TGO Daily | August 25, 2020 | Mass Exodus from Lab Zero Games
+ Guys are Falling into mobile devices
Welcome to Day 2 of the TGO Newsletter. To all you fine folks who signed up after I talked about it on the show, thanks!
Today starts with pretty somber news of another games studio’s downfall. I always hate covering these stories because of all the lost potential, but they’re important to tell. I hope that the industry as a whole can learn from them, and make the best possible working environments they can.
Please reach out if you have any comments or suggestions for the newsletter :) Until next time,
Adrian
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Quick Links/Show Notes
Multiple Skullgirls developers leave the company
Lab Zero Games are the developers of the hit indie games Skullgirls and Indivisible. If you are familiar with their history, you’ll know that it has been a rocky road for them. Today, it got much worse. Multiple key developers within the company are going to be stepping down, all pointing fingers at their boss, Mike Zaimont.
A few months ago, Mr. Zaimont was accused of making a number of inappropriate comments, which was made very public. We also now know that he was an all-around difficult person to work with, and not suited to be leading a company. Following those allegations, employees decided to take action, and asked him to step down from his position as sole owner of the company. He refused to do this, leading to most everyone else stepping down instead. This includes a creative director, an art producer, and a number of senior artists.
As a result, the future of games like Skullgirls is in the air. A number of the departing employees have been with the company since the beginning, and I highly doubt that anyone new would want to work there following all of this.
SGDQ 2020 raises $2.3 million for charity
Summer Games Done Quick, the annual speedrunning charity event, ended on Sunday, raising $2.3 million for Doctors Without Borders. Unlike most GDQ events, this show was entirely online, which I can only imagine was a production nightmare. Nonetheless, that community continues to do incredible things, and I once again want to encourage you to go check it out.
In my opinion the show is at its best when its live, but seeing some of your favourite video games being absolutely torn apart for the sake of speedrunning is highly entertaining. Thus, if you find yourself with the opportunity to go back and watch some highlights, I very much recommend doing so.
GDQ will be returning with an all-women speedrunning event on November 15th, and their annual Awesome Games Done Quick next January.
Every run is available on their Youtube channel, or check out the schedule for easily searchable events.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum detailed
Daedalic Entertainment may be most well known for their point-and-click adventure games, but they have a few more tricks up their sleeve. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is going to be a “Prince of Persia-like stealth action [game]” mixed with an interactive narrative.
Gollum will be a game broadly spent in two distinct states - either stealthily making your way past the various hulking threats living in Mordor, and making narrative chocies [sic] as the warring personalities of Sméagol and Gollum fight for control.
With the way the game has been described, it very much feels like it will be a traditional Daedalic experience, with the added benefit of being able to traverse the world in real time. It’s also worth noting that the game is a prequel, so any branching narrative that might occur will ultimately end in the same place. I’ll be interested to see how they balance everything into a cohesive experience.
If you are heavily invested in this game, be sure to read the details in the linked article, there is a lot of juicy information there.
Lots of Fall Guys news
This is a collection of news items from the past few days.
First, Fall Guys is heading to mobile devices in China. They have found a publishing partner to bring the game over to a highly monitored games market, Bilibili. There aren’t any current plans to bring it to mobile in the west, though I’d be surprised if it isn’t in their pipeline.
Next, if you are a current player of the game, then what they are calling a “spicy hot fix” will be arriving in the game next week. This will fix a number of common complaints and issues that people have had with the game.
Finally, keep an eye on the upcoming Gamescom event happening on Thursday, because they will be revealing details about a Season 2 for the game, which is very exciting.
Also In The News
Serious Sam: The First Encounter free on GOG until Wednesday
“Ubisoft UK collector’s editions going discless on Xbox, but not on Playstation”
“Original Wonder Boy director returning for new series entry Asha in Monster World”
More From TGO
Check out this awesome Destiny fanart from CrimsonTentacles:
They do really awesome artwork, and are one of my favourite follows on Twitter. Follow them here, if you’re okay with seeing creepy things! (I would love to showcase more creative stuff from my followers here, so be sure to post in #creativity in the Discord server. No promises, but we’d appreciate it nonetheless!)
Huge thanks to Jeff for leaving the show a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts:
Get In Touch
That’s all for today folks! Thanks for being here, and please let me know if you have any suggestions for the newsletter :)
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DCCLXXI