Aliens: Court Marines - "I say we take Sega's money and Nuke the entire IP from orbit..."

[Scott]

I tend to not trust reviews but reviews or not, this was always gonna be a Day 1 purchase for me, being a fan of the films

 

Besides, I only payed £12 for it had a good amount on my Trade-in card and loyalty card cutting Game's £45 price tag to £12

[Speederino]

My God, does anyone here pay attention to Randy Pitchford's Twitter? The dude is outright blocking anyone who has anything negative to say about A:CM or the way it was publicized (Jim Sterling included, which is how I found out about this). I have no idea how to screencap Tweets properly (not in a time-efficient way at least), but here's one of the choicier ones:

 

As a glass-half-full kind of guy, so I only want positive feelings with my personal twitter. Thanks for understanding!

 

That seems like a very unrealistic attitude to take as a high-profile game designer who just released a major dud, doesn't it? And the people I've seen him block so far haven't exactly been super rude or issued death threats or anything, they're just criticizing the game and expressing contempt at their hurt wallets.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Video contains.... contains... contains... Contains.... It contains... Aliens.

 

[Detective Shadzter]

Just found an article on Destructoid regarding what Speederino's talking about after going through Jim Sterling and Randy Pitchford's Twitter accounts.
 
Randy Pitchford has only time for Colonial Marines praise
Still zero explanation for the game itself
http://www.destructoid.com/developer-gearbox-lied-to-sega-2k-over-colonial-marines-245986.phtml

 

Lol @ the recently made Twitter accounts praising the game and Randy suddenly appearing from a long silence to respond to their comments.

 

There's this. too.

Developer: Gearbox lied to SEGA, 2K over Colonial Marines
Anonymous Aliens whistle blower blows whistle anonymously
http://www.destructoid.com/developer-gearbox-lied-to-sega-2k-over-colonial-marines-245986.phtml

[sonfan1984]

It's funny how I barely paid any attention to this game until the reviews and the horror stories over who's actually developing it came out.

[Balding Spider]

'Aliens: Colonial Marines' is biggest-selling release of 2013

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a459513/aliens-colonial-marines-is-biggest-selling-release-of-2013.html

It's taken the top spot on the weekly UK all-format chart. 

W-why this game though? I just hope this doesn't send a message to Sega about the quality of a game not really mattering.

Sega should go ahead with the lawsuit. Thanks to Gearbox, Sega's reputation has gone downhill again.

News to me. The reactions I've read put the blame mainly on Gearbox for creating such a half assed and unfinished mess game. Also while criticizing Sega for not keeping close enough tabs on the games development.

I think the rights for Borderlands should be handed over to Sega, especially since they funded the games.

That makes no sense, and even then why burden Sega with the responsibility of being in charge of such a boring series.

Edited February 20, 2013 by Balding Spider

[Speederino]

...What?

 

 

If this game was better, that would be a funny, really off-the-wall easter egg. As is, it fells more like there was more effort put into rolling doughnut physics then the Aliens.

[Badnik Mechanic]

...What?

 

 

If this game was better, that would be a funny, really off-the-wall easter egg. As is, it fells more like there was more effort put into rolling doughnut physics then the Aliens.

 

You've actually just reminded me. This game has a lot of Easter Eggs in it, some of them are quite complex and had a lot of stuff thought as well as resources put into them.

 

It says a lot about game development these days when easter eggs take greater importance than the actual game.

[Jacky]

the RIDE never ENDS.



http://http://www.destructoid.com/gearbox-embezzled-aliens-colonial-marines-money-246558.phtml

Rumor: Gearbox 'embezzled' Aliens: Colonial Marines money

An anonymous writer, who has been regularly spilling details from within SEGA on the blog SEGA Awakens, has addressed the ongoing Aliens: Colonial Marines saga, adding fresh perspective and blaming SEGA, TimeGate, and Gearbox in different ways. Mostly Gearbox, though.

I've independently corroborated the blogger's information using my own resources, which is why I'm confident enough to share his rather valuable insight. In his blog, the man writing under the alias "Bryan Danielson" states  that the torrent of rumors following Colonial Marines' release are "99% true," but wished to correctly apportion the blame.

In an engrossing read, the writer separated the culpability of the three main entities involved, detailing exactly how SEGA, TimeGate, and Gearbox messed up. He begins with TimeGate, the studio rumored to be responsible for most of Aliens' development under Gearbox's command.

"TimeGate is at fault for: Wanting to even take on this project and their shoddy work," Danielson wrote. "Granted, I heard about their claims about Gearbox having full creative control, but they should have tried to show their side of the argument and fight more if they had problems with Gearbox's creative control and creative direction.

"Honestly, I thought they should have risked some arguments and the possibility of losing the contract, if they
had problems with the project like the Reddit poster said. However, there still is a chance of their claims being a lie or a half truth, but as I said above, TimeGate has some responsibility."

The whistle blower addressed the idea of TimeGate throwing out Gearbox's original project work when it took over, but could only offer speculation. The possibility is entertained that TimeGate may not have been legally allowed to use Gearbox's work, but it's also entirely possible the new studio decided to start again from scratch for some other reason.

"SEGA is at fault for: Announcing the project in 2007 when no work was done at all," he continued. "In my views, a game project should be announced publicly when it is 50-60% done, so you won't have to wait 6 years for a game that turns out to be shit.

"SEGA is also responsible for not permanently cancelling the game in 2008. I don't know who found out about the mishandling of funds by Gearbox, but [canceling Colonial Marines] had to be one of the few right decisions the board has done, or this person is one of the few board members who knew what they were doing (from what I heard, this person may have left the board a while ago when SEGA decided to start the project again). This game should have been cancelled permanently, and the final product is undeniable proof of it.

"Despite that, I believe SEGA wanted to try to get some of the money back, at the fans' expense. So another blame for SEGA there. SEGA should have also watched the project and development a lot better, because there was a lot of warning signs that said this was a disaster in the making. So whoever was assigned to watch Gearbox and the game has some responsibility too, unless the board was forcing him to do it. SEGA and their lawyers also have some blame on the wording of the contract too, but more on that later."

The blog then moves onto the main event, addressing the involvement of Gearbox Software and its CEO, Randy Pitchford. In no uncertain terms, the studio is accused of robbing its publisher and lying to its face.

"Now here is the company that should get most of the blame: Gearbox Software and Randy Pitchford. Gearbox stole from SEGA, they robbed us, lied to us about the game, and tried to get another company to make the game instead. Let's see where the funding went shall we? Everyone said the game went to both Borderlands games, but Duke Nukem Forever gets a mention as well, but it's pushed out of the spotlight, because people want to forget about that game, and I don't blame them! Duke Nukem Forever had a big impact on Aliens: Colonial Marines as well."

A Gamasutra article was used to back up the claim. The article in question is an interview with Pitchford, in which he explains how his studio got the rights to Duke Nukem Forever.

"It clearly shows that Pitchford and Gearbox wanted to focus heavily on Duke Nukem Forever, but how would they get the money to hire some of the 3D Realms team and even buy the intellectual property? Sure, they made a lot from Borderlands, but guess where they got the money to fund Borderlands in the first place? Yup, SEGA.

"So Gearbox essentially lied to SEGA, mishandled funds, broke agreements and contractual obligations to work on other projects, didn't want to work on a game they were contractually obligated to work on and gave it to another team, poor organization and direction on ACM, took on too many projects from different companies at once, and other things that we may not even know about. Hell, part of me believes that Gearbox wanted this thing delayed as much as possible so they can get more funding money to embezzle from SEGA."

Danielson concludes by saying he's heard rumors of possible legal action being taken by SEGA, but admits the contract may preclude such a step from being taken. All Gearbox apparently had to do was ship the game to fulfill the agreement, which it's now done. He added that SEGA should have canceled A:CM and taken the studio to court, rather than try to make the fans pay for the investment. The writer even goes so far as to suggest SEGA ought to have published Borderlands, given it paid so dearly for it.

"In this case, what happened clearly was SEGA had a decent eye on the project, rightfully cancelled it, when they saw the problems, then someone decided to restart the project, leading to this massive mess," he concludes. "Where is our money Randy? We should get sales from Borderlands 1 and 2, since it was our money that funded it."​

 

[Balding Spider]

This is the most fun I've had with a game without ever playing it.

[Carbo]

Unless I'm mistaken this is the same dude who runs a blog where he rants and raves about his ventures of being a Sega employee, and is the same person who claims to have had a get together party with some employees from the staff where they kept talking about Sonic, getting drunk and joking about how they should have made a game solely based around the memes so they could piss off furries. There was talk about that they openly knew the games were shit and would have axed it if it obviously weren't for the fact that it was their main cash cow. Someone posted that blog here in the statuses eons ago and people kept arguing about it saying how no real employee would do such a thing or some shit.

A glance at his blog and it's easy to deduce that he does work at some capacity at Sega, but not at a high enough degree that he should be able to know about this particular incident. There's a lot on his blog about the board not listening to him, so whatever position it is I don't think it's of a high enough one to give an accurate story, despite having a good semblance of truth in it.

And I'm glad that my stance on Sega being irresponsible morons is vindicated here. Say what you will about Gearbox but nothing, not a single thing Sega has done throughout this entire fiasco, makes a single lick of sense. It's baffling.

[Stacy]

 

According to the Aliens in this games everybody walks the Dinosaur! 

[Linkabel]

Now that I think about it, wasn't Aaron the one in charge of overseeing the project? And who was in charge before him? I mean it sucks that according to that source he might've been pressured to not say anything....or that he didn't think nothing was wrong.

[Scott]

y'know, I only need 1 more achievement in this game...it's been a painfully drab journey, and it's slowly growing on me in a weird way.

 

Might look into getting Alien Infestation next for the DS, since I've been meaning to for ages!

[Patticus]

Infestation is easily the better game. It's really tough, and well designed for the most part.

[Badnik Mechanic]

A glance at his blog and it's easy to deduce that he does work at some capacity at Sega, but not at a high enough degree that he should be able to know about this particular incident. There's a lot on his blog about the board not listening to him, so whatever position it is I don't think it's of a high enough one to give an accurate story, despite having a good semblance of truth in it.

 

Reading some of his blog entries... If it's genuine, I suspect he's a QA tester, don't ask me to guess which one, but I would suspect he's one of them.

 

The story about the BBQ party, if that did happen then it wouldn't likely involve any higher ups, managers and producers if the studio making a game was close nit is likely, but you wouldn't get really high up and important people at those things at all.

 

Say what you will about Gearbox

 

Gearbox are lying criminals and should be exposed for the broken and corrupt organisation that they are.

[Badnik Mechanic]

OK WOW!

 

So remember how Jim Sterling dug up the CV's of various timegate staff who had worked on Aliens a few days ago?

 

Well... I just got around to reading that article and, Steve Baroski, who is a Level Designer and Scripter at Timegate was one of the people. He has changed his his website to hide the work he did on the game.

 

Whilst he has an 'Aliens Colonial Marines section' when you click on it, there is no information there. Just this image.

 

 

Also that image ends with the number 3, so I suspect he's got a few others on standby.

 

Link: http://stevebaroski.com/aliens.html

 

Next up we have Jeff Smith the senior software engineer. What does his website now say? Well theres an ACM section... Oh my... he too has a 'haters gonna hate' image and also a video of Rick Astley's never gonna give you up instead of his work details!

 

The other people named still have their original work details intact... But you gotta ask, what are they so afraid of, if they're now removing the game from their details something is definately going on behind the scenes.

[Blue Blood]

Oh wow, this is gold. I hope something big is going on behind the scenes, in SEGA's favour of course.

[Carbo]

Gearbox are lying criminals and should be exposed for the broken and corrupt organisation that they are.

And I agree. Didn't argue about that.

[Badnik Mechanic]

And I agree. Didn't argue about that.

 

I know, but you said say what you like about Gearbox, so I felt like saying they're criminals.

 

Oh wow, this is gold. I hope something big is going on behind the scenes, in SEGA's favour of course.         

 

Just sent the tip to Jimmy Jim Sterling, since he seems to be slagging off the game at any point he can.

 

This game though man... it's just... it's like, It's like 'The War Z' fiasco only... more spectacually bad!

[Yong]

This game though man... it's just... it's like, It's like 'The War Z' fiasco only... more spectacually bad!

 

Well instead of the game's support staff treating the justified customers like crap, we have the staff trying to deny they ever worked on the trainwreck. But it's definitely on the same levels of BS when you consider Sega and Gearbox still sold the game for $60 even when they knew how bad the game was, and had a $30 season pass on top of that.

 

Still it's hillarious what the Timegate developers are doing with their pages, regardless of the implied meanings.

[Autosaver]

I'm just wondering why Gearbox, Timegate, and SEGA are so quiet about the whole fiasco?

[Badnik Mechanic]

I'm just wondering why Gearbox, Timegate, and SEGA are so quiet about the whole fiasco?

 

They're too busy trying to develop DLC to justify the Season pass, as well as develop a cover story over the fiasco.

[Blue Blood]

I'm just wondering why Gearbox, Timegate, and SEGA are so quiet about the whole fiasco?

Because it's good business practice to shout about how shit your work is, right? Especially when there are potential legal enquires, it's the perfect time to start mouthing off publicly.

[Gabz Girl]

I remember the adverts on tv for this game having a bunch of positive critic quotes floating around. False advertising, what's that?

 

What I want to know, is how a game that has been 6 years in development and had an amazing demo turns out to be shittier than a demo. I mean, WHAT. How is that possible!