Iconic studio. I liked the old games better than the new ones, grew up with Blood, Shogo and the likes.
Warner Bros shuts down Monolith (FEAR, Condemned, Shadow of Mordor, Shogo, Blood, NOLF)
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Thread: Warner Bros shuts down Monolith (FEAR, Condemned, Shadow of Mordor, Shogo, Blood, NOLF)
Asmonius
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Insane to think they've been owned by WB for over 20 years now, they've put out a ton of classics but been horribly managed by Warner.
Sucks. Monolith was one of greatest studios at its heyday.
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Loved condemned. Brilliant atmosphere. Thats a shame.
NOLF and FEAR were fantastic. Monolith is up there with Treasure in terms of their quality catalogue and how they never found the success they deserved. Really a shame they are no more.
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Sad that people are losing their jobs, but most these companies are only the companies we liked and remember are usually the same company in name only.
It's rare to have companies like Nintendo that retain and train next gen talent.
See Rocksteady amd Rare as examples of this.
It's rare to have companies like Nintendo that retain and train next gen talent.
See Rocksteady amd Rare as examples of this.
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This news hurts to read 
FEAR, Condemned and Blood will always have a special place in my heart
FEAR, Condemned and Blood will always have a special place in my heart
I don't think anyone was actively looking forward to the Wonder Woman game tbh. They have a great history, better to end it here instead of going down in a shameful way.
QuantumZebra
It’s just basic anatomy
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Currently playing Blood and it's fantastic. Shitty management by WB.
Epic Nemesis
Needs No Introduction
Wow, if you told me 10 years ago that Monolith was going to be shut down I would have laughed in your face. All they did was make great and successful games. Either there was some severe talent drain or this was horrible mismanagement. Hopefully if it's the latter they go the infinity ward - Respawn route.
SirKicksalot
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More signs this is the Second Videogame collapse. Would not be surprised to see Rocksteady and Bioware with Mass Effect 4 next.
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Was just coming to post this. Saw some random post about it on Linkedin… then i saw the flood of "open to work" posts in my feed.
Sucks. Sucks real bad. But probably sucks less that their Wonder Woman game would have been.
Sucks. Sucks real bad. But probably sucks less that their Wonder Woman game would have been.
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Warner Bros continue to make baffling decisions and somehow out of the fire of Justice League, Monolith are the studio put to the sword. A shame.
CAPTAIN RAINCOAT
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this pretty much confirms my suspicions about most of the WB owned studios........rocksteady used to be the measuring pole for how to make a great action games
however the justice league game really cemented the fact that as long as they are infested with DEI hires we are going to continue to get Lesbian mrs freeze type characters
Stifler's Mom
I've got some Scotch
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Optimus
Member
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You are citing the difference between the west and the east. In the west, companies almost never remain comprised of the same people. Even Retro Studios is a completely different company with much of the staff from Metroid Prime having moved on. You'll find their inspiration living on inside the Cauldrons of Horizon Zero Dawn...
It's too bad, though, I agree. In the west, we value everything about capitalism, including the right of employers to drive the hardest bargain on compensation and the right to fire people for no reason at all. We sort of encourage the kind of churn that allows our favorite companies to become infested. In the east, wages probably don't keep pace but the companies value culture and corporate personality above the pursuit of more profit.
JORMBO
keep your enemies close and your franger closer
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Chozofication
Member
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Well, at least they don't have to work on that trash anymore.
Where are all these devs supposed to go, that isn't a toxic dei middle management nightmare?
Where are all these devs supposed to go, that isn't a toxic dei middle management nightmare?
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With all the dead weight cut they can now afford to buy Ubisoft
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Phunkydiabetic
Prince of the Land of Stench
While the second videogame collapse may or may not be happening, Monolith games wasn't ever really one of the canaries in the coal mine. Sure, they put out fantastic games over their lifespan, but they havent done anything worth mentioning in nearly a decade. The last game they released was what, Shadows of Mordor or whatever the sequel to that game was that no one remembers?
Even the title mentions games released decades ago haha. Is Monolith populated with the same devs who created the games we enjoyed decades ago like Blood and NOLF? Doubtful. Of course you never really want to see people lose their jobs but Monolith is a husk of its former self by this point.
WB Games Has Monolith's Nemesis System Under Lock Until 2036
Monolith's famed Nemesis System is locked under a Warner Bros. Games patent till 2036. Here are more details.
insider-gaming.com
Thanks, copyright and patent laws.
SirKicksalot
Member
Blood was made by another studio under 3D Realms supervision. Monolith bought them like two months before release.
Jace Hall, the most prominent founder, left in 2007. Monolith proceeded to shit out Condemned 2 and FEAR 2.
The Mordor brains left after Shadow of War.
Now of course studios like id are also made of entirely different people today, but perhaps their transition to new staff was smoother than Monolith's.
IIRC the Nemesis patent is specifically about the infinite revolving roster of characters. It's a hierarchical pyramid that is constantly refreshed with new blood once the lower ranks are dead/promoted. Assassin's Creed has a similar thing but does not introduce new characters.
JORMBO
keep your enemies close and your franger closer
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Asmonius
Member
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WB Games Has Monolith's Nemesis System Under Lock Until 2036
Monolith's famed Nemesis System is locked under a Warner Bros. Games patent till 2036. Here are more details.
Thanks, copyright and patent laws.
It's silly, but Nintendo patenting the cross d-pad and Namco patenting loading screen mini-games are way more egregious.
I also know about other pathetic examples like Mass Effect and patenting the dialogue wheel, I don't think these can be less or more egregious, they just all suck with no exceptions. It kills creativity and art. No one outside of rich assholes benefit from this.
I remember in one of DidYouKnowGaming videos on youtube about MGS series and cool facts about the games, one was Kojima writing in his diary how he had an idea for a cool game mechanic (I can't remember the details), and how coincidentally another game came out shortly after which had that idea implemented, so it beat kojima to the punch. Cool thing is that Kojima didn't feel salty about it in his own diary, he was just like damn they got me first (I hope someone can link that specific moment in the videos because I don't feel like fishing out a 20 seconds segment out of multiple +40 minute videos).
Now, imagine if he instead started patenting his ideas "for intellectual property protection"; stealth games wouldn't exist outside of Metal Gear and we might not see another Strand type game in the future.
Yeah I get patents for some things, sometimes it's absurd.
JORMBO
keep your enemies close and your franger closer
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Dacon
CROM
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Knowing what I know about the lead writer of this game, it's probably for the best that this game was cancelled. They tried to run interference for her by saying they had Gail Simone consulting for the game, but her work with Wonder Woman in the comics wasn't even good enough for that. Everyone who knows anything about WW knows that Greg Rucka is the man who did the best work on the character, but since he's a man we can't have him involved, gotta have all women working on the female super hero game or some shit.
They work for themselves. Pool their resources and start their own studio making the games they want. You dont need big corporate money to make good games.
They work for themselves. Pool their resources and start their own studio making the games they want. You dont need big corporate money to make good games.
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I never saw a patent and went 'yeah I get that', do you have an example of 'good' patents?
It's not about whether you think it is good, it's about whether it is good for the firm or person who came up with the idea and who put the time and effort into R&D to be able to capitalise on it and make a profit from that investment, versus being ripped off wholesale by bigger firms who can undercut them when it comes to operating at scale.
Let's say you spend 5 years investing your time, energy and capital in and inventing a new printing technique and printer that reduces ink waste by 20%. If upon launch Rank Xerox takes your idea and undercuts you in a couple of months putting out its own cheaper model using the same principles your business is fucked.
The principle of patents is good, it's the implementation which is more often the issue. In large part, the purpose is to protect innovators from being ripped off by big businesses of a similar nature that make competing products at their inception.
Should WB have been allowed to lock down the nemesis system? Sure. However, for 15 years? I'm not so convinced, even more so given they did fuck and all with it outside of the Mordor games.
I think patents should operate from a use-it or lose-it basis after 5 years. You take it out, and you have a 5-year window to capitalise upon it but if you are not using it after that then it expires, and the onus is on you to demonstrate to the patents office that it is still applicable.