SkyBox Labs Partners with Wizards of the Coast to Support the Development of Magic: The Gathering Arena, according to the studio's website
skyboxlabs.com/Posted Jan 25, 2020, 8:58 PM UTC
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skyboxlabs.com
Sad their development team seemed inactive after Chris Clay left. I wonder what happened internally to the group, seems like they wanted to actually write a good Magic digital client internally and the company didn't support them.
17
Probably what happens with any good project. You make multiple iterations of engaging, interesting, and likely lucrative projected changes to the project - only to get shot down and have to scrap it in the 11th hour because it doesn't fall In line of with the "vision" of some muckity-muck that couldn't be bothered to attend any of the weekly meetings until a few days before the deadline.
Gasps for air
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Yea sadly seen a few software projects go that way. From all the developer chats, it seemed they really wanted to engage and make a good product. :(
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Interestingly enough this isn't exclusive to business or development. I work in medicine - had to work a desk for a year because of a workplace injury and saw this kind of stuff in spades. Money being flushed down the toilet because the powers that be can't be bothered to actually be good at their jobs.
"You handle it, I trust your judgement" only to have 2500 suggested changes and a complete rework to the project a day before the deadline .
14
This. I relate to this so much. I had a couple of ‘amazing’ and ‘progressive’ top management who keeps telling me the same thing and then suddenly change their mind at the last minute and make it my fault when I can’t keep up.
Its not like I didn’t communicate with them throughout the whole process either, each time they will say ‘looks great!’, ‘send the details on my email’, ‘make a report about’ etc. but in the end, at the last day or week of deadline, all the original ideas get flipped over to the point that I just wasted my time and effort.
I am obviously quite stressed out.
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I might be completely wrong here, but looking at what they've made in the past, I would guess that they have been hired to port it to Xbox, not replace the current devs. Replacing the entire dev team on something like this would make me VERY scared for the future of the game. And it also says they are "supporting the development".
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They're hiring software engineers for MTGA, also. And what are the requirements? Experience shipping mobile and console games. They don't even mention PC. So I think you're right.
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That's exactly what I thought. This studio is relatively new (2011) and also working on Halo infinite in some way.
Seems extremely likely this is just for an xbox port.
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Apparently WOTC were not satisfied with their developer team. I wonder if repeated community backlash and shady marketing tactics contributed to this decision.
EDIT: Haven't seen this news discussed anywhere. Here is the announcement text from their site:
SkyBox Labs is thrilled to partner with Wizards of the Coast to support the development of Magic: The Gathering Arena. Magic: The Gathering Arena is free-to-play, authentic Magic, reborn digitally for gamers, fans, and streamers. Our studio is currently hiring for a number of roles to support the title. Please see our available positions below.
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Let's be real - development team had nothing to say about monetisation. That is decided by Executives, Leads, Directors. Arena issues always were on management level. This looks more like trying to support the team they can't/won't hire for.
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You are right, but still they made some pretty shitty choices.
Just one random example: execs definitely asked them to create some sort of pets for revenue, but they surely didn't tell them what to animate. So what did they do, tap into decades of Magic lore to bring to life iconic creatures and artifacts? Nah, let's make some random fire cats and mechanical owls that have nothing to do with Magic whatsoever. Who would want a Mirari statue or a baby-Bolas pet after all?
Some choices are just...baffling.
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The Arena client feels like visiting a knockoff KFC in southeast Asia.
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Yo you got a problem with KLG?
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NGL the spectacular card art makes the client look like shit, their shaders look like garbage and it's for PC so they can't really hide behind spec limitations
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They use glowing shaded 3D buttons...in 2020...when we abandoned skeumorphic design almost a decade ago.
Again, baffling. They either have very old people in charge of the UI, or people who stopped informing themselves after uni.
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While it beats on your gpu/cpu and gobbles up battery like it’s going out of style. This game is harder on my laptop than elite dangerous.
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Facts not conjecture. Mont company had contractors that do the same job as me. That doesn't mean they aren't happy with my performance otherwise I wouldn't still have a job.
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So that's why they looked like someone kicked a puppy during the last Development Update video.
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Well a puppy would have done better at implanting new features in over a year.
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Whoa sorry I am a newb. Did they really replace the dev team!?
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Not necessarily, could just be adding support staff to speed up production, or make a port. People are just making wild speculations.
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Looks like. Since they have announced it, it appears as if the process had long been underway. Lines up with what we've seen of our current dev team.
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Doesn't based on what this studio does. A lot of companies out source specific things (Ports)
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Gee I wonder if only a single feature being added in an entire year had anything to do with it.
Maybe somebody at WOTC finally got the memo that the current pace of Arena's development is unacceptable when new major competitors are releasing into the market.
I was very impressed with Legends of Runeterra even before I finished the tutorial. They made an excellent game.
It was the opposite for me, by the time I did the 20 tutorials that failed to do a good explanation of how the game works I was drained.
Seemed like a mix of hs with a very washed down artifact, overall pretty poor.
I've got a handle on it now but the tutorials were honestly a bunch of really noisy junk yeah, the game has way too many visual effects which is something I never thought i'd say about a digital cardgame, the victory screen feels like i'm being hit by a car
Oh don't worry, by the time I did the 20 tutorials my eyes were bleeding from their visual style and ridiculous animations on..everything really, so it did not matter whether the explanation was good or not (spoilers: it wasn't).
I haven't tried that but mythgard was pretty fun when I tried it. didn't get all the way through the intro story, was kinda long, but the game already looks polished and ran well on mobile.
point being, yeah, competition is building up. arena can't keep riding on its IP forever... well the sad thing is it probably can but fawwwk. cmon.
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A single feature?