Skullgirls

Lab Zero Games is back in the news, this time shooting for a lofty goal of $150,000 in order to bring a new character to all platforms. The new …
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The  folks at Shoryuken who run the yearly Evolution fighting game series of tournaments (usually known as just EVO) are having a charity drive contest to determine which …
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The story of Skullgirls‘ development, release and post-release support just may have more twists to it than its top-heavy characters have curves on their pixelated bodies. It started with two men, each with a skill, a passion and an idea. In 2009, longtime fighting game fan and tournament player Mike “Mike Z” Zaimont began programming a fighting game of his own. Elsewhere, unbeknownst to Zaimont at the time, artist Alex “o_8” Ahad was drawing a new fighting game universe of his own into existence, complete with characters to populate it. Eventually the two were introduced and merged their pet projects together at Reverge Labs into the game that released on XBLA and PSN in April of last year as Skullgirls.

Critics generally gave the game a favorable reception, with its combined XBLA and PSN score averaging 80% on Metacritic. Gamers gave it a fairly warm reception, too. The developer was excited when Skullgirls sold 50,000 copies in its first 10 days on the market. Although the development team informed XBLAFans on Thursday that Skullgirls has failed to turn a profit to date, we were also informed that the game has performed well enough that publisher Autumn Games is interested in green-lighting a sequel if it can successfully dodge the sticks and stones City National Bank has thrown its way.

With a PC version, DLC characters and multiple sequels in the plans, things were looking up for Zaimont, Ahad and the rest of the crew at Reverge. Then everything went quiet. Months went by without a single update on the port, downloadable content or the sequel. It was eventually revealed that the Skullgirls team had been let go by Reverge Labs in June of 2012 after developer and publisher allowed their contract to expire without agreeing upon a new one. More sticks. More stones.

Whether it was the entire team that was let go or some fraction of it has been a matter that was up for some debate. Reverge blogged that it was some of the team, while the displaced developers once said it was “the entire” team. When questioned repeatedly by XBLAFans over the past couple of months, neither of those factions nor Autumn has been willing to go on record to clear the air. The one thing that has been abundantly clear, though, is that the contract expiration effectively brought about a game over screen for future Skullgirls content and its would-be creators.

Or did it?

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Update: Lab Zero has informed XBLAFans that the studio has been working with Microsoft and has successfully shrunken down the size of the update some, though they declined to go into specifics about the current size of the update. Look for a full follow-up article coming soon. Original story below.

Lab Zero Games, the studio now responsible for all things Skullgirls following publisher Autumn Games and original developer Reverge Labs parting ways last summer, still hasn’t been able to get the patch that released for the PSN version of its fighting game in November onto the Xbox Live Marketplace. The holdup, apparently, is Microsoft’s XBLA update file size limit.

A tweet from the official Japanese Skullgirls Twitter account went out on Friday claiming that the update is exponentially larger than what Microsoft will allow. The update Lab Zero put together for its fighting game is roughly 590 MB in size — a whopping 147.5 times the size of the paltry 4 MB limit the developer says Microsoft places on updates. A rough Google translation showed that the Skullgirls team is under the impression that it’s possible to be granted an exception, but the process is arduous.

The revelatory tweet came on the same day that the main Skullgirls Twitter account stated that the team was “frustrated.” It’s not clear whether its frustrations are directed at Microsoft size limits or the two sides’ inabilities to get something worked out, but XBLAFans has followed up in an attempt to find out exactly what the team is unsated with and will update this story if we get a response.

Regardless of where the developer’s frustrations lie, Lab Zero Games is working with Microsoft to get the patch out “as soon as possible,” so there is still hope that it will make its way to XBLA. Skullgirls fans might not want to get their hopes up too high for it to appear anytime soon. The patch has been “held up in MS submission and holiday limbo” since as far back as December 12, according to an earlier tweet by the game’s official account. Though the team was said to be “pushing hard” later that very week, the calendar is nearing an entire month later and it sounds as if little, if any, progress has been made.

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Weekly Roundup compiles all the biggest news stories, reviews and features from the week into one handy post on the weekends.

Another week of Xbox Live Arcade brought to a close. It’s been a relatively quiet one, compared to the mad dash of last week’s seasonal sales. Though there isn’t much to write home about in terms of marquee XBLA titles, there’s quite a bit to look forward to in the coming weeks and months on Xbox Live Arcade. With so many big games coming down the pipe, what are you looking forward to getting your hands on?

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It was revealed last week that “the entire” team responsible for Reverge Labs’ XBLA and PSN fighting game, Skullgirls, had been laid off this past June. In an interesting twist — and a welcome one for the displaced developers — publisher Autumn Games was revealed to be in possession of the IP and the publisher decided to bring together the team responsible for it under a new banner, Lab Zero Games.

Upon hearing the news, XBLA Fans reached out to Reverge, Autumn and Lab Zero in search of clarification as to the nature of the split and the current state of the studios and the Skullgirls property. Though multiple requests for comment from the Autumn/Lab Zero camp have gone unanswered as of publication time, Reverge Labs CEO Richard Wyckoff was willing to briefly talk about the lay-offs last week.

“I can’t say much except that Reverge completed the Skullgirls contract with Autumn Games when we shipped the game in April and we aren’t currently engaged by Autumn for any other Skullgirls work,” Wyckoff told XBLA Fans via email. “Because of this we did have to lay off some of the Skullgirls team.”

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Weekly Roundup compiles all the biggest news stories, reviews and features from the week into one handy post on the weekends.

A bit of a slow week due to the holidays, but it’s hard to complain with a week of great XBLA sales. XBLA Fans wants to know if you picked up anything good during the holiday deals.

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The video game industry, like most entertainment industries, can be a cold business. It’s not uncommon for a few bad reviews of a game or debut sales numbers that fail to reach blockbuster heights to lead to massive studio layoffs, with the ax sometimes falling on entire teams or studios. As if that wasn’t depressing enough, layoffs can even occur when a release garners strong sales and decent review scores. Though gamers are just hearing about it now, five months ago that became the fate of the team at Reverge Labs responsible for developing XBLA’s Skullgirls.

In June, “the entire” group that developed the XBLA and PSN fighting game was laid off by developer Reverge Labs. Members of the development staff were gagged during the intervening months, but they have just recently been able to open up about the matter. In an introductory post on its new website, the team briefly discussed its severance from Reverge and revealed that it’s not all bad news: Lab Zero Games, a new studio comprised of the former Reverge employees, has been founded in Los Angeles. What’s more, Lab Zero is doing “everything in [its] power and then some” to return to working on a planned Skullgirls DLC character and a PC port “as soon as possible.”

It’s an unlikely development in the team’s saga, made possible by the fact that Reverge never owned the IP. Publisher Autumn Games apparently retains full rights to all things Skullgirls, and it “is fully behind the new studio,” according to Lab Zero. The two sides are going to continue collaborating on future content for the game thanks to Autumn’s support of the developer. More merchandise and “a few other things” are in the works on top of the previously mentioned DLC and PC version.

IP battles between developers and publishers have been well-documented over the years. Both parties traditionally seek to secure the rights to a game franchise and deals are regularly signed or passed upon based on insistence of ownership by one side, the other or both. This case is unique in that the creators of a new IP actually benefited by not being granted ownership of it. Had Reverge seized control, Lab Zero would obviously not be in a position to continue working on the game today.

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Before we go marching on into the land of statistics… Yes the following figures are based on leaderboard data. No it’s not entirely accurate. It is, however, the best barometer we have. Onward!

It’s been a fine two months. We’ve seen the likes of Trials Evolution and Minecraft shatter records, Fez and The Walking Dead revitalise dusty genres and titles like Skullgirls and The Pinball Arcade bolstering genres with an already strong showing on XBLA. Not to mention Fable: Heroes, The Splatters and Anomaly Warzone Earth rounding out a special 8 weeks.

Rewind a little to April and actual sales data isn’t quite as cheery, at least not across the board. As usual, Gamasutra has the full rundown.

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After a brief hiatus, Weekly Roundup is back!
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