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Arkane Arkane founder Raf Colantonio resigns (aka The Prince of Failure)

LESS T_T

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Codex 2014
First interview after depature: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...kane-the-pressure-of-making-impossible-things

He talks about a brief history of Arkane, 18 years of pressure and burnout, the industry's studio system.

He also implies a possibility to go "indie" (like early Arkane) after the rest, but right now, he want to spend time on personal things (music, family, etc.).

Leaving Arkane: The pressure of "making impossible things"

Raphael Colantonio on leaving the studio he founded, and an industry "at odds with vacations, with time off, with just creatively recharging"


Arkane Studios' Raphael Colantonio has talked about the "mix of sadness and relief" he feels about leaving the company he created 18 years ago; a difficult decision motivated by the physically and mentally demanding structure of the games industry.

Colantonio was in Barcelona to attend Gamelab, a late addition to the speaker line-up at the conference. Earlier this week, the day before the event began, Colantonio announced his departurefrom Arkane Studios, the company he founded in Lyon, France in 1999, and that ZeniMax Media acquired in 2010.

"It's a mixed bag of emotions, because I love Arkane and I love Bethesda," he said in an onstage interview. "It's been 18 years of very fascinating adventures - some super hard times, because as you know we were independent, and we almost went out of business several times."

Colantonio recounted three occasions on which Arkane was "a month or two away" from running out of money, finding a way to survive on each occasion, the last of which was its acquisition by ZeniMax Media. Reflecting on his mindset during those years of struggle, Colantonio said, "the belief that anything was possible was what made it possible." That idealism was what allowed him to push ahead even as new projects found no interest or support from publishers.

"We are surrounded by way too many people who will talk down your ideas," he said. "'Look at those numbers. It doesn't make any sense, why would you do that?'" When asked what advice he would give to his younger self now, he replied, "Don't worry too much, because I'm a worrier. Less now, but back then I was that guy. But then maybe that was part of the success, too."

Arkane's most prolific years came later, largely as a result of the Bethesda acquisition. At that point, in 2009, the studio had once again run into hard times, and it was an interview with GamesIndustry.biz - the content of which Colantonio jokingly summarised as "whine, whine, whine" - that alerted Bethesda to the possibility of bringing Arkane onboard.

Arkane now has large offices in both Lyon and Austin, Texas, where veteran game designer Harvey Smith is creative director. The post-ZeniMax era has been far busier for Arkane than before the acquisition; it released Dishonored 2 and Prey in the space of six months, and Dishonored: Death of the Outsider scheduled to follow in September this year. By way of comparison, Arkane's three major releases prior to its recent burst - Arx Fatalis, Dark Messiah of Might & Magic and Dishonored were released across the space of ten years.

Despite guiding Arkane through hard times to its current position of stability and productivity, Colantonio has decided it is time to think about himself for a while. "Leaving this is actually a hard, hard choice, but at the same time I've been doing this for 18 years," he said. "I feel like I've never ever sat down for even a minute.

"It's been a non-stop run, and I do feel like I need to take a break and rest for a while, and spend time on more personal projects - play music, spend time with my son, anything that isn't work related and not pressure related"

Colantonio described "a mix of sadness and relief at the same time" at breaking away from the games industry, but it is a feeling that has crept up slowly over the course of the last year or two. Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz after his talk Colantonio clarified some of his statements, which sounded very much like a description of the kind of burnout that remains a prevalent issue in the industry.

In part, he said, it is an outcome of the specific experience he has had with Arkane; the "negative pressure" of the periods where the studio struggled to get projects off the ground, and the "positive pressure" of running a studio with a large number of employees and several projects to finish. "I will always favour the pressure of making things than the pressure of not having oxygen," he said. "But that's been my life for the past 18 years; alternating between the pressure of lacking oxygen and the pressure of making impossible things."

Since joining Bethesda, it has mostly been the positive pressure of "making impossible things", recruiting the right people, and creating a culture that will sustain Arkane's creative values even after he leaves. He is clearly proud of what Arkane has become, but he admits that growth and stability do come at a price for people who love the creativity and personal expression that games can offer.

"Harvey [Smith] would probably say the same, but there was a moment when we were working on Dishonored that we became so big - and I'm not talking about 600 people team big, but it was big enough for us - there's a moment where, as an artist, you're not sure what you control and what you don't control any more."

When Colantonio was making Arx Fatalis, he did almost every job that goes into making a game: coding, AI, animation, even making some of the 3D objects. "You feel really involved," he said. "But the more the industry goes towards huge, huge games, where you worry about modelling the wind in the eyebrows, and you need an eyebrow specialist that you have to hire from Hollywood who costs a fortune.

"The games industry has changed in that regard, so working on something even like a piece of music - something that is yours entirely - feels very good. That's why I'm writing music. That's why Harvey is writing his book. It's important to us to feel like we own something."

Amidst the positive and negative pressure, and buoyed by the knowledge that Arkane has a team guided by strong principles and overflowing with talent, the desire to reclaim his personal space took hold. "I'm sure some people could go like this for 30 years and work it," he said. "But I can't, and I think a lot of other people can't either. And that's because of the way [the industry] is set up.

"If you think about movies, people gather for making a movie, and they gather three or four people - the script guy, the director, and so on - and then they go deep and film the thing for a few months, and then everybody disbands. Then you have the post-production and effects people, but they work for different companies. Then they all go on vacation for three years."

This is not the case in the part of the games business that a studio like Arkane exists, which Colantonio believes is structured in a very different way to other entertainment industries.

"Anything that is extremely creative and also extremely hard, it's difficult to turn it into a machine where we can make the thing non-stop - here comes a DLC, here comes a this, here comes a that," he said. "And I'm not saying there's a solution, by the way; I'm not saying they're doing it wrong, or we're doing it wrong, or anyone is doing this wrong.

"It's just that it's at odds with vacations, with time off, with just creatively recharging. You need to recharge."

And the alternative is not necessarily more desirable. If AAA games resembled the film industry he described there would be more redundnacies, and Colantonio is proud to say that Arkane has never laid off an employee by ramping up and down. "You have this company with tonnes and tonnes of people that you have to pay every month, so it's not like there's a solution. 'So what we do is make a game and then lay everyone off,'" he said. "We've never done that. Bethesda never does that. They keep their people. But something's got to give.

"It's the way it is, and it's why some people get burnt out. It's too hard."

In both his onstage interview and our conversation afterwards, Colantonio displayed an obvious affection for the very early days of Arkane; when the studio was four people, the term 'indie' was a decade away from existing but, he believes, "we had that vibe." Those days were, he admits, "very exciting", but the a future in which Raphael Colantonio returns as an indie developer is not one he can contemplate just yet. Now it the time to rest, and few would begrudge him the luxury of doing so.

"I need time to get my dreaming machine to come back, but maybe that's a possibility," he said. "Something small, where I don't have to worry about feeding 100 people."

edit: Well, RPS too: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/06/30/arkanes-founder-on-why-hes-ready-to-leave-prey-devs/
 

Infinitron

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http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...io-imagine-not-having-a-vacation-for-18-years

Arkane co-founder Raphael Colantonio: "Imagine not having a vacation for 18 years"
Planning a life after the "long non-stop run" of triple-A development.

Arkane co-founder Raphael Colantonio has expanded on his shock decision to leave the Dishonored and Prey developer, suggesting he's burnt out by years of triple-A development.

Colantonio, who left Arkane after a whopping 18 years at the studio, told an audience at the Spanish conference Gamelab today he needed a proper holiday after over a decade of shipping high-profile video games.

"Well it's a mixed bag of emotions because of course I love Arkane, I love Bethesda and it's been 18 years of very fascinating adventures and some super-hard times, because as you know we were independent and we almost went out of business several times," he said on-stage.

"The being part of a bigger group and shipping Dishonored, shipping Prey, growing into two studios: all that was awesome. Leaving this is actually a really hard choice.

jpg

Raphael Colantonio on-stage with our very own Robert Purchese during the Gamelab conference.

"And at the same time I've been doing this for 18 years. I feel like I've never ever sat down for a minute; I just feel like it's been a long non-stop run, so I do feel I need to take a break and rest for a little while.

"It's one of those things you don't even realise until it really starts to hurt," he added, "because you're moving and it's fun and there's a lot of cool things happening. I'm someone with a lot of drive, who's driven by adventure and I like what I do.

"But at the same time if you run and run these things start to hurt and you don't really think about it. Probably about a year or two ago I started to feel a slow need for focusing on things that are not work related."

Colantonio's comments rekindle those made by Chris Metzen after his departure from World of Warcraft maker Blizzard, and once again raise the issue of video game industry burnout.

Metzen, who spent 23 years at Blizzard, said of the job: "I'd been there since, essentially, I was a kid. I think I was 19 when I got hired and it was my whole life, it was my identity. And it was in many ways, all-consuming.

"It was just incredible, but there can be a cost sometimes to running that hard."

Despite the huge success that Overwatch has seen this year, the story behind that game's development is anything but straightforward. Previously known as Project Titan, Blizzard had spent significant time and resources trying to create the world's next big MMO, but eventually cancelled the project after a whopping seven years in development.

"I think during those years I burned out really hard," explained Metzen. "I think in my heart, I needed a change in my life. I wanted to slow down, I wanted to just not carry the weight of it all."

jpg

Arkane has released Dishonored, Prey and Dishonored 2 as well as substantial DLC in recent years.

Arkane Austin just released Prey under Colantonio's direction. What comes next for the game and series is unclear. "Right now our studio's cramming together to see what we're going to do next," he said. "We're also talking about the IP, what to do with it, etc. There's no definitive set plans or anything other than what's been announced so far."

It sounds like Arkane Austin is working on something, though. "Both studios have games coming," Colantonio said, "so I'm not worried for the quality of the games." Dishonored 2 standalone expansion Death of the Outsider will be released 15th September.

Colantonio will stay with Arkane and help the Lyon, France office, which is behind Prey, transition as he steps away. Arkane partner Harvey Smith will lead the Austin, Texas office, which is behind Dishonored.

"Right now what I need is a true vacation," Colantonio said. "Imagine not having a vacation for 18 years, because if you go on vacation and you own a company, it's not a true vacation. You reply to emails and when you come back there's a pile of problems you need to catch up with. I just really need a vacation. I need to spend time with my son, I need to create music, I need to eat healthy.

"That will probably help me figure out what I want to do next. I don't think I'll be gone from games forever. I love games."

But, he added: "I don't feel like working on a new big game now. It's not something that's currently appealing to me because I've done it so many times now I just want to think about other things."
 

Jedi Exile

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So he followed the route of the Biodocs. What is known about them, by the way? Are they still alive? They kinda fell of the the radar, lol...

I remember Raph in one of his earlier interviews said how he was so passioned about games, that he wrote letters to people in the industry and asked them to give him any job they had available. And later, when he actually became a developer, he met them and felt kinda embarrassed about that. It's sad, that he has to leave, after his greatest dream became true.

There is a video on Twitch where he is playing Arx and talks about it (you can learn a lot about the game and how to play it, by the way). And at some point he mentions, that people do not want to play games like Arx anymore.
 
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LESS T_T

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He also talked about his interest in procedural generation, citing Nemesis System from Shadow of Mordor.
 

Burning Bridges

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Goodbye and good riddance. The guy constantly overpromised since Arx.
15 years of waiting and promising for a modern Ultima Underworld, just to give us Messiah (which was good for 1-2 hours) and Arx (which was good for a few days).
Dishonored and coffee simulator does not even interest me.
 

Mynon

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Goodbye and good riddance. The guy constantly overpromised since Arx.
15 years of waiting and promising for a modern Ultima Underworld, just to give us Messiah (which was good for 1-2 hours) and Arx (which was good for a few days).
Dishonored and coffee simulator does not even interest me.
I rate this post "Edgy"...

Every single one of their game was, in its own way, fantastic.
 

Burning Bridges

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You can rate this as you want, but I have followed this guy from the very start.
From ca 2001 when there was a new game that was supposed to be the modern Ultima Underworld.
I waited for it, was amazed by the start, fried my first fish and after a couple of levels, felt cheated.
Then there was talk of a new engine and Arx 2 and after a few more years it turned into an action game and from then it only went further downhill.
 
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Then there was talk of a new engine and Arx 2 and after a few more years it turned into an action game and from then it only went further downhill.

You know an early version of Arx 2 is in the hands of a few people somewhere on the net, and they dare not release it in fear of repercussions.
 

TripJack

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i can't believe arkanes been around 18 years... they've made 5 games in all that time??
 

Jedi Exile

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Harvey mentioned a few years back they still have playable version of The Crossing in their office and play it sometimes.
 

Ash

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You can rate this as you want, but I have followed this guy from the very start.
From ca 2001 when there was a new game that was supposed to be the modern Ultima Underworld.
I waited for it, was amazed by the start, fried my first fish and after a couple of levels, felt cheated.
Then there was talk of a new engine and Arx 2 and after a few more years it turned into an action game and from then it only went further downhill.

What was your problem with Arx, the relatively small size of the levels? Arx was good, didn't quite reach eternal masterpiece levels but it was a good first attempt and they showed they had what it takes for greatness. Then yeah, all downhill from there for the most part, although every game good enough that they're still perhaps worth a playthrough. Dishonored not withstanding.
 

Hines

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Colantonio's assurances that Arkane's in good hands under Zenimax's watch despite their recent commercial failures is less assured now that the Austin-based developer behind Prey posted a job opening for a "Online Game Engineer," which doesn't bode particularly well for the future of Arkane.

Online Game Engineer
Division: Arkane Studios Texas | Department: Programming | Location: Austin , TX, US

Arkane Studios is looking for an Online Game Engineer to join our team in developing AAA games for PC and consoles. The successful candidate will have expert knowledge of and experience in the design, implementation and continuing support of large scale client/server applications using primarily C++. Extensive experience developing online games is required. The ideal candidate will be passionate about technology, have excellent problem solving skills and a desire to work in a creative and collaborative environment.

Responsibilities
· Works with other engineers to architect and refine game systems and online features related to online games (client-server networking optimization, integration with backend services, data authority management, game persistence, etc…)
· Works with designers, artists and other personnel involved in the development of products as required
· Test and refine code and systems throughout the development cycle of the project
· Diagnose and fix live service issues

Requirements
· Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, or equivalent experience
· Excellent C++ knowledge
· 5+ years professional software development experience writing client-server game applications
· At least one AAA title shipped as a contributing online engineer
· Experience with multithreaded programming
· Expertise with network programming and optimization
· Excellent analytical and mathematical skills
· Strong interpersonal skills and problem solving ability
· Writes clear, maintainable, portable code
· Accurately estimates his/her schedules and delivers high quality work products to that schedule
· Must be a self-motivated and energetic team player with a very strong work ethic and cooperative attitude

Desired Skills
· A passion for gaming and a working knowledge of online products
· Experience developing for an online environment
· Experience with testing frameworks
· Experience optimizing code for memory and CPU utilization
· Experience in a “Live” environment (ongoing support of a product after launch)
 
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Viata

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"Desired Skills
· A passion for gaming and a working knowledge of online products"
Every dev has it, yet why the fuck they employ people that clearly has no passion for gaming? Fucking stupid desired skills that no dev cares.
 

Daemongar

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What was your problem with Arx, the relatively small size of the levels? Arx was good, didn't quite reach eternal masterpiece levels but it was a good first attempt and they showed they had what it takes for greatness. Then yeah, all downhill from there for the most part, although every game good enough that they're still perhaps worth a playthrough. Dishonored not withstanding.
I think I speak for everyone when I say the problems are steep:
* No romance-able NPC's
* You only level like 6 times in the game. You should level at least every 30 minutes of game-time or I lose interest
* Not enough cut-scenes
* While we all love innovation, the spell casting system wasn't familiar enough
* Too many stats - had 4 player attributes, plus a bunch of other shit. See: Skyrim
* When you can combine items, the game should tell you.
* Limits on what you can carry, and some kind of bag mechanism that was hard to figure out
* Attacked the guards at some castle - they all went hostile. WTF?

So, yah, it was a gem, but a very, very flawed gem.
 

MRY

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What do the Codex's resident conspiracy theorists make of his many mentions of ZeniMax and how wonderful they are? Any takers?
Plainly they've promised not to doxx him if he behaves. :)
 
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LESS T_T

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Colantonio's assurances that Arkane's in good hands under Zenimax's watch despite their recent commercial failures is less assured now that the Austin-based developer behind Prey posted a job opening for a "Online Game Engineer," which doesn't bode particularly well for the future of Arkane.

Rebirth of The Crossing?
 

Burning Bridges

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What was your problem with Arx, the relatively small size of the levels? Arx was good, didn't quite reach eternal masterpiece levels but it was a good first attempt and they showed they had what it takes for greatness. Then yeah, all downhill from there for the most part, although every game good enough that they're still perhaps worth a playthrough. Dishonored not withstanding.
I think I speak for everyone when I say the problems are steep:
* No romance-able NPC's
* You only level like 6 times in the game. You should level at least every 30 minutes of game-time or I lose interest
* Not enough cut-scenes
* While we all love innovation, the spell casting system wasn't familiar enough
* Too many stats - had 4 player attributes, plus a bunch of other shit. See: Skyrim
* When you can combine items, the game should tell you.
* Limits on what you can carry, and some kind of bag mechanism that was hard to figure out
* Attacked the guards at some castle - they all went hostile. WTF?

So, yah, it was a gem, but a very, very flawed gem.

About the opposite of everything you said, and you'd be there. Ultima Underworld with it's 3D levels (also vertical) was one of the most innovative games of the decade. It was totally harcore, even on the hardware side, and I still remember my first nights with this game felt like gaming was reborn on a new level. Playing Arx for the first time was just meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh. It copied the things that were done better 10 years earlier, and did not really use them. The story was uninteresting, the hero was banal shit boring, many nice things like physics, cooking or puzzles were usually just used once as a gimmick. It's basically like the underwhelming remake of a classic movie and apart from some fans it got due to age reasons, it was inferior.
 

Ash

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If you were expecting revolution all over again, yes you'd be disappointed, but seriously there's worlds of difference between Arx and UW due to their engines. There's not a lot of great deal of difference between engines of now and Y2k, but Y2k vs 1992...a whole new world...e.g audio design (which is damn near non-existent in UW). It's not fair to compare in that regard though.
Should be pure game design vs pure game design independent of engine influence, and in that regard UW does have Arx beat in a number of areas, e.g a hunger system that actually means something, and a better plot, also with cool dialogue options. But on the other hand Arx has some of the finest simulated in-depth interactivity systems of all games of this type, better RPG systems (seriously, UW's sucks), and some other things. UW is the superior craft, not to mention the most innovative, but Arx is not inferior in every respect.
 
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Burning Bridges

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If you were expecting revolution all over again, yes you'd be disappointed, but seriously there's worlds of difference between Arx and UW due to their engines. There's not a lot of great deal of difference between engines of now and Y2k, but Y2k vs 1992...a whole new world...e.g audio design (which is damn near non-existent in UW).

That was exactly the point, there was not nearly enough progress compared to the great advances in hardware and software. UW was running on a 386 33 Mhz .. Arx on Pentium IVs and Athlons with up to 1 Ghz plus GeForce4.

Also don't know what you mean with "audio design"? UW had superb audio. I could still hum most of the themes, after 25 years.
 

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