the exact opposite. The top guys are not coming in and beating them enough. Which i find ironic.

[@CoolSs]

bean counters should have never been allowed to be part of gaming

[@weeweewoowoo8984]

Thanks for continuing to cover this stuff. Awesome to be able to inform people as of what’s actually going on before they go blow their money on this company.

[@dmomintz]

these companies are just so out of touch.

[@phantomjoker5]

*WHAT THE HELL?!*

[@alexrexaros9837]

I feel bad for the staff that had to work for Hyenas. They probably did all they could, with the actual Hyenas pulling the strings of the studios bashing them and crushing their hours.

[@notmyname12]

Yeah, the dipshit stuffed suits are to blame, not the staff trying to make the game working under that clownshow. A chatbot probably could do a better job spitting out both future plans and handling community outreach than what we've seen from the actual humans at the helm.

[@peterruskov]

Don't agree, have you seen the footage from the game? Somebody had to make that cringe and it wasn't management.

[@hestiasol128]

you know CA execs are bad when 343 execs were preferred by CA devs who worked on Halo Wars 2

[@NoHairMan]

Pretty soon one could write a book about this tragedy.

[@doug_durray]

Horsham is a tiny town but is actually considered a commuter town. Its

[@osamanbenjarmin]

So many creative companies that used to be top dog are going down the toilet. EA, Disney, 343i/Halo, CA. All they need to do is let creatives be creative and the money will flow!

[@strakk]

I KNEW the fucking baguette thing was real.

[@Filip_Agrippa]

I don't know. They keep saying how CA needs new blood and the old guys should leave, but that thing happened with Blizzard and Bioware and look at their games now. They don't need new people, especially not people with ideologies, they need better philosophy.

[@sempersteel2799]

Man that ending. That was the sigh of a man whose been proven right and hates it. That's a hell of a melancholy sound.

[@Pers0n97]

We should name and shame the person responsible for Hyena that managed to keep their job.

[@monkian]

That PS will never get old.

[@AdamNisenziSpisak]

"Hyenas was supposed to be full of microtransactions..........and sold as a full price flagship game" Holy fuck......

[@iwannaplayssbb6665]

Join the ACK!

[@dontbetrippin4575]

The only one who can fire those executives is SEGA

[@brothir]

Certainly a Creative Assembly of dysfunction.

[@bibby659]

At this point, Sega need to guy the crap out of the top leading staff, not just Rob but everyone at the top, and at this point even if they must replace them with their own people, those people would likely understand what would be needed, what would be wanted, and what to do in scenarios requiring a certain touch where these Executives clearly dont care, dont want anything, dont need anything, and dont want to change anything for certain scenarios.

[@captainsternn7684]

Sounds exaclty like Walmart 100%

[@dextrodemon]

2:20 the way sooo many industries somehow thought that the covid money would last forever really confirms the 'short sighted business jerks' stereotype. still works out for us on the whole, lot of cheap nerd stuff around now as they try to sell off massive inventories of like..model paint and gaming chairs they're stuck with. lol.

[@xebetax]

"The toilet was blocked by a baguette..." "How long for?" 😂

[@Lewwdog]

When I was at high school about 7 years ago, someone put a baguette in the toilet and blocked it . Baguettes must be a perfect toilet blocker.

[@zahfa7608]

CA Bootlicker: "We are ignoring Volound, but why does this keep happening to our favourite game company? Must be Volound fault"

[@DaemonPrince]

I REALLY wanted this game to come out, just wanted to see the corporate agenda of what a BR extraction shooter would be by CA.

[@caseblue2232]

It made so much sense after watching this. I often compared CA with Paradox, Paradox strategy games often innovates, Victoria 3 is a flawed game, yet they willing to try something new with the war system. They are extremely open about modding as well. But then there's CA, I mod both TW and HOI4, and I can't stress enough how the official modding tools for TW are so dated, crashes and error are very common. But you can literally mod Paradox games with a fucking Notepad!

[@ballistic2527]

Now, all the pieces of the puzzle is slowly falling into place

[@Binary84]

I am not a fan of Tencent games but I have to say, games coming from Tencent is way better than Hyenas. So, I highly doubt the executives over at Tencent would be impress by Hyenas esp how Troy probably also flopped on Epic platform.

[@SynthLizard8]

The fact that they tried to sell a game as a Live-service and think that as long as they don't use the word "Live Service" pretty much spells out how much surface level thinking was going on there. The gaming industry is now beginning to realise that they can't surf on every wave.

[@lonewanzerpilot]

Man I wanna compliment your cavalry play throughout the video.

[@LegendofTotalWar]

Awesome video!

[@iangregory9763]

You know CA’s management is bad if they make 343 seem competent in comparison lmfao.

[@RambleOn07]

I wish that CA was old school. If they kept the depth and hardcore nature of medieval 1 through 2. I'd still be happy. The problem is that they've become arcade games and abandoned everything that makes a strategy/tactics game like what made them famous.

[@Kuzyn]

This is a sad story. And seems more ridiculous for me since it's a British company. Country of many economic revolutions, big businesses with people who knows how to make money. Maybe that's a bigger problem with gamedev in general. For example here in Poland, the biggest gamedev company CDPR known for Witcher games and Cyberpunk is a typical example of how not run the gamedev studio. But despite everything they almost always succed anyway. But at what cost? After Witcher 1 they almost went bankrupt, they had to cut Witcher 2 because they were basically bankrupt. They've restarted Cyberpunk few times and didnt have developers who knew the tech (Red Engine) because most of them left after W3 release. And in the end, they wasted many careers and big potential - after every release tons of people were leaving, except leaders/seniors etc... In Poland they are known for paying average salaries, pushing lot of overtime and burning out talented people. We have a running joke that almost every gamedev studio in Poland can be called as "authors of Witcher/Cyberpunk" because so many people left in the past. And okay, we are living in capitalist economy for only about 30 years, we dont have proper management studies, sucessful people - the founders of CDPR know how to sell games (they were publishers/distributors in the beginning) but it looks like they are not learning how to run the company properly which resulted in shitshow of Cyberpunk. Average game with massive bugs and many unfinished game and gameplay mechanisims. Eh.

[@FlippableFlappy]

Brits are finished. They havent put out anything worth while in decades and their pm is a poo in loo, LOL

[@jm-ng7bv]

We are amused

[@sushmag4297]

Why tf don't they just make the games people are asking for. A medieval 3 or Rome 3 or shogun 3 would sell insanely well. Why do these fkin companies keep shooting themselves in the foot? Not every game can be fortnite or apex legends.

[@RandomIdiotGS]

One message read that the Total War team would not have been able to develop new skills and that the Total War formula is no longer a winning formula. Maybe this is true, but the core gameplay of Total War has never grown outdated to its fans... it's the method in which it is developed and presented (with some aspects somehow worse than older Total War games, like siege battles) coupled with not giving fans what they want and releasing all unwanted content for outrageous prices. I imagine that there are many safe projects CA could do that would still get fair interest, reception and profits by default, such as: - Total War: Warhammer content we actually asked for - Total War: Warhammer 40K (you all know the idea is out there) - Medieval 3: Total War (even just a modern quality reskin with the same gameplay with a tiny bit of polishing would go a long way with fans) - World War 1: Total War and World War 2: Total War (at bit risky, but I don't think anybody would outright reject it) - Shogun 3: Total War (bit random, but Shotgun 2 was so successful and is so fresh in the minds of players that a remastered version would surely hold them over) Only Total War: Warhammer 40K and World War 2: Total war would require some leaps with vehicle and unit combat mechanics that might be a bit risky, but otherwise their concepts alone are going to draw crowds. I don't think any of those games would require insane gameplay effort to be a hit and these are just the most obvious ideas. In fact Total War: Warhammer 2 was such a big success that they could seek out another rich game universe to deliver a Total War-style game in. There's huge potential for Total War to apply their winning formula to some "universe" and get away with profit (if they don't get a bad deal on licensing).

[@PenguinDT]

"343 was in control and competent". THAT'S how bad things are at CA? That 343i looks competent in comparison? Bloody yikes.

[@EnRandomSten]

knew a guy who started working at CA for warhammer 3 before going on to working on other TW games down the pipeline. He described how part of his job was literally copying code and archetecure from TW titles as far back as napoleon from this bloated mess of a catalog that was used by all developers. needless to say, he left.

[@Whiteyy191]

Here’s something I don’t think most people understand: you know how you show up to work and do as little work as possible to avoid being fired or ‘work from home’ with a mouse jiggler? The guys at the top are doing the exact same thing.

[@GrandAdmThrawn]

I'm hoping for a day when all those greedy a-hole executives, not only at CA, get some good old punishment from the devs.

[@cybergames3436]

Holy hell 343 industries may have earned more of my respect for keeping the reigns on halo wars 2.

[@panthermit8.835]

Stories about hyenas and CA in general much more interesting than new CA game(pharaoh)

[@Sloth-ZA]

not even tencent would want this shit

[@GiveMeBackMyUsernameYouTube]

I'd like if these 400 fired employees went off and formed their own competing company and made better versions of Total War games.

[@nakatomitower5869]

I found your channel after someone posted a video on the old TW forums. That person was downvoted and called names, along with you. I checked you out and found you knew what you were talking about. The CA execs are out of touch and in denial just like a very, very vocal and downvoting minority of TW fans are.

[@bednoises6391]

Imagine executives ruining things, and instead of them getting in trouble for it, they fire lowly devs.

[@MarioLeCarre]

You could substitute CA for Bungie and it would all make sense. Plus, substitute Sony for Sega. lol

[@Bardathe111]

Oh no, not offensive characters. Sounds like it would have been just as bad if the team had their way.

[@1453YT]

those cannons are beautiful in action

[@The_Blackshield]

I saw a Bellular News video today that stated that Sega make most of their money from gambling, with CA effectively costing them money. Sega would rather focus on their Pachinko machines instead of games. Because gambling makes stupid money. Video games, less so.

[@metaflight9495]

Seems like the problem with CA is literally just the problem with the UK in minature.

[@MrSierra116]

So thats it then I dont think we'll ever get a Medieval 3 or Shogun 3 Total War is done, its finished

[@skinless333x2]

The part where the dev explains that they feedback was ignored is just full circle of the tw community isn't it? CA got feedback over a decade externally and ignored everything as well.

[@fearan9406]

Because of you I bought a pitchfork and a whetstone