Midway Newcastle: Inside Story of an Industry Death
The effects of a studio's demise.
Necessary Force
It's easy to forget the actual cost in terms of people's working lives when a studio closes its doors. The case of Midway's Newcastle Studio closure shows this up in sharp relief. Or it did until Steve Pick, who had worked at the Studio, put up a revealing blog posting which we'd recommend you read whether you work in the industry or not.
Titling his piece, 'Midway Newcastle R.I.P.', Steve told SPOnG, "I just wanted to let people know what actually happened behind those closed doors."
The rot began to set in after Midway's filing for bankruptcy protection in the USA (February 2009).
"It was all fine though - we'd still be operational; at that point, we were working on finishing up with Wheelman. The great thing about that was that I (and others) were putting in a lot of latenighters to get the job done, so we were practically too busy to worry about Chapter 11. We just got on with it", says Steve's post.
Despite what was to follow - specifically some negative postings on other forums opining that the failure of the studio was no great loss because 'they did Wheelman' - Steve explains that, "it wasn't as if any of us in the studio were skimping on our workloads. We were passionate about what we did, and we all enjoyed playing videogames. I know, it's a cliche, but it's one which runs throughout the industry; people who work on videogames will more likely or not love playing videogames too."
We are also enlightened as to the effect of the media - and media aggregators - on the creative talent within the industry: "Countless e-mails filtered throughout studio inboxes during the next few weeks. Positive. Negative. Positive. Negative. It was quite literally a rollercoaster ride of emotions. The game was selling well in its opening week though - I think a lot of the guys were quite happy in that respect. Sadly, we also learned how Metacritic worked in not only influencing peoples' minds to a possible purchase of our game, but also how they consider some review scores to have more of a weight to them; a weighted average. How fucked up is that? Unsurprisingly, the IGN review score (of Wheelman) was weighted, and the Metacritic score dropped like a stone."
Despite the knockbacks, "Straight after completion of Wheelman, the studio didn't sit on its laurels. We got back to work on a new IP called Necessary Force, and it was a very exciting prospect. Set in the future, our game would put you in the shoes of a street-toughened cop who would have morality choices during his investigation. You would piece together evidence, make connections, go looking for new suspects and interrogate them. Work had already begun modifying the Wheelman engine to a much more gritter and impressive-looking result; the concept guys began producing beautiful renderings of the cityscape, characters and vehicles, while the designers were busy with documentation and possible scenarios..."
However, passion doesn't mean success and, "Necessary Force wasn't picked up, although it actually helped safeguard the studio's future for that period of time. It showed the studio wasn't entirely worthless as just a studio. We had an IP, we had a chance. A hope. As one hope dissipated, another materialised - we had a chance with a studio I can't name. No, I really can't name it. It was a big studio though, and our boss managed to get us a space to pitch to this studio for a project which would secure our future."
The future was, however, sadly not secure, "We did all we could for the new pitch and we gave it our all. We had to - our futures depended on it. As we did this, I noticed small cracks start to appear. Some studio members moved onto other jobs, significantly a bunch of designers moved up to Dundee to work with Ruffian. It was hard to not ignore their empty seats, their inactive computer terminals. Looking around the studio, it was depressing at times", says Steve.
"We knew nothing was guaranteed, it was actually a guarantee in itself that nothing was guaranteed.
"You could tell (our boss) had a heavy heart on the day he told the studio that the new pitch fell through - we were up against two other companies, and the truth was that although we had produced the best pitch out of the three, the larger studio didn't want to take the risk. Our boss then proceeded to tell us that now was the time to start work on our CVs, our portfolios... "
And then the news of the closure came, "The insolvency bloke handed out RP1 forms to fill in. Like every single horrible form you've filled in during your life, this was full of stupid questions and pitfalls. Some people left with the forms to fill in later, but I wanted to fill it in there and then. I didn't want to fill it in again, and never wanted to look at it again. As me and a workmate were in the foyer going over the form with the aforementioned softly-spoken gent, out of the corner of my eye I saw a locksmith enter the building and begin examining the locks to the front door. They were changing the locks as we were there. Accompanying this locksmith was a squat, middle-aged, balding prick whose job was to make sure none of the employees would leave with any office property. He made some charmless small-talk to one of our effects artists as he left with all of his stuff in the stereotypical cardboard box."
Back in the office, this arsehole made even more of a horrible noise by shouting "30 minutes!" like a disgruntled landlord of a busy pub."
Steve also provides an epilogue, "We heard horrible rumblings which I can't go into detail about, but they only strengthens how despicable it was to not pay us when we were expecting it. Those RP1 forms will mean that we get some kind of monetary compensation back for all our hard work, but only after 8 weeks of waiting for those wonderful legal procedures to take effect. There's been other forms of action too - one of which could be a Phoenix-esque rise from the ashes of Midway Newcastle, but it could be doubtful. After all the heartache we've had to endure, I'm thinking some of us just don't want to be played any more."
As we say, the full posting can be found here. We have left a great deal of Steve's insights out. We absolutely recommend that you read his post.
Titling his piece, 'Midway Newcastle R.I.P.', Steve told SPOnG, "I just wanted to let people know what actually happened behind those closed doors."
The rot began to set in after Midway's filing for bankruptcy protection in the USA (February 2009).
"It was all fine though - we'd still be operational; at that point, we were working on finishing up with Wheelman. The great thing about that was that I (and others) were putting in a lot of latenighters to get the job done, so we were practically too busy to worry about Chapter 11. We just got on with it", says Steve's post.
Despite what was to follow - specifically some negative postings on other forums opining that the failure of the studio was no great loss because 'they did Wheelman' - Steve explains that, "it wasn't as if any of us in the studio were skimping on our workloads. We were passionate about what we did, and we all enjoyed playing videogames. I know, it's a cliche, but it's one which runs throughout the industry; people who work on videogames will more likely or not love playing videogames too."
We are also enlightened as to the effect of the media - and media aggregators - on the creative talent within the industry: "Countless e-mails filtered throughout studio inboxes during the next few weeks. Positive. Negative. Positive. Negative. It was quite literally a rollercoaster ride of emotions. The game was selling well in its opening week though - I think a lot of the guys were quite happy in that respect. Sadly, we also learned how Metacritic worked in not only influencing peoples' minds to a possible purchase of our game, but also how they consider some review scores to have more of a weight to them; a weighted average. How fucked up is that? Unsurprisingly, the IGN review score (of Wheelman) was weighted, and the Metacritic score dropped like a stone."
Despite the knockbacks, "Straight after completion of Wheelman, the studio didn't sit on its laurels. We got back to work on a new IP called Necessary Force, and it was a very exciting prospect. Set in the future, our game would put you in the shoes of a street-toughened cop who would have morality choices during his investigation. You would piece together evidence, make connections, go looking for new suspects and interrogate them. Work had already begun modifying the Wheelman engine to a much more gritter and impressive-looking result; the concept guys began producing beautiful renderings of the cityscape, characters and vehicles, while the designers were busy with documentation and possible scenarios..."
However, passion doesn't mean success and, "Necessary Force wasn't picked up, although it actually helped safeguard the studio's future for that period of time. It showed the studio wasn't entirely worthless as just a studio. We had an IP, we had a chance. A hope. As one hope dissipated, another materialised - we had a chance with a studio I can't name. No, I really can't name it. It was a big studio though, and our boss managed to get us a space to pitch to this studio for a project which would secure our future."
The future was, however, sadly not secure, "We did all we could for the new pitch and we gave it our all. We had to - our futures depended on it. As we did this, I noticed small cracks start to appear. Some studio members moved onto other jobs, significantly a bunch of designers moved up to Dundee to work with Ruffian. It was hard to not ignore their empty seats, their inactive computer terminals. Looking around the studio, it was depressing at times", says Steve.
"We knew nothing was guaranteed, it was actually a guarantee in itself that nothing was guaranteed.
"You could tell (our boss) had a heavy heart on the day he told the studio that the new pitch fell through - we were up against two other companies, and the truth was that although we had produced the best pitch out of the three, the larger studio didn't want to take the risk. Our boss then proceeded to tell us that now was the time to start work on our CVs, our portfolios... "
And then the news of the closure came, "The insolvency bloke handed out RP1 forms to fill in. Like every single horrible form you've filled in during your life, this was full of stupid questions and pitfalls. Some people left with the forms to fill in later, but I wanted to fill it in there and then. I didn't want to fill it in again, and never wanted to look at it again. As me and a workmate were in the foyer going over the form with the aforementioned softly-spoken gent, out of the corner of my eye I saw a locksmith enter the building and begin examining the locks to the front door. They were changing the locks as we were there. Accompanying this locksmith was a squat, middle-aged, balding prick whose job was to make sure none of the employees would leave with any office property. He made some charmless small-talk to one of our effects artists as he left with all of his stuff in the stereotypical cardboard box."
Back in the office, this arsehole made even more of a horrible noise by shouting "30 minutes!" like a disgruntled landlord of a busy pub."
Steve also provides an epilogue, "We heard horrible rumblings which I can't go into detail about, but they only strengthens how despicable it was to not pay us when we were expecting it. Those RP1 forms will mean that we get some kind of monetary compensation back for all our hard work, but only after 8 weeks of waiting for those wonderful legal procedures to take effect. There's been other forms of action too - one of which could be a Phoenix-esque rise from the ashes of Midway Newcastle, but it could be doubtful. After all the heartache we've had to endure, I'm thinking some of us just don't want to be played any more."
As we say, the full posting can be found here. We have left a great deal of Steve's insights out. We absolutely recommend that you read his post.
Read More Like This