Nihilistic: Why We're Shutting Up Shop

[silversnake]

Nihilistic: Why We're Shutting Up Shop

If you had doubts before about COD Vita, this isn't going to help that. To change your name, direction, etc before a major game is being released... Who allowed this? At least wait till the game is out. It's very disappointing that Sony would appoint this developer to huge FPS titles on the console's first year.

Nihilistic Software’s last project, Resistance: Burning Skies, garnered a Metacritic average score of 60%. Its 2011 PlayStation Move Heroes managed 53%. Zombie Apocalypse (2009) pulled in 61%.

Its current project, just wrapped, is Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified. It would be unfair to prejudge this game, but it would also be an abrogation to ignore some of its reported failings at preview stage.

This California-based development studio has spent the last few years slogging away at unloved projects and, with Move and Vita, on marginal platforms. Now the company’s leaders are folding up camp to try their hand at digital games. IGN spoke to CEO Robert Huebner.


He says that the firm was founded 15 years ago with big plans to work on original games and blockbuster franchises. Somewhere along the way, they wound up knocking out Vita games on behalf of publishers that are, naturally, spending much of their attention elsewhere.

“It’s been harder and harder for us to get to our goal. It’s like you’re trying to get onto the freeway, but constantly being diverted. We just realized that the goals we were aiming towards are just not there anymore.”

The company had changed its name to NStigate. “We started out doing gothic games like Vampire - The Masquerade so the Nihilistic name was a reflection of that. But now we’re going to be working with digital games, and so it's time for a new identity,” he says.



The company has not laid anyone off, and says it’s making the change without any debts. Even so, when the transition does take place, employees will be presented with lower salaries and benefits packages, and the choice to move on or “stick around”. This outfit is transitioning from an established player with a history of contracts and income, to a start-up operating in an extremely competitive area.

I asked Huebner about those low review scores, if they were really a reflection of the sort of games Nihilistic had found itself producing, probably with very tight budgets. He says he’s proud of the work they have done, but now focussed on the challenges ahead.

“There are smaller games being made now that couldn’t exist in a retail environment, that don’t need to cost $50. The downloadable and free-to-play world opens up a lot of possibilities."