Driver Boss Walks – Reflections Trouble Flares
Edmondson jumps ship after dire spell.
In unfortunate news breaking today, Martin Edmondson, founder and managing and creative director of troubled Reflections Interactive, has quit the firm.
The news comes after the studio’s latest offerings - Stuntman and DRIV3R - were mauled by press and gamers alike, with the latter kicking up a storm of negative publicity that saw fudged review score gossip flare to crisis point.
Speaking to trade weekly MCV, Edmonson said, “Having founded Reflections in 1984 and enjoyed almost two decades of creative and commercial success there, I still feel a great sense of attachment to the studio and am very sad to leave. Reflections remains home to a team of talented and committed people and I wish them all a great deal of success in the future. It is too early for me to announce my own plans, but I fully intend to carry on creating original IP and bringing successful games to market.”
However, this comment masks the simple truth that the market as a whole has simply lost faith in the offerings of Reflections, following the studio’s abject failure to cope with current-generation hardware. Given that the firm barely managed to nail down saleable PlayStation 2 and Xbox offerings, can we really expect anyone at owner Atari to finance a project on next-generation hardware?
Sadly, SPOnG doubts this very much.
The news comes after the studio’s latest offerings - Stuntman and DRIV3R - were mauled by press and gamers alike, with the latter kicking up a storm of negative publicity that saw fudged review score gossip flare to crisis point.
Speaking to trade weekly MCV, Edmonson said, “Having founded Reflections in 1984 and enjoyed almost two decades of creative and commercial success there, I still feel a great sense of attachment to the studio and am very sad to leave. Reflections remains home to a team of talented and committed people and I wish them all a great deal of success in the future. It is too early for me to announce my own plans, but I fully intend to carry on creating original IP and bringing successful games to market.”
However, this comment masks the simple truth that the market as a whole has simply lost faith in the offerings of Reflections, following the studio’s abject failure to cope with current-generation hardware. Given that the firm barely managed to nail down saleable PlayStation 2 and Xbox offerings, can we really expect anyone at owner Atari to finance a project on next-generation hardware?
Sadly, SPOnG doubts this very much.
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Comments
config 16 Dec 2004 13:36
1/4
Perhaps Edmondson is sick to death of having Atari force changes upon the titles he and his team create - changes that are ultimately detrimental to the product. Keep in mind that the original (and excellent) Driver was published by GT Interactive, and since GT were bought by Infogrames RI's produce has been lacking.
Having said that, Reflections was responsible for "Shadow of the Beast", a game which looked great but was basically s**t - a familiar trait if we look at RI's recent output...
Having said that, Reflections was responsible for "Shadow of the Beast", a game which looked great but was basically s**t - a familiar trait if we look at RI's recent output...
Joji 16 Dec 2004 14:01
2/4
Edmundson isn't the first person to do this though. I really think that when a softco begins to get more money and buy out happens a lot of control and focus is lost when things are rushed to shop shelves.
This rushing by large companies is the real problem that is making gamers and those in the industry loose faith in so many games. Perhaps this change will do Edmundson some good and bring back his creative edge, to try something else than driving games all the time. Time will tell whether he's stick in the same gear.
20 years ain't to bad to work for the same company though.
This rushing by large companies is the real problem that is making gamers and those in the industry loose faith in so many games. Perhaps this change will do Edmundson some good and bring back his creative edge, to try something else than driving games all the time. Time will tell whether he's stick in the same gear.
20 years ain't to bad to work for the same company though.
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YenRug 16 Dec 2004 14:21
3/4
Joji wrote:
when things are rushed to shop shelves.
Didn't Driver 3 (no, I refuse to do that stupid name they came up with) have one of the longest development times of all PS2 games made, so far? Wouldn't exactly call that rushed to the shelves, more like being incapable of working on the hardware.
Joji 16 Dec 2004 14:36
4/4
Okay I'll give you that but I also meant on a wider scale throughout the industry too.
I also think Driver was outclassed simply because the competition eclipsed it quickly. GTA blew Driver folk away (twice if you count San Andreas) and Reflections is still recovering from the first gun blast let alone the second.
Driver needed fixing and possibly reworking to match the competition, but I bet Atari etc probably wasn't interested and the rest is history. Question now is will Reflections and Atari learn from the mistakes they are repeating? Will they now try something new without cars/crime as the focus?
I also think Driver was outclassed simply because the competition eclipsed it quickly. GTA blew Driver folk away (twice if you count San Andreas) and Reflections is still recovering from the first gun blast let alone the second.
Driver needed fixing and possibly reworking to match the competition, but I bet Atari etc probably wasn't interested and the rest is history. Question now is will Reflections and Atari learn from the mistakes they are repeating? Will they now try something new without cars/crime as the focus?