Brad Wardell Dishes the Dirt on Master of Magic

<strong>[ Interview ]</strong>

<p><a href="http://www.galciv2.com/" target="_blank" title="Stardock">Stardock's</a> Brad Wardell granted an <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20061115/mcmaster_01.shtml" target="_blank" title="Interview">interview</a> to Gamasutra to discuss MMOs, RPGs, and LEGOs. More importantly, he discussed what happened with that Master of Magic deal everyone was so excited about.</p><blockquote><p>GS: That's one of the things I wanted to ask you about. I wanted to ask about the Master of Magic license. You guys looked into that didn't you?</p><p>BW: Yeah, we did. We pursued it. Actually, Atari came to us a while ago. I thought they had a pretty good idea. That is, over the years, Atari has collected a lot of good IP (Intellectual Property) like X-Com, Star Control, Master of Orion, Master of Magic and a lot of others that a lot of people didn't realize that they held. So they came to us and said "We're not really interested in publishing these things ourselves, but what we'd like to do is license out the trademarks to third parties like you guys and we'll make a royalty off of them." So, we sat down and decided that Master of Magic would be our first, since it's close to something we'd done and Master of Orion 3 had already come out. We were able to agree on the money, so we thought everything was set, then their legal guys got involved, and that's where it stalled. They wanted the right to approve any marketing we did with a mutli-day stipulation. Say, for instance, me talking to you right now would be considered marketing and I would have to have approval first. That sort of thing. Then there was the weird thing, like if the game was manufactured overseas, someone from the company would have to be onsite to make sure there was no child labor. </p><p>GS: That's pretty odd. Do you mean from you guys or from Atari?</p> <p>BW: Oh, from Stardock. So if we were doing a Korean or Russian version, someone from here would have to be there. There were all sorts of things in there that made it difficult to do. Then Atari ran into financial difficulties and we just decided to do our own fantasy strategy game. At that point, no one was really doing a Master of Magic. I think that there's a strong market for a fantasy strategy game that has some of the elements of Master of Magic like random maps and building your own cities. It's not really a competitor to an Age of Wonders or Heroes of Might and Magic, they're completely different game mechanics.</p></blockquote><p>Wardell goes on to say that Stardock offered them six figures for the MoM rights and Atari turned them down. Atari should just give everything else up and develop a game that involves throwing money down a virtual toilet. </p><p>Spotted @ <a href="http://www.shacknews.com/">Shack News</a></p>

 

Dunno. Didn't like galciv2 at all. So this might actually be a good thing. Sure Atari are a bunch of tossers, but I am glad Stardock didn't get the license.

 

Didn't like GalCiv2? Are you sure its not you don't like strategy games at all? I enjoyed playing the game until the monotony set in and you realize you are actually playing a strategy game by marginal statistical advantages. Still worth though, in my opinion. Plus, BW learned that lesson well, and I doubt he'd make the same mistake again.

 

Just who or what runs Atari exactly? Some former CEO from Nike? The obsession with child labour seems a bit odd.

 

Erm. What?

 

What's the deal with big publisher accumulating all these IPs and just sitting on them? EA and Atari own just about every great IP from 80s and 90s PC gaming.

 

Not often we see someone prefering a big corporate "exists in name only" company to a smaller "we just make good games and hope people will like them" company.

 

Stardock is a big source of hope. They understand budgeting and always look for ways to reuse things, and they can survive from non-game titles. They have the resources and talent to make things look good enough and enough insight to either get things right or accept reasonable complaints.

"BW: Did you play Planescape Torment?

GS: Yeah.

BW: That game is awesome. Where's Planescape Torment 2?"

Brad seems to enjoy lots of games, including the sub-par popular ones as well as the hardcore. I think he mite move towards making games with more depth.

 

Whether they have the name or not as hardly important, its not like anyone here think the fallout 3 game will be true to its name. uch: I am happy if they succed in making a game in the same vein as the original. Hopefully they manage to make it feel more diverisfied than GC2, which while I liked it for a while felt like they needed something more to it.

 

I said that Atari are a bunch of tossers. Doesn't mean that I have to like Stardock. Sorry, but shit is shit, no matter who makes it.