Sony Manchester‘s situation wasn’t that bright behind its doors, even though it was meant to have a solid future…

Sony Manchester was shut down last year. A few ex-devs from the team revealed to Polygon how they had no progress in the game development due to the usual issues (mismanagement, a lack of oversight), and they felt more like an outsourcing studio, and not something that belongs to Sony. The sad part is that they were meant to become Sony’s AAA VR game development studio!

In their five years of history, the studio created absolutely nothing. Not a single game was developed from start to end in this time. The team wanted to make an old-school throwback shooter similar to Desert Strike on the PlayStation 4. It was called CSAR: Combat, Search and Rescue. It had players “flying around, shooting at enemies and rescuing people from the cockpit of a helicopter.”

However, several leaders were not working at Sony Manchester full time. Eric Matthews and Marc Green had other senior positions in Sony, but they were based in London. If that wasn’t enough, they also frequently micro-managed the project… despite showing up roughly once a week. The studio’s members regularly showcased prototypes to senior PlayStation Studios members, only for Matthews and Green to constantly tweak things until they were done “exactly how they wanted.”

No wonder people already started to move on in 2016, as the pace wasn’t as good as they expected. “On paper, it sounds amazing. You had the backing of Sony. You were going to create a new IP, and we haven’t entered production yet, so you are there from the start. But after six months to a year, people would realize this isn’t going anywhere and would then face a decision of what to do next,” an ex-dev said.

In 2018, the design studio was relocated from Manchester to London (benefitting the Matthews-Green duo), but when Hermen Hulst got promoted in 2019, additional scrutiny was placed over Sony Manchester. Another ex-employee claimed that it left them unprotected, resulting in the closure in February 2020.

It’s a prime example of how you should let someone have their concept realized, which can benefit creative people (and in game development, especially in prototype creation, having such a hands-off approach can be helpful).

Source: PSL