FASA founder says Microsoft "destroyed" its development culture after acquisition

FASA Interactive founder Jordan Weisman, has said that after his studio was acquired by Microsoft, it "destroyed" the development culture of the firm and almost did the same to Bungie.

"When Microsoft bought FASA Interactive and incorporated it into Microsoft... the two reasons they bought us was, one, they wanted the catalog of intellectual properties and, two, they felt that we had developed a really good development culture," Weisman told GI.biz. "And the reality is that, pretty much from the day we moved to Redmond, that development culture was destroyed. I don't think the studio ever really had a chance. It was destroyed right in the beginning.

"When we were acquiring Bungie, they wanted me to sit down with the owners of Bungie and tell them how well the transition went, 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.

"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."

Weisman's in the process of getting some of his IP's back from Microsoft, and is currently in talks with Piranha to get a new MechWarrior made.

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