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Vapourware System Shock 3 by OtherSide Entertainment - taken over by Tencent!

Duralux for Durabux

Guest
Slightly better than abysmal is still not that good.
 

Child of Malkav

Erudite
Joined
Feb 11, 2018
Messages
2,453
Location
Romania
Stop acting like Arkane is as good as Looking Glass. They're not in the same league as Looking Glass.
They're not, but right now they're the only studio that continue to do what LGS did as well as keeping their design philosophy alive, with more or less success.
The alternative would be Otherside Entertainment, former LGS developers. How did that turn out? Oh wait....
Also I'm keeping an eye on WolfEye Studios made by Colantonio after leaving Arkane. They have that game, Weird West, in development.
 

Latelistener

Arcane
Joined
May 25, 2016
Messages
2,579
That was before the underwhelming sales of Prey and before Raph left the studio. Under the new management in Lyon they're going full SJW with online. See Deathloop if you even remember what that is.

And clinging to the past Arkane is no better than clinging to the past of the people from Otherside.
 

Silly Germans

Guest
The only other choice thats left would be Eidos Montreal. If only they hadn't botched Thief ...
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
"Immersive sim" or not, I doubt there will be any AAA publisher that will fund a claustrophobic and slow first-person game after the failures of Alien: Isolation and Prey. (Well maybe except Resident Evil, but it's been steadily successful IP already.)
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Huh, Warren Spector casually wrote a post on his Gamasutra blog early this week. It's about the recent fuss about "Deus Ex predicted the future!!11!", and nothing about the situation of SS3 or Otherside.

https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/WarrenSpector/20200504/362273/Predicting_the_future_Not.php

Predicting the future. Not.

So as I'm sure you've noticed (if you pay any attention at all!), I haven't blogged in a while (okay a LONG while). No excuse other than laziness. And I've been taking a break from social media since January so I don't really know what's going on there these days. However, recently I've had people getting in touch with me telling me there are people talking about Deus Ex again. Twenty years after we shipped (almost exactly 20 years, to the day, actually). It blows my mind. But there it is.

What people are telling me is that other people are saying we predicted the future (again), what with the parallels between the Gray Death in the game and the current Covid-19 situation. Also, apparently, Elon Musk has changed his Twitter avatar to a picture of JC Denton. I figured I might as well tell everyone reading this what I've been telling the people who've gotten in touch with me about both of those things. Don't expect too much - neither I nor the team are psychics, at least as far as I know. But here's what I have to say anyway.

As far as Deus Ex goes, well, to tell you the truth. I’m as freaked out about the parallels between the real world and the game as other folks. First it was the New York skyline without the World Trade Center and now the Gray Death virus.

In reality, I think we just got “lucky.”Having said that, everything in the game was, by design, based on something real or something that some subset of the people believed to be true. Everyone on the team worked exceptionally hard to live up to that standard. We even got blueprints for various locations and looked to the news as well as doing a ton of research on pre-Y2K conspiracy theories. Looking around back in the 1997-2000 period, such theories were all around us (much like today) and it didn’t take much gray matter (as it were) to extrapolate where we might be in the future.

As far as the Gray Death itself goes, as I said, I'm kind of freaked out. I mean a disease that starts with a cough and inflicts flu-like symptoms... You have to admit that hits a little close to home. But before I get all the credit for that - or blame for propagating conspiracy theories about the creation of the virus in the lab and the withholding of a known treatment to influence the rich and powerful and, maybe, cause riots in the streets to wreak general havoc, I have to give credit to others: Most notable in the deserving-of-credit sweepstakes are Lead Writer, Sheldon Pacotti and, really, the entire design team, led by Harvey Smith. I often get the kudos for creating the Deus Ex game, as if it poured fully formed from my fevered brow when, in fact, it was very much a team effort. I'll take credit for initiating the project and laying down some ground-rules that drove the game it ended up being, but the "real work" was done by one of the best teams I've ever been privileged to work with.

And then there's Elon Musk thing, which is just bizarre. I guess he's a fan of Deus Ex. At the very least he knows enough about it to want to associate himself with it on Twitter. But beyond that, I can't comment - and before anyone goes crazy, it's not because of any conspiracy. It's simply that I've never communicated with the man and have no idea what to make of his knowledge or apparent enthusiasm for the game! I kind of wish he’d contact me just to let me know what's up with that. Kinda sort of.

Now, let's all hope none of the other "predictions" in Deus Ex become reality. We're going through enough right now that I don't want to see anything else come true. For now, have fun and stay safe!
 

Eli_Havelock

Learned
Joined
Dec 22, 2019
Messages
669
Most notable in the deserving-of-credit sweepstakes...

All that hard work paid off to have Warren Spector finally award you part of his public cred 20 years later - but only because he doesn't want to continue owning that part all by himself.
 

RoSoDude

Arcane
Joined
Oct 1, 2016
Messages
727
Huh? Warren Spector has never hesitated to shift most of the credit for Deus Ex to Harvey Smith (designer), Chris Norden (programmer), Sheldon Pacotti (writer), and the rest of the team. I think you guys mistake his tendency to soapbox about lofty design ideals for some kind of egotistical narcissism that he doesn't actually exhibit.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
This is now being picked up by non-English European gaming sites.

So if Tencent funds SS3 or even outright buys Otherside, what's in it for them? Even if Underworld Ascendant was a successful game it's probably still not an attractive asset to Tencent. Same for SS3, they can't even own the IP itself.

Probably they want to leverage Warren and Paul's networks, to expand their presence in southern and eastern parts of the US. (Tencent Boston is almost 12 years old, but it's still pretty small and there doesn't seem to be much of projects going on there. Also interestingly, Walter Somol worked at Tencent Boston studio for a short (7 months) before joining Harmonix.)

(FWIW otherside-e.com is still owned by Otherside.)
 

Eli_Havelock

Learned
Joined
Dec 22, 2019
Messages
669
Congratulations, guys, you've hit the jackpot on selling out! All it cost you was the integrity of... everything. Haven't we been there before, several times over, once before in the System Shock franchise itself?
:hero:

I will admit, even in my despair from the things I've seen over the years I hadn't anticipated a move this fucky and low. Do you think nunuShock will make it as far as Squeezix's Deuce Goatse.cx or will the milking machine kill off the cash cow even faster this time around? I can't wait for cyber battle royale! Then again, Warren-Paul did just fuck over their UA backers with a limp excuse to make morality or IP integrity a moot point all on their own; so why not just go crawling back to EA or Eidos?
Both EA and Eidos have paid millions to discover how the auteur development model doesn't really work.

Someone let Lord Brexit know that Tencent are hiring. I gotta see what happens.
 

Old Hans

Arcane
Joined
Oct 10, 2011
Messages
1,442
Huh, Warren Spector casually wrote a post on his Gamasutra blog early this week. It's about the recent fuss about "Deus Ex predicted the future!!11!", and nothing about the situation of SS3 or Otherside.

https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/WarrenSpector/20200504/362273/Predicting_the_future_Not.php

Predicting the future. Not.

So as I'm sure you've noticed (if you pay any attention at all!), I haven't blogged in a while (okay a LONG while). No excuse other than laziness. And I've been taking a break from social media since January so I don't really know what's going on there these days. However, recently I've had people getting in touch with me telling me there are people talking about Deus Ex again. Twenty years after we shipped (almost exactly 20 years, to the day, actually). It blows my mind. But there it is.

What people are telling me is that other people are saying we predicted the future (again), what with the parallels between the Gray Death in the game and the current Covid-19 situation. Also, apparently, Elon Musk has changed his Twitter avatar to a picture of JC Denton. I figured I might as well tell everyone reading this what I've been telling the people who've gotten in touch with me about both of those things. Don't expect too much - neither I nor the team are psychics, at least as far as I know. But here's what I have to say anyway.

As far as Deus Ex goes, well, to tell you the truth. I’m as freaked out about the parallels between the real world and the game as other folks. First it was the New York skyline without the World Trade Center and now the Gray Death virus.

In reality, I think we just got “lucky.”Having said that, everything in the game was, by design, based on something real or something that some subset of the people believed to be true. Everyone on the team worked exceptionally hard to live up to that standard. We even got blueprints for various locations and looked to the news as well as doing a ton of research on pre-Y2K conspiracy theories. Looking around back in the 1997-2000 period, such theories were all around us (much like today) and it didn’t take much gray matter (as it were) to extrapolate where we might be in the future.

As far as the Gray Death itself goes, as I said, I'm kind of freaked out. I mean a disease that starts with a cough and inflicts flu-like symptoms... You have to admit that hits a little close to home. But before I get all the credit for that - or blame for propagating conspiracy theories about the creation of the virus in the lab and the withholding of a known treatment to influence the rich and powerful and, maybe, cause riots in the streets to wreak general havoc, I have to give credit to others: Most notable in the deserving-of-credit sweepstakes are Lead Writer, Sheldon Pacotti and, really, the entire design team, led by Harvey Smith. I often get the kudos for creating the Deus Ex game, as if it poured fully formed from my fevered brow when, in fact, it was very much a team effort. I'll take credit for initiating the project and laying down some ground-rules that drove the game it ended up being, but the "real work" was done by one of the best teams I've ever been privileged to work with.

And then there's Elon Musk thing, which is just bizarre. I guess he's a fan of Deus Ex. At the very least he knows enough about it to want to associate himself with it on Twitter. But beyond that, I can't comment - and before anyone goes crazy, it's not because of any conspiracy. It's simply that I've never communicated with the man and have no idea what to make of his knowledge or apparent enthusiasm for the game! I kind of wish he’d contact me just to let me know what's up with that. Kinda sort of.

Now, let's all hope none of the other "predictions" in Deus Ex become reality. We're going through enough right now that I don't want to see anything else come true. For now, have fun and stay safe!
im pretty sure this guy didnt have anything to do with any of the actual good stuff in deus ex or any of those other old games that everyone loves.
 

karoliner

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Oct 31, 2016
Messages
5,087
Location
Most skilled black nation
source.gif
 

MasterLobar

Angry OtherSide Refugee
Joined
Feb 17, 2019
Messages
358
Location
Killorn Keep
I suspect they sold the SS3 publishing rights to Tencent, but take no part in the development. Tencent are finishing it themseles or hire a different studio.

They now try to use the proceeds to make a Thief successor using UA as a basis.

That probably always was their plan. That's why they made UA so much like Thief and so unlike UU.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Possibly related, or not, Tencent is starting a AAA studio in North America: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-05-18-tencent-is-starting-a-aaa-studio-in-north-america

This will be located in Western Coast though. (I guess they surely can make a AAA studio at each side of Amercia.)

(Btw you probably aware this Scott Warner guy as one of the designers on PS:T.)

Tencent is starting a AAA studio in North America
EA and Ubisoft veteran Scott Warner will be studio director for Tencent's first AAA operation in the US

Tencent is setting up a new AAA studio in North America, bringing in veteran developer Scott Warner to lead the operation.

Warner has an impressive track record in AAA: he was design director on Halo 4 at 343 Industries, game director on Battlefield Hardline at EA Visceral, and was most recently game director for Ubisoft in the San Francisco Bay Area.

"I am moving on to a new role," Warner said, announcing his departure from Ubisoft on Twitter. "I'll be the studio director of a new AAA operation in North America for Tencent."

The location of the new studio has not yet been decided, with Warner stating that it "might be Seattle, might be Los Angeles."

Tencent is the biggest games publisher in the world by revenue, but its growth outside of China has largely been fuelled by acquisitions -- Supercell and Riot Games, for example.

This move is one of Tencent's first attempts to start an internal AAA studio from scratch.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
:what:

http://whois.domaintools.com/systemshock3.com

Registrant Org: Tencent Holdings Limited

This domain was originally redirected to Otherside website, now it does not lead to anywhere. The domain info was updated on last month, before the previous expiration date (May), so it's not like Tecent snatched an expired domain or something.

Picked up by VGC: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/system-shock-3-tencent/

This site has served as sort of a bridge to bigger sites for this kind of news, so probably more sites will pick this up.
 

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