Thomas Mahler talks about his studio's reputation, distributed development, and the project he'd love to sign to a publisher
"There is so much that we've already built that none of you even know about and we want to deliver this in a masterful way!" says Thomas Mahler, Creative Director of Moon Studios.
My buddy bought early access and said it’s very good, with a lot of potential but room for improvement… basically what a lot of early previews have said.
I am really excited for this, and am excited for PS5 release but this is encouraging to hear. Kind of like BG3… 2 years ago it was nowhere near as good as it ended up being. It’s awesome when developers are listening to feedback from the community and basically play testing the shit out of this until it’s as good as it can get… and then releasing.
Patiently waiting, keep up the good work!
Moon Studios creative director Thomas Mahler is impressed with what the 20-year-old created in Dreams.
These are the type of guys MS should be trying to acquire. Buy em offer them a bigger budget over time and grow them into a AAA developer. I know MS doesn't have the best track record in regards to doing that, but that should be the approach they should be looking at. Hire people with experience in growing talent instead of buying up the industry.
“These are the type of guys MS should be trying to acquire.“
I don’t know about that.
“Moon Studios, the developer behind the Ori games, has been labelled an "oppressive" place to work by current and former employees. The workplace reportedly fosters an environment of bullying, racism, and sexism, and screenshots shared in the report show the co-founders using ableist slurs and racist jokes.“
Google says an example of an Ableist Slur is: "viewing a person with a disability as inspirational for doing typical things, such as having a career."
I'm sorry, but if I see an armless person doing a job that requires heavy lifting, I'm damn well going to be inspired! What's wrong with being inspired by a person's strength and resilience? smh
Doesn't Activision have their own scandal going on? Ain't stopping MS from buying them. I was speaking generally anyway.
Thomas Mahler, the founder of moon studios, has criticized Microsoft for not acting on their vision and creating "artificial barriers."
Lol the nerve on this guy Ms is way to nice with their games i mean for god sake you can play ori on everything except playstation.
He should be telling Sony and Nintendo this smh
'He also criticizes the exclusive culture in the industry, pointing out PlayStation and Nintendo as being “scared of change” and that they still believe in “walled gardens”'
It's right in there if you bothered to actually read it. From the sounds of it, he's against exclusives in general but has personal experience with Microsoft which is why he brings them up specifically.
Thing is, while true, Sony/Nintendo aren't the ones downplaying exclusives and trying to come off as this "come on everyone, lets hold hands, we shouldn't have any barriers in gaming" company during onslaughts of interviews only to then contradict themselves later. Phil talks so much it ends up biting him on the ass later.
For example
July 2020
https://www.nme.com/news/ga...
September 2020 - 2 months later
https://www.eurogamer.net/a...
for all those Multiplatfomists-no barriers supporters ..i want to ask
Is Microsoft pays any money to Sony from Windows sales??? ...then why the fk Sony to give their exclusive products to MS or any other platform holder???....
people (developers or not) who cry for all games to become multiplatform are detached from reality or have other more suspicious purposes
If he anyone wants to look at the full thread for more context (he makes his first comment about this on this page): https://www.resetera.com/th...
-Yeah he's actually criticizing all 3 but specifically Microsoft because thats who he worked with, but I honestly its sounds like something from a 13yr rant rather than someone who understands business:
“Make their games and port them to ALL platforms, not leave anyone behind. The 13 year old kid whose parents were able to only afford to buy one system for their child now won’t grow up playing Halo because Microsoft believes that it makes the most financial sense to leave PlayStation players out. How does that benefit anyone but Microsoft?”
-So he doesn't believe in platforms? Platforms and exclusives are a neccessary tool to generate profits that the devs themselves are concerned with because unlike manufacturers they are ONLY concerned with making 1 game at a time to make a profit.
-If he's so concerned about the 13yr old who's parents can only afford 1 console, then why not fund & dev his games for anyone to playe for FREE....surely there are parents who cant afford to buy their kids games tooso why stop at the console... why is it all on the console manufacturers, why isnt he making free games?
-That all said, actually Microsoft has done alot to make games more affordable an accessible so I dont get his criticism at all.
Incorrect... he calls out Microsoft because he mistakenly imagines the conversations Phil has made on exclusivity in the past suggests they are open to put games on other platforms. When what they have always stressed is they are open to put games on their supported eco-systems. This allows options for their games to reach much larger base and does not include the option to pay Nintendo and PlayStation to put all their games on their platforms.
His suggestion is that Xbox become a 3rd party developer for other systems. Which is simply ridiculous. He does not call out all platforms and then emphasize his experience with MS. He calls out MS and offhandedly mentions Sony and Nintendo in afterthought.
@sonic nah man, people just want to be able to play games. Exclusives mean nothing to anybody besides die hards. Microsoft, Sony, tendo, or whoever should pay whoever publishes a game for access to the game. It’s not a hard concept, why bottleneck games anymore?
You claim people are detached from reality… but it’s like not a “reality” it’s a simple effect from how the industry was ran for decades. So it’s more of a artificial barrier than a reality. There’s no “suspicious” behavior. Video games are entertainment at the end of the day, some people can’t afford every system, it’s not always some tribalistic vendetta. You sound like you are out of touch of reality if anything.
Like for example if Sony pictures only released their spiderman movies to play on Sony tvs/PlayStations/Blu-rays, would that make any sense? No. We live in a new era, holding onto imaginary company laden battle lines is a bad look.
Let PlayStation play halo, let Xbox play Pokémon, let switch play uncharted. Saying no just shows how hard you grasp at the tailfeathers of yesteryear.
Agreed. Xbox has Game Pass on PC too, opening up a whole world of IPs for PC gamers. Can PlayStation offer the same?
Ugh whenever I think of Todd Howard I think of Fallout 76. Microsoft can keep that dirty ray tracing liar
Yes, they have been releasing exclusives on PC now….not to mention PS Now has a PC App and it has many older PS exclusives on the service that you can play.
While not perfect, they are showing effort into this now
Yep, they were very "nice" when they bought Zenimax and took long established multi-platform IP away from a player base that had been playing those series of games for decades. He's telling exactly who he needs to be telling.
Like when Sony "helped" Capcom and Stret Fighter 5 was born BUT NOT FOR OTHER CONSOLES LIKE MY SWITCH
Sure. Only 1 evil in the world
@Ursozord
Yea because buying a publisher and locking down their catalog is the as paying for the development of a game that wouldn't have been created otherwise.
"Their the same"
Lol
I have no sympathy for the crying about Microsoft buying studios, because if the shoe were on the other foot everybody knows sony fans would praise the move. Sonys 1st party talent mainly comes from buying up once independent studios, very few studios under either Sony or Microsoft were built from the ground up with talent put together by them. So sure many try to move the goal posts to act like sony is so different when it comes to acquisitions but at the end of the day they both are just doing what they can to increase their gaming portfolio & strengthen their brand...and hell Microsoft doesn't even tie you to a console at all, all 1st party is on pc, letting you play anywhere but ps, they are honestly much more consumer friendly than Sony.
@4Sh0w
I'm sure you don't have any sympathy. "crying"? LOL, that's hypocrisy at its finest. Name any major studio, in fact name any studio at all that Sony purchased that pulled long running multi-platform IP off of xbox and took it away from the xbox fanbase. I'll wait. No ones moving any goal posts except for maybe you, the reality is the situations are very different and you're trying to find an excuse to make Sony look like MS when it comes to acquisitions and that couldn't be further from the truth. But maybe it would be an easier pill to swallow for everyone if Spencer didn't go around claiming to not place barriers on people to gaming and then take beloved franchise away from people because for MS its easier to throw money around than it is to foster or create talented studios of their own. Yeah taking away peoples beloved franchises from where they prefer to play them is definitely the most consumer friendly thing anyone could do. You cant be serious with this s---. smdh
4show.
Sony buys the devs, MS buys the IP's . They are very different when it comes to acquisitions. Try to find me one IP other than Sunset Overdrive that Sony acquired as a result of buying a dev. They have actually had relationships with their dev's. What has MS ever created with Double Fine or Ninja Theory? They bought the IP's plain and simple. Sony already owned all the IP's from every dev before they acquired them. You can't buy loyalty. Just look at people jumping back into Insomniac after Sony bought them.
What it comes down to is consolidation, if Sony were to get a big publisher will you be all for it? What if they split them down the middle half the current 3rd party games are not available on the other platform?
Microsoft didn't "take them away" like a brutal divorce sometimes forces a child to be taken away by just one parent. Zenimax was happy to forgoe other consoles for the $$$$.
Really his beef is with all of the platform holders. He wants everything to be third party accessible
This comment right here is when you're loyal to Microsoft and lobe kissing their A$$
In a perfect world there would be no exclusives... unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world.
If the Ori dev wanted their game on every platform, they shouldn't make a deal with Microsoft... or Sony... or Nintendo.
Replies(1)
It's called exclusives. Every platform is creating ''Artificial Barriers''
The dude opened his mouth and now everyone knows who to be worried about.
He knows that. But, Microsoft is at the same time saying they want to get rid of those barriers. His literal complaint is the difference between what they say and what they do.
But what about the point he's trying to make? He's basically saying that exclusives shouldn't be a thing, which is, well, something I don't agree with.
***He's basically saying that exclusives shouldn't be a thing, which is, well, something I don't agree with.***
That's not his point. His point is clearly quoted about how Microsoft talks about removing artificial barriers while doing the exact same thing as Sony/Nintendo.
Regardless of how you feel about exclusives, good or bad, Microsoft is the one saying something completely different than what they are doing regarding exclusives.
And I agree, exclusives should be a thing, to an extent. It creates a healthy, competitive environment for the industry. But it 100% needs to be watched to ensure that anti-competition elements don't creep in to give any single company dominant control of the market via IP purchases.
You're essentially complaining about the opinion of the developer and not saying "Microsoft should stop saying they don't believe in exclusives when they clearly do." If you're going to go after the developer, you should also go after Microsoft for their own words.
Chris I disagree he is totally saying exclusives shouldn't be a thing...at least *starting with Microsoft when he says this:
“Make their games and port them to ALL platforms, not leave anyone behind."
You say:
"That's not his point. His point is clearly quoted about how Microsoft talks about removing artificial barriers while doing the exact same thing as Sony/Nintendo."
-Gotta disagree with you here, sounds like you guys are purposely taking the comments made about being able to play on many different devices out of context. Microsoft has removed artificial barriers by putting all their 1st party games on pc, thus no longer making console needed to play but I dont think anybody in their right mind thought that "removing artificial barriers" ever meant removing *ALL* artificial barriers, nor did Microsoft say that as a factual matter. Gamepass also reduces barriers giving gamers access to more games cheaper, cloud, etc to some limited extent. Frankly this dev is surely talking big about somebody elses wallet....ironically only after his game has done well on xbox & pc= that barrier he's really talking about is just more $$$ in his pocket from ps. Its a cheap shot in fact to all 3, because he gets to play the nice guy while making more money, meanwhile who cares about the platform owners investment. If hes such a no barriers guy then dont take the funding or ask sony to fund it for all platforms & see how that goes??? This is a clear case of how some will take a good thing, deed/genorosity and then say well they could do more here, more there, etc. Microsoft is not doing exactly like Sony/Nintendo, until they both make all their 1st party games available on pc day one thats a HUMONGOUS DIFFERENCE...and if we want it to go further with NO BARRIERS then sure that means ALL GAMES playable everywhere but I think we can all agree this would breed complacency and quality of games would suffer in the longrun because theres less incentive, less competition without competing brands.
***Gotta disagree with you here, sounds like you guys are purposely taking the comments made about being able to play on many different devices out of context.***
Direct quote from his post:
"Microsoft is in this weird ‘between a Rock and a hard place’ position where they’re saying that this is the vision they want to see happening in the future, no artificial walls, no boundaries, but then they’re not necessarily acting accordingly”
Well said. There has to be exclusives that are optimized for a particular platform to show off its capabilities. Not our fault a certain company doesn't place an emphasis on this and ends up coming third every generation. If they just commit to this they wouldn't have to hide actual sales figures, promote the crap out of a service that's going to hobble them eventually or claim to promote cross platform play. But hey if some people like to believe the same lie Gen after Gen....
I get the point that the Moon Studios founder is trying to make but I really think that it's all about money in the end. No business in the world runs on Good Samaritan points. I personally like the "exclusive culture." Makes console wars more exciting. And no, don't give me that "gaming is for all" bs. You pick sides in this mf or you play PUBG on your phone.
Agree 100% but I think this is about how contradictory MS is being as opposed to being exclusive. What's likely going on is, they probably wanted to port ori to Playstation after switch and MS probably wasn't okay with that as the switch porting really seemed to be MS trying to bully Sony which didn't work. Ultimately when they couldn't do it anymore, they stopped porting. Just sounds like they don't want to work exclusively with MS anymore is all tbh. As a dev, it would make sense to want to be multiplat even if I don't think Ori would get the attention it gets now as a multiplat. The trade off is limited audience but alot more exposure because of exclusivity. Sounds like a fair trade to me
His game is arguably the best game of this year so I cant wait for their next project.