“Frazzini’s lack of experience in video games showed during project review sessions,” wrote Bloomberg, noting that he’d ask inane questions that had little to do with the game itself. He’s also asked employees to “chase a new trend,” leading to the development of a canceled League of Legends and Fortnite clone before finally settling on a copy of Overwatch’s hero shooter formula.
That game turned out to be Crucible, which released to tepid reviews and even worse player counts.
At the core of Frazzini’s failure was a data-driven approach to game development. Rather than start with a creative spark as in most video games, Frazzini grabbed data from other games and tried to build based on what was successful. This also led to contradictory credos in the studio, such as building something that could “accommodate as many players as possible, yet also be fun to play solo at the same time.”
The workplace was toxic as well, with former female developers saying it was a typical “bro culture” space where women were often ignored at best and sidelined at worst. Financial incentives produced backward results because bonuses were paid based on seniority, not based on production, offering little motivation to actually build and ship a game.
And then there was “Lumberyard,” an internal game engine based on the Crytek engine that was esoteric and “painfully slow.”
Source: Bloomberg
