Talk:Santa Monica Studio

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:SCE Japan Studio which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 02:31, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Source

History of Santa Monica Studio article. Axem Titanium (talk) 20:35, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Why are games developed by Q-Games listed here?

Title says it all. It's possible that Q-Games is subsidiary of SIE Santa Monica Studio, but it doesn't seem to be the case (at least not mentioned here and in Q-Games article).--fireattack (talk) 01:27, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

^Q-Games is not a subsidiary of SIE Santa Monica Studio. However, SMS does have an "External Development" branch that collaborates/incubates/publishes with other developers. It would be useful to have a list dedicated solely to the work associated with that branch. ICK44 (talk) 05:32, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Proposal: Split the games list into internally developed and other games

I find the list in its current form does not give a clear and comprehensible picture of the games output that is associated with SIE Santa Monicia Studio. Proposal applies to the SIE Japan Studio and the SIE SIE San Diego Studio as well. Open for discussion of the pros and cons. NeilStone (talk) 12:22, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

External Development

@ICK44: Seeing as though the page has been locked, I hope you can finally agree to discuss this (as required by WP:BRD and in line with WP:STATUSQUO). Here are my central points:

• "External development", in general, refers to a company contracting a different company for development services. This may cover part or whole of a game. SIE has its XDev division for this. For example, SIE had an external development contract with Media Molecule for LittleBigPlanet (2008; before Sony acquired Media Molecule in 2010). The website for Santa Monica Studio uses "external development partners" as a distinction from internal development partners (like San Diego Studio), not because it outsourced work to them. The meaning would be mostly the same without 'external'.
• You first suggested the naming "Games developed externally". As I stated previously, this is misleading. While games were partially (and in some times mostly) developed externally (i.e. by a different company), the development that Santa Monica Studio itself performed was still internal. "Games developed via External Development" has a different wording but mostly the same meaning. Consider the analogous "SIE produced LittleBigPlanet via external development", which equates to "SIE had an external company develop LittleBigPlanet".
• In your most recent edit summary, you stated that "There was literally a department within SMS called 'External Development'". Coverage of this is limited, so I have to assume that it was similar to XDev. What this division therefore would have done is manage external development relations, not itself perform 'external development'. As noted above, Santa Monica Studio's own development work was still done within the studio. Furthermore, no such division is currently covered in the article (which makes suddenly naming it in a section header unhelpful to the reader), nor is it sourced for any of the games that they were managed by this division. The studio's website does not mention the division in any capacity.
• The previous wording, "Games incubated" (or the expanded form, "Games co-developed or incubated"), describes precisely what Santa Monica Studio did in regard to the individual games. This both makes the circumstances immediately clear to the reader and avoids corporate speak. It is also in line with the reliable, secondary sources that we use. A single half-sentence in a primary source should not mandate the wording for this.

I hope this clears it up a bit. If you still feel like we need to use wording involving 'external', please discuss this here. Regards, IceWelder [✉] 13:15, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

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@IceWelder: We can discuss, assuming the goal is to find objective truth rather than "winning" an argument, which is what this is beginning to feel like.

• I proposed a title change between the two sections (internal vs external) because that is the distinction that Sony Santa Monica themselves use to distinguish their development groups. As I said, it's pointed out in Ref 1 ("external development partners") and they do have a group within the studio, formally named "External Development", that oversees all types of external development partnerships.
• You seem to imply that this group may no longer exist, but it is indeed referenced on the LinkedIn of the employee who is currently the principal of the External Development Group. I capitalized "External" and "Development" because that is what Santa Monica's employees themselves do to describe a formal department within the company.
• The "Games incubated" title is inaccurate because only some, but not all of the developers listed in that section were actually in a formal "business incubation" relationship with SMS. This can clearly be seen with a list of their published works from a page of the World Heritage Encyclopedia.
• While some studios like thatgamecompany and SuperBot Entertainment absolutely were incubated, other studios like Ready at Dawn and Eat Sleep Play were fully independent, and had co-development business partnerships with SMS. Furthermore, other relationships (like those with Q Games) saw Santa Monica strictly as a publisher, where development was done in its entirety by an external developer. That is why "games co-developed or incubated" is insufficient: it doesn't cover all types of business relationships SMS had within its External Development branch.
• That is why I proposed "Games developed via External Development." It correctly encompasses all possible business relationships SMS had with other studios, while also pointing out SMS' unique position as a triple-A internal developer that also happens to have a formal publishing branch. I think this more than warrants a section on their Wiki dedicated solely to this branch, which I'd be happy to help create.
• The only problem you seem to have with my edits comes from your personal interpretation that "developed externally" is misleading, which is a false premise. The assumption you're making through your LittleBigPlanet example (that SMS never strictly outsourced projects) is incorrect: as stated above, SMS' External group actually did involve strict publisher-only deals where SMS was not credited for any internal development work. I've provided sources to substantiate this, while you've only provided personal intuition and this false comparison.

"External Development" should be used since it is a formal term used by the studio to separate their internal dev team from their external one. Kindly, ICK44 (talk) 19:42, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

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ICK44, thank you for your response. Sorry for the misunderstanding surrounding the External Development division; it is currently listed nowhere on the company's website, nor do reliable secondary sources frequently report on it (the last I've found is from 2016), so information via reliable channels is limited. Let me also quickly note here that the WHE entry is a copy of this revision of our article.

If I understand correctly, none of the headers we presented could properly summarize SMS's various roles. You pointed out that SMS had, in some cases, not acted in any development capacity, rather managed the games' publishing/production aspects. In such cases, the header should not suggest that SMS developed the game (in whole or in part). Furthermore, it remains unclear whether all games (including Flow as early as 2006) were handled through this division (i.e. whether it formally existed back then).

I think the easiest solution might be a generified title like "Cooperations" or "Contributions" for a level-three section, followed by a list of games with a "Notes" column in place of the current "Co-developer(s)" that explains how SMS was involved ("Co-developed", "Incubated", "Produced", etc.). If it turns out that External Development had indeed been there from the start (you will know this better than me), we could also create a level-two "External Development" section that first explains the workings of that division (with reliable sources) before presenting that table. Thoughts?

PS, A separate article on External Development is likely not viable per WP:NCORP. Regards, IceWelder [✉] 14:21, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

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@IceWelder: No problem. I agree that the information isn't as easy to find as it should/could be.

• The list of games on that old revision seems accurate: it even correctly separates internal from external development and mentions Sony's external development team in the sentence preceding the list. It isn't much, but it's a decent start. Is there a particular reason this isn't being used?
• Sure, I think a title like "Partnerships" sounds reasonable. I especially think a "Notes" section is appropriate, both for the reasons you mentioned and for the fact that SMS have funded/been involved in the development of quite a few titles that would later be published by different companies, like L.A. Noire, Six Days in Fallujah, and What Remains of Edith Finch.
• While I don't have sources for exactly when the External Development group was first formed, I think any title listed on their official website that isn't an internally developed project (Kinetica/GoW) can reasonably be assumed a part of the External Development branch, especially when their developers are directly referenced as "external development partners" on their website.
• There is also anecdotal evidence suggesting that the External Development division was briefly closed or significantly downsized in 2015, which may have a connection to the struggles the studio faced following the cancellation of their first internal PS4 project and is very likely connected to the formation of Annapurna Interactive. I imagine NDA's and such would prevent concrete details from becoming public, but that may play a role in the difficulty of finding information about this branch until recently.
• I don't think an entire separate External Development article is necessary. A section about External development within this Santa Monica Studio page is sufficient, I think.

Kindly, ICK44 (talk) 19:34, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

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ICK44, sorry for the late response. The old table was cut down in 2019 by an account since blocked for sockpuppetry. Regardless of how we are going to approach the expanded "Collaborations"/"Partnerships" table, we should look for sources detailing SMS's role to have as little original research as possible. The section should also contain the limited bits of info that we have about External Development in reliable sources (ResetEra et al. cannot be used for obvious reasons). The section should not suggest that all games fell under External Development since this is not verifiable. Regards, IceWelder [✉] 12:34, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

I broke the games listed on SMS's website down into a table (attached). There were some minor errors, such as Warhawk being credited to LightBox Interactive (despite being released two years before the company was founded), Linger in Shadows being called "Linger in the Shadows", and the God War spin-offs and remaster being credited to SMS rather than Ready at Dawn and Wholesale Algorithms (respectively). I also left out SMS's fully-in-house-developed games as they are already neatly situated in their own table. The website unfortunately does not details which role(s) SMS held for the others. IceWelder [✉] 13:21, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Year	Title	Developer
2001	Twisted Metal: Black	Incog Inc. Entertainment
	Twisted Metal: Small Brawl
2002	Twisted Metal Black: Online
2003	War of the Monsters
	Downhill Domination
2005	The Con	Think & Feel Inc.
	Twisted Metal: Head-On	Incognito Entertainment
	Neopets: The Darkest Faerie	Idol Minds
2006	Blast Factor	Bluepoint Games
2007	Flow	Thatgamecompany
	Calling All Cars!	Incognito Entertainment
	Warhawk
	PixelJunk Racers	Q-Games
	Everyday Shooter	Queasy Games
2008	PixelJunk Monsters	Q-Games
	Twisted Metal Head-On: Extra Twisted Edition	Eat Sleep Play
	God of War: Chains of Olympus	Ready at Dawn
	PixelJunk Monsters Encore	Q-Games
	PixelJunk Eden
	Linger in Shadows	Plastic
2009	Flower	Thatgamecompany
	PixelJunk Eden Encore	Q-Games
	Fat Princess	Titan Studios
	PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe	Q-Games
	.detuned	Farbrausch
	PixelJunk Shooter	Q-Games
2010	Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake	Super Villain Studios
	PixelJunk Racers 2nd Lap	Q-Games
	God of War: Ghost of Sparta	Ready at Dawn
2011	PixelJunk Shooter 2	Q-Games
	PixelJunk Sidescroller
	Carnival Island	Magic Pixel Games
2012	Twisted Metal	Eat Sleep Play
	Escape Plan	Fun Bits
	Journey	Thatgamecompany
	Starhawk	LightBox Interactive
	Datura	Plastic
	PixelJunk 4am	Q-Games
	Sorcery	The Workshop
	Sound Shapes	Queasy Games
	The Unfinished Swan	Giant Sparrow
	PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale	SuperBot Entertainment
2014	Hohokum	Honeyslug
2015	Fat Princess: Piece of Cake	One Loop Games
	God of War III Remastered	Wholesale Algorithms
	The Order: 1886	Ready at Dawn
	Everybody's Gone to the Rapture	The Chinese Room
	Fat Princess Adventures	Fun Bits
2016	Bound	Plastic
	Here They Lie	Tangentlemen

IceWelder [✉] 13:21, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

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@IceWelder:

It seems that the best primary source available for SMS' External Development team is a now-deleted post on their official website from then Head of Studio Shannon Studstill in 2015, which does indeed verify that:

  A: Santa Monica's External Development Group has at least operated for the entire lifespan of Santa Monica Studio (15 years at time of writing). 

  B: Every title listed on their "Games" page that wasn't internally developed was indeed created via partnership with SMS' External Development team. Studstill claims the group specifically produced "over 45 games," which can be confirmed by doing the appropriate math (subtracting internal & unreleased projects).
 

I think that these, at the very least, warrant this table's inclusion under an "External Development" section. Roles can be further researched appropriately for each game.

Additionally, I revised your list a bit by consolidating in the "developer" column (for readability) and by appropriately moving some entries to coincide with proper release dates (such as Twisted Metal Head On: Extra Twisted Edition and God of War III Remastered). I noticed that platforms weren't included in your chart and although I initially wanted to include them, I think it would introduce unnecessary clutter given the number of times these games are re-released on other platforms (sometimes by different developers). I think it'd be best to only include re-releases that involve name rebrands, therefore excluding direct ports.

ICK44 (talk) 08:02, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

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• I ordered the table according to SMS's website data; it lists God of War III Remastered for the release date of the original God of war III (which itself is not listed), as well as Head-On for the release date of the PlayStation 2 version. Other than that, the action plan seems good and I'm glad that we found a good solution to this. The protection expired several days ago so this can be worked into the article. IceWelder [✉] 13:16, 1 April 2021 (UTC)