Grin cheaped by Square Enix

[deceiver]

In a feature story published today in Sweden, the founders of GRIN lay their studio's precipitous demise at Square Enix's feet, saying the publisher reneged on payments during the development of a Final Fantasy game and saddled them with ridiculous requirements as the project went sour.

This is according a story (translated via Google) published today by Aftonbladet, an often provocative tabloid but, with 1.2 million readers, a newspaper of record for Sweden. In direct quotes, co-founders Ulf and Bo Andersson allege that Square Enix didn't pay a cent on a roughly $20 million (USD) contract for "Fortress," (concept art pictured) the code name for a Final Fantasy spinoff that diverged from the series' JRPG roots. The Anderssons say they met all project milestones up to the company's August 2009 bankruptcy.

As the relationship deteriorated, the Anderssons say Square Enix sent them a strange demand: Fax us the game's code, including the project's music files. "It is as silly as it sounds," Bo Andersson said (Google translation.) "It is an impossible requirement, you can not send ASCII or binary codes on the fax. It is backward. Really retarded. It was almost a criminal activity."

Square Enix then said GRIN had not been sending its milestone work to the right department, that it should have been filed with the publisher's legal division, an unusual requirement. Square Enix also started complaining that they didn't like the game's Nordic style, even though they'd asked for that at the outset, and is presumably why they went to GRIN in the first place.

Feeling like they'd been set up to fail, GRIN sent Square Enix an image taken from Final Fantasy XII saying it was a production shot from "Fortress." The Anderssons say Square Enix replied "It does not look like Final Fantasy."

"Then we realized that whatever we do ... they have decided," Bo Andersson said. (Google translation).

The remainder of the story chart's GRIN's rise and fall and the Anderssons' resulting debts and disappointment, especially in light of successful Swedish developers such as DICE (Battlefield) and Markus Persson, the creator of the indie hit Minecraft. Again, it's a Google translation, but the piece is reasonably straightforward and readable.

"We wanted to come in and revolutionize Final Fantasy, which is exactly what they need," said Andersson. "The latest version sucks of course."

Did it really go down like that towards the end?

http://kotaku.com/5806511/bankrupted-st ... creenshots

[e-freak]

kinda fitting to the crunch time thread:

Spelvärlden är ingen vacker plats. Den bygger på kall kapitalism: varumärken är viktigare än konstnärliga ambitioner och det saknas inte direkt vittnesmål om studior med tveksamma arbetsförhållanden.

The games industry isn't a nice place. It's based on cold-blooded capitalism: Marketing is more important than artistic ambitions and there's no shortcomings of reports of questionable working conditions.

[Furyo]

They forgot to shine the bad light on themselves too for having opened way too many studios and hired too many people too fast before securing projects left and right.

[Gloglebag]

Why weren't they bought out, they clearly had lots of talent, even the shitter games showed a lot of potential, but just a lack of time and money.

[Puddy]

I read the Swedish article earlier. It feels kind of relevant to speak to former employees and Square Enix about this as well, something the journalist left out.

We have a few ex-Grin:ers here, so I'm hoping they can provide some more insight.

I agree with Furyo's remarks; they seemed a bit headstrong. I think you'll always create a better and stronger company by growing more dynamically as you gain more and more momentum. That they opened a studio in Gothenburg is a huge WTF to me. You're drawing from, basically, the same talent pool as the Stockholm office but your internal coordination and communication will suffer as a result of having two offices. I can understand having a division either in a country where labour is cheaper for art production lines or a division in a country with a lot of game design talent you want to attract, but do like they did? Doesn't seem optimal.

Overall, I suspect a lot of it came down to their own management. If Square Enix were dicks, they should have picked up on it earlier, had a plan B etc. Their aggressive recruitment and expansion led to high operational costs with little to no margins for failure. And unfortunately, they failed.

Now, just so that we are crystal clear, I don't know squat about what really went on inside the company, I'm just speculating. So if an ex-Grin:er thinks I'm full of shit, let me know

Gloglebag: Wouldn't they inherit all the debts as well? Also, would mean a lot of painful reconstruction, etc. Don't think it was a super-attractive acquisition.

[Furyo]

The Gothenburg studio is one thing, the Barcelona one is another entirely. That one should never have seen the light of day. You simply don't open up a brand new studio in a city with very limited games industry talent pool to pick from, in a different country and a few thousand kms from your HQ just because "you signed up with a publisher for a couple games". You take the project internally at your mothership, grow organically there, see what the future is made of once and only once you've actually shipped those.

[PhilipK]

Cpt hindsight

Yeah read this on a Swedish site, was an interesting read.

Don't really wanna comment on it, there are always a lot of circumstances and more than one side to it.

I choose to remember the awesomely fun times I had at Grin (even though there was a lot of whining going on at the time as always ). Learned so much during my time there and had the opportunity to work with an amazing team both at work and outside.

[Steppenwolf]

Well yea i think the company grew too fast and focussed on producing crap for Hollywood. That doesn't change the fact that they were ultimately screwed over by their buisness partners (Square wasn't the only one). The incoming economy crisis certainly didn't help either.

[GregBoffins]

GRIN was fun times and I think we were all heart broken by Square and final fantasy was shaping up to be that great game we wanted to make.

Yay for square.

Wont be buying their games again

They can suck my cock.

[Tailgunner]

That they opened a studio in Gothenburg is a huge WTF to me. You're drawing from, basically, the same talent pool as the Stockholm office

Thats not enirely true, since there are a lot of talent in the Gothenburg region that won´t move to Sthlm, and Lots of Sthlm talent that would love to move to the Gothenburg area (lots of ppl in stockholm come from other parts of the country basically because all the major studios are located here)80% of the gothenburg team were old people from DICE and the studio that was DICE before it was bought by EA.

[Minos]

Not exactly related to the Square Enix case but here's Inafune talking about the company's relationship with Grin during Bionic Commando's development:

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/09/17/inafu ... -commando/

[Sentura]

it's an interesting interview and it bear some resemblance to what yahtzee has said before: basically, people do not really remember the middle of games. they remember the beginning and the end. if you're making a game that deteriorates over time, people are more likely to say it's a bad game despite it having a good start. and i do not doubt that the culture problem has had some major influence as well.

what sort of weirds me out is that grin seemed to have an immature or unprofessional way of handling business, and from what i read in this thread, it eventually bit them in the behind. one thing is having a casual atmosphere, but business partners are not exactly friends. they're there for the money, and if they see that what you're giving them isn't worth the money, they're not going to become happy, regardless of what you think of them. and a former CEO calling out decisions as "retarded" or games as "sucking" definitely does not help for credibility.

no offense to former grinners here, i can't imagine you have had influence on this level.

[Steppenwolf]

I can't make much sense of this article. The Capcom guys always seemed very pleased with the development of BC and they were always impressed when they visited the studio. They deliberately gave Grin alot of freedom because it was their full intention to westernize the franchise. Only close to the end of development they suddenly abandoned their interest and focussed all their marketing on RE and SF for some reason. It also needs to be stated that some of the things BC got criticised most for were among the few things that were not decided by Grin, like the character design for example. Also the game got a good rating and was game of the month in Famitsu so much for cultural differences as the problem. Imo Capcom could have done a little more to promote the game. I'm sure it would have been better received if it was hyped up more. Hype is everything today.

Of course i don't know what happend between the leading people of both companies behind the scenes. Probably this is just a pissing contest at this point.