When Microsoft bought up FASA, the developer behind MechWarrior and Crimson Skies, its development culture ”was destroyed” day one says founder Jordan Weisman.
Microsoft wanted Weisman to tell Bungie how great the transition was, but he became a ”vocal pain in the ass” for them. He got them a ”walled off room” to better defend the Halo dev.
”When Microsoft bought FASA Interactive and incorporated it into Microsoft… the two reasons they bought us was, one, they wanted the catalogue of intellectual properties and, two, they felt that we had developed a really good development culture,” Weisman told GamesIndustry.biz.
”And the reality is that, pretty much from the day we moved to Redmond, that development culture was destroyed,” he continued. ”I don’t think the studio ever really had a chance. It was destroyed right in the beginning.” A fate that awaited Bungie, if he hadn’t of stepped in.
”When we were acquiring Bungie, they wanted me to sit down with the owners of Bungie and tell them how well the transition went,” he said. ”And it was like - ‘what planet are you guys on?’ This transition did not go well. And actually I became the lead vocal pain in the ass to get things done very different for Bungie.”
Microsoft announced the closure of FASA back in 2007 when they were cutting costs.
”I tried to convince them to leave Bungie in Chicago, but not winning that I did succeed in getting them to put them in a walled off room, which didn’t follow any of the other Microsoft stuff. We were much better able to defend Bungie’s culture than we were FASA’s culture.”
Today, Bungie is almost free and clear of obligation to Microsoft after having decided to leave the corporate giant to pursue properties outside the Halo universe, once they’ve produced a couple more for Xbox 360 of course: Halo 3: ODST and Halo Reach.
Weisman has since formed Smith & Tinker and has licensed back some of his old IPs that Microsoft snapped up along with FASA at the time. One such license is MechWarrior and a new entry is in the works that reboots some things for the long running franchise.
Haven’t seen the new MechWarrior footage? Check out the trailer below.
