Summary
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Developers working on Bluepoint and Bend's canceled live service projects were unaware that the games were canceled.
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They reportedly found out their games were no longer happening when the news broke through Bloomberg's report.
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It's now unclear what the two PlayStation studios will work on next.
Last week it was announced that PlayStation had canceled two of its upcoming live service projects – a God Of War title being developed by Bluepoint and an unannounced game helmed by Bend. More and more details about the projects and their cancellations are emerging, including the revelation that those working on the projects found out at the same time as everyone else that their work was being canceled.
That's what Jeff Grubb of Giant Bomb and Game Mess says (thanks, VGC). Grubb revealed on Game Mess Mornings that after some research after news of the cancellations broke, he discovered that Bluepoint and Bend developers were unaware that the PlayStation projects were canceled until Jason Schrier's Bloomberg report, who spread the news went online.
The two studios figured it out at the same time as everyone else, so people are going to get to work today and say, “Hey, okay, what do we do next?” And what they need to do next is very likely , to introduce something to Sony, and the landscape has changed pretty drastically.
It's puzzling how exactly two such monumental decisions could be made and made public before most of those working on the projects even know about them. That, as Grubb notes, anyone who doesn't just happen to check social media or be alerted to it by a co-worker could come to work one morning and find that the game they may have been working on for years just doesn't work. This stopped happening when the rest of the world found out the day before.
Developers of canceled live service projects heard the bad news at the same time as us
The Bloomberg report showed how many who worked on the games discovered they had been scrapped
As for the future of Bend and Bluepoint and what they may be working on next, a Sony spokesperson has claimed this doesn't mean they will be closing. However, the cancellation of the live service games was found to be largely due to Concord's failure, and Firewalk Studios, the studio behind the short-lived live service title, was shut down shortly after the game and its servers were taken off the air Sales were closed.
While Concord is almost certainly the driving force behind PlayStation rethinking its live service strategy, the key difference is that these games were canceled long before they could even fail. A fraction of the money lost at Concord has so far been spent on Bend and Bluepoint's projects, and hopefully the teams at both studios can move on to new projects, be they ideas from PlayStation or pitches from the studios themselves.
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Bend Studio is apparently stopping hiring employees after PlayStation shut down its live service game
In just a few days, the number of open positions at Bend Studio has gone from seven to zero, just as PlayStation cancels its live service game.
