Cliff Bleszinski's Boss Key Studio Closes, Radical Heights Servers Will Remain Open For Now
Pour one out for the studio that brought us Radical Heights and LawBreakers.
Boss Key Productions CEO and former Epic Games design director Cliff Bleszinski has announced that the studio is no more, as of today.
A statement: pic.twitter.com/LwJD54bCwL
— Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) May 14, 2018
In his statement, Bleszinski laments the decision to found Boss Key Productions four years ago, as he set out to make a "world class video game studio" and hired some of the best talent he could find to do so. "I'd like to think we had fun doing it," he said of the experience. Unfortunately, neither Radical Heights or LawBreakers could quite reach the targets laid out for them, as LawBreakers' player counts eventually dwindled down to nothing, and Radical Heights' opening player counts weren't much better than LawBreakers at its peak.
This news comes a little over five weeks after Boss Key launched Radical Heights out of nowhere back in April. The arrival of Radical Heights came hot on the heels of the studio's announcement that its multiplayer shooter Lawbreakers would no longer be receving active development. As if things weren't already shaky enough, a minor spat between Bleszinkski and Epic Games went public after the Boss Key CEO made some posts on Twitter accusing Epic Games of poaching talent from the Lawbreakers team. Radcial Heights was seen by many as a hail mary by the studio to keep afloat. Whatever numbers it had to hit to keep the lights on were not met and Bleszinksi admitted as much in today's announcement.
Though this is the end of Bleszinski's adventures with his own company, this may not be the end for him when it comes to the video game industry. He's stated that he'll be taking some time off to spend with family and his loved ones, but hopefully after the break he comes back fully rested, recharged, and ready to kick some more ass.
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replyBrittany Vincent posted a new article, Cliff Bleszinski's Boss Key Studio Closes, Radical Heights Servers Will Remain Open For Now
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Brutal, I liked the people that worked there.
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https://twitter.com/ron_lajoie/status/996103050682159104
I'm rooting for him-
If I had the cash to buy Boss Key, I'd probably wait until DICE shows of the Battle Royale mode in the next Battlefield game first. That's going to be the one that could dethrone PUBG and Fortnite
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Don't forget that CoD may also have a Battle Royale mode.
I could be totally wrong but it feels like Fortnite is unstoppable. I haven't played a game of it in my life but with things like its dances being used in sports celebrations and the Drake/Ninja stream its clearly crossed over into "cultural phenomenon" territory.-
I mean second life was a "cultural phenomenon" the second the behemoths of the industry like cod/bf dip their balls in the honey a good chunk of the playerbase might vanish. Everyone was like PUBG is going to dominate for xyz years! And all it took a was a competent studio taking a halfassed soulless game like fortnight and hammed a battle royal mode on top to steal their lunch money.
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Are they in a mess? Game still seems pretty popular, no?
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Ah, ok. Oh well, fun while it lasted.
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Nope had no idea about the red bull deal but yeah that’s why my emphasis was on "competent".
If a company with a built in playerbase with experience in competitive play like blizzard would go in on something like that it would take a lot of media attention of any game.
Epic does well as a engine peddler but how well would they do against the marketing might of the publishers behind dice/treyarch/blizzard?
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I'm not convinced that EA or Activision is an automatic kingmaker. Its also important to note that Epic has been at this at least as long or longer than those publishers in the shooter genre, and their game runs smoothy on everything from smartphones on up.
If BF or CoD suddenly decided to make a character focused class based shooter I wouldn't count on them burying Overwatch, you know? Both DICE and CoD have had a reasonable number of misses to go along with their hits and their success in the BR genre shouldn't be seen as a given.-
From my perspective, neither Fortnite or PUBG have any real personality. PUBG is generic realism, Fortnite is a generic cartoon. So DICE could step in, add something with a little flare that could draw attention.
I think somebody definitely will at some point.-
DICE games are as generic as they get. I totally get what you're saying but I'm not sure DICE are the ones to put a unique thematic hook.
And to be clear, Fortnite's continued success is far from guaranteed either. I'm just not certain that DICE (very demanding games from a hardware spec POV) or CoD (a relative niche on PC) is a home run.
I can't be said enough that Fortnite is making a million a day on iOS alone. Insane.-
agreed on pretty much all points. Personality might be the wrong word, but Battlefield games definitely have flare and distinguish themselves through art direction. There's a consistency and professionalism.
But yeah, DICE will have a to make a very scalable version of Frostbite to compete with Epic on all hardware.
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half of fortnite's guns are hitscan
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This is just the beginning. The genre, if you can call it that, is going to be super saturated for years to come, of course. It'll be interesting to see who floats to the top.
Not to discount what you're said though - it totally wouldn't surprise me if Fortnite does indeed own the space for quite some time.
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I think it's more likely to cannibalize PUBG's audience than have any impact on Fortnite due to business model, system requirements for the PC crowd, aesthetics, etc etc.
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After Battlefront and BF1 I don't have much faith in DICE being on point about what gamers want. Both games were a huge letdown to me with puzzling design decisions and an inept business model.
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I loved BF1 and played every PC Battlefield title since 1942.
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The prize pool consists of a half-eaten McDonald's quarter pounder, and some fries that fell under the car seat. 7 of the world's 9 total remaining Radical Heights players will compete furiously for the spoils!!!
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My favorite CliffyB picture: https://imgur.com/gallery/1uz249E
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