🗝️ Bosskey Newsletter 18 - Nintendo no AI, Halo Killers Failed, Riot Cancels 'Pool Party' Smash Bros Game
# 🗝️ Bosskey Newsletter #3 Things: 1 🎮 Game news, 1 🔎 Interesting Find, 1 📱Social Post. Written by a Part Time Indie Game Dev
🎮 Game News
Riot Cancels 'Pool Party' Smash Bros Game
Riot Games has cancelled a Super Smash Style Brawler set in their universe. Reading articles on ReaderGRev (Mikhail Klimentov) Riot looked at MultiVersus from Warner Bros. Game and the numbers on player retention was not good.
Riot Games canceled work on a prototype platform fighter code-named Pool Party in late May, according to current and former Riot Games employees familiar with the decision. Approximately 70-80 employees were working on the game when it was shuttered.
A source familiar with staffing decisions at Riot said that approximately half of the team had received an offer to be reassigned within the studio, while others were in the process of seeking new positions through the company’s internal job board.
10 people had not received an offer and were not in the process of applying internally, the source said. Presumably, those workers were either laid off or had left the company.
Pool Party’s cancelation was precipitated in part by a reassessment of consumer appetite for a Smash competitor. According to sources familiar with the project’s development, executives at Riot were spooked by what they perceived as the failure of MultiVersus, a free-to-play fighting game starring characters from franchises owned by Warner Bros.
Originally envisioned as a hardcore fighting game, the pitch for Pool Party changed over the course of development, shifting to include party game elements and casual-friendly mechanics. The change in scope and vision frustrated some staff on the project.
Link:
https://www.readergrev.com/p/riot-games-pool-party-canceled-smash-melee
https://kotaku.com/multiversus-steam-pc-pickle-rick-morty-player-count-1850120234
📱Social Post
Halo Killers Failed
Why calling it a Halo Killer Killed these games trying to take on Halo. I remembered playing Halo 1&2 on the original Xbox and it was ground breaking back in the day that everyone wanted to make their own FPS halo killer but none succeeded.
🔎 Interesting Finds
Nintendo not Using AI they have Decades of Experience making games and no need AI to help them make games.
I do feel Nintendo has the experience to make games without AI, There is something about making games and trying to exercise your creativity that AI can’t replace or replicate. It’s good still at just duplicating work.
“In the game industry, technology similar to AI has been incorporated into the movements of enemy characters for some time,” said Furukawa.
“We believe that game development and AI technology have had a close relationship from the beginning. It has become a hot topic …
“Although generative AI can be more creative, it also comes with issues such as intellectual property rights.”
It’s worth to note that AI while controversial still has potential maybe not right now. I may have written before that I think as a Solo Dev AI might help in some areas of production if there is no one else to help you with the game project.