Company News JoWood is Walkin' with Jesus

[Alex]

@Blackadder

The problem is that the turd didn't sink, it got eaten by the other 4 turds, which will now grow stronger and stinkier... ugh, this analogy didn't carry over well at all. I'd better explain what I mean. As long as JoWood existed, it at least created competition to other publishers. So, it was like a card in the sleeve of development studios. It might be a weak card (after all, JoWood had a pretty crappy reputation), but at least it was something. If push came to shove, it was another publisher they might run to.

I don't know, maybe this will prove a good thing in the long run, but right now, I think it is only further consolidating the power of other publishers.

 

[Reptilian Shapeshifter]

Bioware will be gone long before Bethesda.

They'll probably be renamed to EA Edmonton first.

If EA were to fold, now that would be a dream come true, though sadly, I don't see it ever happening.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Bioware will be gone long before Bethesda.

They'll probably be renamed to EA Edmonton first.

If EA were to fold, now that would be a dream come true, though sadly, I don't see it ever happening.

EA will fold some day once it garners a negative enough reputation, though Activision would likely die first.

 

[commie]

Bioware will be gone long before Bethesda.

They'll probably be renamed to EA Edmonton first.

If EA were to fold, now that would be a dream come true, though sadly, I don't see it ever happening.

EA will fold some day once it garners a negative enough reputation, though Activision would likely die first.

Activision tends to fold at least once a decade, so they are overdue ATM.

 

[villain of the story]

Bioware will be gone long before Bethesda.

They'll probably be renamed to EA Edmonton first.

If EA were to fold, now that would be a dream come true, though sadly, I don't see it ever happening.

A neocon backed publisher-developer house doesn't get renamed, son. I expect Bethesda to become the next EA, actually. They already acquired ID and nerfed Rage.

 

[Jaesun]

The only thing about this that fucking pisses me off, is that the English version of The Book Of Unwritten Tales was held up because of these fucking problems at JoWood.

Fucking faggots.

 

[Jools]

Ay-men!

 

[Clockwork Knight]

@Blackadder

The problem is that the turd didn't sink, it got eaten by the other 4 turds, which will now grow stronger and stinkier... ugh, this analogy didn't carry over well at all. I'd better explain what I mean.

Don't worry, that analogy was so good it might as well become the main argument.

Yeah, I don't think this is something to be happy about. Real life is not an rpg, destroying the orcs' hideout doesn't mean they will disappear and all is good now. The people responsible for "raping Gothic" will probably just find a job in another company.

So, uh, you guys continue celebrating the spreading of the disease. I will, uh, be over there. Contemplating.

*hydraulics*

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

@Blackadder

The problem is that the turd didn't sink, it got eaten by the other 4 turds, which will now grow stronger and stinkier... ugh, this analogy didn't carry over well at all. I'd better explain what I mean. As long as JoWood existed, it at least created competition to other publishers. So, it was like a card in the sleeve of development studios. It might be a weak card (after all, JoWood had a pretty crappy reputation), but at least it was something. If push came to shove, it was another publisher they might run to.

I don't know, maybe this will prove a good thing in the long run, but right now, I think it is only further consolidating the power of other publishers.

I never said it was a good thing. What I meant was that really, it doesn't matter either way. Jowood was financing rubbish when it died, no different to all the other companies, so the loss doesn't mean anything unless you actually enjoyed Jowoods new titles. Unless you can tell me what positive aspects they were bringing to the table of course.

Does this make sense to you? Because I cannot understand what hidden good Jowood was doing by being in existence.

I will try another analogy: There are 5 car companies. All of them now manufacture unreliable rubbish. One of them bites the bullet, and now you have 4 car companies that manufacture unreliable rubbish. It hasn't helped the people that want a reliable car. At all. This want is still in the market place, and still not being served. There really is no difference from when there were 5 companies churning out lemons, except perhaps for the badge on the front of the vehicle.

Any better?

 

[DraQ]

I got to take a cheap potshot at JoWood as punchline following the thread title.


Works for me.

 

[Alex]

@Blackadder

Well, I liked a few of their older games, like Gothic and The Guild. But that isn't the point, as they stopped publishing games like that. The problem isn't what they will no longer publish, but what they weren't going to publish in first place. As I understand it, game publishing is much like any other market, with supply and demand determining who has a say in what. With one less publisher, even a crappy publisher, supply is lessened, and those who still publish will probably enjoy even more power in future negotiations with developers. Even those who were really unlike to sign up with JoWood.

Now, I think my argument may seem weird, as it seems to be saying that any publisher going under is a bad thing, no matter how awful he was. This is obviously false, but the problem is that no new publishers are entering the market. As far as I know, the only publisher that has made a breakthrough into the market in the recent history was Valve. And even then, Valve isn't really competing directly with the big publishers because they focus on direct download versions of games, instead of physical copies. The big player's hold in the market is pretty tight, and I don't see it changing in the near future.

 

[Stalin]

BBYE KRAUT KUNTS

 

[Azrael the cat]

@Blackadder

The problem is that the turd didn't sink, it got eaten by the other 4 turds, which will now grow stronger and stinkier... ugh, this analogy didn't carry over well at all. I'd better explain what I mean.

Don't worry, that analogy was so good it might as well become the main argument.

Yeah, I don't think this is something to be happy about. Real life is not an rpg, destroying the orcs' hideout doesn't mean they will disappear and all is good now. The people responsible for "raping Gothic" will probably just find a job in another company.

So, uh, you guys continue celebrating the spreading of the disease. I will, uh, be over there. Contemplating.

*hydraulics*

What it provides, however, is a small example of the market functioning healthily. A company that created overtly shite products with shite reasoning went under. If there is a good side-effect, it isn't driving these guys out of work and forcing their families into hardship. It's that funders are that little bit more likely to back companies that create games that try to side-step the Biowares and Bethesdas of the place, by catering to niche markets. Yes, that means facebook games, but it also means the kind of games that we like. Jowood illustrated the exact kind of thinking that is keeping the gaming market in its current unsophisticated state - the idea that every company, no matter how large or small, must compete for the same piece of the mainstream pie with every product by every division of that company. It provides developers a little bit more ammunition to bring into the meeting when convincing publishers to back their project, rather than 'random but safe-looking action-rpg #4356'. It means that funders have to actually notice that Jowood's recent games tanked hard, and they have to ask why. Hopefully, it means that a developer looking for funding can bring a case that 'hey, Arcania had the graphics and the tech down fine. I can see why you're so surprised, because that's what you're used to judging the likely success of games by. But gamers also need decent writing, gameplay and choices, and Arcania failed at each of those and the market noticed.'

The people might be idiots, but money is always neutral. The money goes where the market openings allow it to flow, nothing more or less. The guys with the cash couldn't give a shit about whether a game is good or not - they want it to sell. Anything that indicates that there is a limit on the market space for shitty flavourless but tech-competent action-rpgs, and a gap in the market space for innovative or intelligent games, is a good thing.

 

[Shannow]

Hopefully some families will starve.

You fit in with RPGwatch. Will you consider moving?

 

[Alex]

I don't know Azrael. And, by that, I really mean I don't know. I mean, maybe you are right, but I am afraid the market is sicker than ever, and mainly for two reasons:

First, as I already said, we have too few publishers in the market. Robert Sirotek once said in an interview that the market needed consolidation, and I can see where he was coming from, as lots of weak publishers will have trouble actually publishing a product. But I think that strong publishers bring about their own problems. Bigger companies are understandably risk averse and, with few, strong publishers, it is harder than ever to break into the market.

The second reason I think you are being too optimistic is that you expect other publishers will understand what went wrong with JoWood. It is pretty easy for us to see what was wrong with, say, Gothic 4. Just play it for a while and you will see various problems, various design decisions that don't hold very well. However, that is not how publishers are likely to look at the product. Even if any of the executives actually played any games himself, he would probably consider it unwise to judge the game based on his own preferences. Their aim isn't for the game to be good, but to please a "market segment".

So, instead of trying to understand how and why games work, they will use metrics that try to measure what features are popular. I don't think, for example, that publishers can really tell the difference between FO3's writing and F:NV's writing. At best, they will have on their statistics that some people complained of the former but not the later, but there will probably the statistics for the other way around, and I expect they will chalk this up to brand loyalty rather than any property of the game itself. If I am right, I think publishers will be more likely to see JoWoods failure as proof that RPGs that don't have a production value as big as Bioware's or Bethesda's will fail than that they shouldn't compete directly.

 

[Azrael the cat]

I don't know Azrael. And, by that, I really mean I don't know. I mean, maybe you are right, but I am afraid the market is sicker than ever, and mainly for two reasons:

First, as I already said, we have too few publishers in the market. Robert Sirotek once said in an interview that the market needed consolidation, and I can see where he was coming from, as lots of weak publishers will have trouble actually publishing a product. But I think that strong publishers bring about their own problems. Bigger companies are understandably risk averse and, with few, strong publishers, it is harder than ever to break into the market.

The second reason I think you are being too optimistic is that you expect other publishers will understand what went wrong with JoWood. It is pretty easy for us to see what was wrong with, say, Gothic 4. Just play it for a while and you will see various problems, various design decisions that don't hold very well. However, that is not how publishers are likely to look at the product. Even if any of the executives actually played any games himself, he would probably consider it unwise to judge the game based on his own preferences. Their aim isn't for the game to be good, but to please a "market segment".

So, instead of trying to understand how and why games work, they will use metrics that try to measure what features are popular. I don't think, for example, that publishers can really tell the difference between FO3's writing and F:NV's writing. At best, they will have on their statistics that some people complained of the former but not the later, but there will probably the statistics for the other way around, and I expect they will chalk this up to brand loyalty rather than any property of the game itself. If I am right, I think publishers will be more likely to see JoWoods failure as proof that RPGs that don't have a production value as big as Bioware's or Bethesda's will fail than that they shouldn't compete directly.

Yeah, despite what I said, all of this is correct as well.

I can understand how Lucasarts used to suceed so effortlessly before Adventure games were temporarily abandoned. A film production company that ALSO knew gaming really really well, that was used to the competitive environment of film, and the need to get metrics to measure the likely Oscar contenders as well as the teen moneyspinners, would wipe the floor with the gaming industry. It's a pity that they seemed to lose their knowledge of the gaming market after tastes changed, and never really tried to regain it, just milking the Star Wars licence. Even a successful TV company, coming from that degree of true cutthroat competition - IF they could develop the same knowledge and respect for gaming as they do their 'home' products (and that's a big 'if') - would tear the competition apart in the gaming market.

 

[curry]

Now that Judenwood is gone, does that mean Gothic goes back to PB?

Yes. When PB entered the publishing deal with Jowood, they were smart/lucky enough to get away with only licensing the IP to the publisher, instead of handing it over outright, so it was scheduled to return to PB after Gothic 4 anyway. That's partially why they were able to walk away from Jowood so easily (and also speaks miles for Jowood's ineptitude in failing to secure ownership of the IP before 'firing' the developer).

AAAWWWW HELLLL

 

[DraQ]

First, as I already said, we have too few publishers in the market. Robert Sirotek once said in an interview that the market needed consolidation, and I can see where he was coming from, as lots of weak publishers will have trouble actually publishing a product. But I think that strong publishers bring about their own problems. Bigger companies are understandably risk averse and, with few, strong publishers, it is harder than ever to break into the market.

That's called oligopoly and is indeed a pathological state from free market POV as it stifles the competition.

 

[commie]

Who cares mother fuckas! There's enough great games I bet most of you still haven't got around to playing from the 90's that if you stopped from playing the latest GOTY from Bioware, you'd realize that you have enough stuff to play and replay without boredom for much of your lives. Fuck it! Let the whole computer game industry 'die' and never release anything again! We'd still get open source remakes and indie productions from time to tile to keep things fresh and in the meantime we'd finally have time to clear the backlog of games from yesteryear!

 

[Azrael the cat]

Who cares mother fuckas! There's enough great games I bet most of you still haven't got around to playing from the 90's that if you stopped from playing the latest GOTY from Bioware, you'd realize that you have enough stuff to play and replay without boredom for much of your lives. Fuck it! Let the whole computer game industry 'die' and never release anything again! We'd still get open source remakes and indie productions from time to tile to keep things fresh and in the meantime we'd finally have time to clear the backlog of games from yesteryear!

Really? I played pretty much all of that as it came out, and I cleared the few I missed (the middle Ultimas, Realms of Arkania trilogy, not much else I hadn't done at the time) many years ago. Given that the age of the average gamer is around 30, I doubt that I'm in a particularly rare position either. I've played my favourites 10+ times by now, and even they need a break by now. Even lesser lights - Wizardry 1-3, Ultima 1-3 - have been replayed a few times out of a desire to return to my old favourites as a kid. I've had over a decade since the 90s finished. Even if I had only started crpg gaming in 2000, instead of 1983, I'd STILL have been gaming long enough to have played every crpg created during the 1990s many many times over.

And the indies? Who exactly are you talking about? I agree that all of Vogel's games are mustplays, but I've played all of those as well. Eschalon is a decent time-passer, if you make allowance for it being an indie. I see a lot of great indies get promised in forums, but I can't seem to find the finished products on the internet anywhere (though there seem to be plenty of project cancellation pages).

Edit: re-reading this, and remembering that I actually tend to agree with a lot of Commie's posts on games, I'm guessing that there's a good chance that I've failed my sarcasm check. Hard to tell though - if it's sarcastic it's a damn fine imitation of the views he's mocking.

 

[commie]

Well Azrael, I'm thinking that you don't have a very broad taste in gaming then or you're one f those lucky individuals that had the perfect merger of enough time and right equipment to play all these games in the past. I can easily rattle off 30-40 titles I've wanted to play from ye olde days that I never got to because my PC was too weak or I had other commitments and they passed me by. I'm talking stuff you can keep replaying like wargames, strategy, not just RPG's. Hell, just going through all the 5 star General games will take months! I also missed out on countless adventure games that I want to give a go as I, like many, was distracted by the dawn of the FPS. Shit, I've barely played any of the varied Doom clones even!
With indies I was talking of the hypothetical indies that are likely to come out, shit, even now we have Hegemony as a very neat indie strategy/RTS game out and it's stuff like this that I keep expecting to come out in the future to mix things up.
Then there's all the horde of great flight sims from the mid-late 90's, the Jane's, DI, DID, Microprose sims.

RPG's are of course thinner on the ground and probably slim pickings for those that have the luck to have been able to devote the time to play them in the past, but I see many here constantly starting threads about just starting Realms of Arkania or Wizardry etc. for the first time, so I expect that they've got a huge potential backlog in RPG's themselves without needing to whine about the future.

 

[Mastermind]

That's what they get for condemning the Gothic series. Karma, bitches!

Choices and Consequences

They used intelligence as a dump stat, and so they couldn't access the '[intelligence] Direct combat against better funded companies like Bioware is insane. We should avoid confrontation by targeting the market segments that they aren't satisfying.' dialogue option.

Arcania sold well enough to warrant making an expansion, so I'm guessing their financial woes didn't come from trying to compete with bioware directly. Nevermind that the gothic series is closer to TES than DA.

 

[turn_based_fanboy]

After mistreatment of Gothic and Painkiller series I'm happy to see them go to bottom.

 

[Achilles]

It's that funders are that little bit more likely to back companies that create games that try to side-step the Biowares and Bethesdas of the place, by catering to niche markets. Yes, that means facebook games, but it also means the kind of games that we like.

I really wish that you're right, but to be honest I'm worried that the final verdict will be "If only they had gone full popamole sooner, they might have made it".