Company News BioWare Speaks: Why IPLY and BioWare Split

[Sol Invictus]

Tags: BioWare; Neverwinter Nights

With IPLY in the gutter and BioWare on top of the world, there really is no point in keeping the real reason IPLY and BioWare split up a secret anymore. Rob Bartel discloses the information and clears up more than a few misconceptions on the <a href=http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=406786&forum=95&sp=75>NWN2 Forums</a>:
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<blockquote>To be honest, it really wasn't even an issue of bad blood and vitriol. The simple fact of the matter was that, given the financial situation at Interplay at the time, we didn't feel that they had the ability to bring NWN to market (i.e. actually get it onto store shelves where it would sell). There was also a secondary issue of some unpaid BG royalties, I believe, but the bulk of our concern was regarding the future rather than the past. NWN was an immense project and largely self-financed so you can understand why we were worried.
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Everything worked out in the end. Interplay actually received a timely and much-need cash influx from Atari in exchange for NWN and the D&D rights, Atari gained an excellent flagship title for their rebranding effort (prior to NWN, they published under the Infogrammes name), and we were able to get NWN out to the public, recoup our losses, and ultimately set us down the financial course we're currently on.
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As for the perceived falloff in quality for various BioWare & Black Isle games during that time period, my feeling is that the bulk of the problems ultimately revolved around money. Everyone was tightening their belts in order to get through a tough period. BioWare's finances are thankfully a lot more stable now and I suspect that all of the Black Isle people working on NWN2 feel a lot more secure sailing under the Obsidian banner.
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Hope that clarifies,
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Rob Bartel
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Lead Designer
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BioWare Community Live Team</blockquote>
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Thanks for the tip, MarFish.

 

[Halenthal]

Not that I really had any strong feelings one way or the other about BioWare, but if that post is actually true and not some sort of PR then they just scored big time with me. There'd be so much less complaining, whining, griping and other foolishness if more companies just came out and told it like it was from time to time.

Assuming, of course, it's not some sort of PR bullshit deal, which I don't think it is.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Nah, it doesn't sound like PR bullshit. Rob's pretty honest about these things.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Oh yeah, the issue of not getting paid for Baldur's Gate royalties was secondary to the concern that Interplay might not be able to get NWN on the shelves in an orderly fashion. That's believable.

I'd say it was more like, Hey, if these fuckers aren't paying us for Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2, I bet we're not going to get paid for NWN either!

It may not be complete PR bullshit, but in the end, it boils down to the money rather than the concern of getting the game to the hands of the LOVABLE BIOWARE FANZ. Interplay would have gotten it to the shelves. I think we all know that's true. They might have botched some things like they did with IWD2, but it would have gotten to the shelves.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Well, yeah. He states at the end pretty clearly that it all boiled down to money. Interplay was really bad at paying people. They didn't pay Reflexive, and they 'misplaced' the royalties they owed Bioware and Volition for the International/European sales of their products.

 

[MarFish]

Oh yeah, the issue of not getting paid for Baldur's Gate royalties was secondary to the concern that Interplay might not be able to get NWN on the shelves in an orderly fashion. That's believable.

I'd say it was more like, Hey, if these fuckers aren't paying us for Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2, I bet we're not going to get paid for NWN either!

It may not be complete PR bullshit, but in the end, it boils down to the money rather than the concern of getting the game to the hands of the LOVABLE BIOWARE FANZ. Interplay would have gotten it to the shelves. I think we all know that's true. They might have botched some things like they did with IWD2, but it would have gotten to the shelves.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/100/100198p1.html
Third party licensing - whatever amount of cash that was that IPLY tried to sneak away from them, it was probably minor compared to the investment into NWN.

Anyway, reading Rob's post I do not see where you get the "concerned to get the game into the hands of the LOVABLE BIOWARE FANZ" from. It' s fairly obvious that he means "bringing NWN to the shelves in a way that it sells".

He's clearly stating that the company's existance was hanging on this because they self funded it - getting the game to the market was likely a matter of life and death for them.

I'm not sure where you take the certainty that IPLY would have gotten the game to the shelves. Well, maybe to the shelves, but not with the quantities and spread needed to recover Bioware's investment - result - belly up.


Let's take fatbabies.com for this

Another Black Isle rumor is don't expect to see Neverwinter Nights this year, it's been pushed back to next year, probably summer. Word is that Bioware is self funding the project due in part to Interplay's inability to pay for milestones, and Bioware not providing builds to meet the milestones. Let's just say there isn't a lot of love between Bioware and Interplay.

If they can't pay for milestone's they sure as hell are a safe bet to bring the one game a company has to release successfully to stay alive to the streets. If Bioware self funded it, I doubt they would have survived a commercial crash landing (aka IWD2) of NWN with KotOR 2 years out. Bioware had a size of what, like 100 people back then - just calculate operational costs over sum of 4-5 years.

Sorry Saint, but "we all know what's true" is not correct.

 

[Volourn]

True or not, BIO still wins. That's all that matters.

 

[Noviere]

It may not be complete PR bullshit, but in the end, it boils down to the money rather than the concern of getting the game to the hands of the LOVABLE BIOWARE FANZ.

They didnt imply that getting NWN onto the shelves was some altruistic gift to their fans. They states quite obviously that they needed NWN's launch to be successful so they weren't financially crippled by IPLY's ismanagement.

 

[Araanor]

If nothing else, Bioware has shown that they're good at the 'business' part of the game business.

 

[taks]

* snip *
Sorry Saint, but "we all know what's true" is not correct.

ouch.

oh, btw, companies can't really "tell it like it is" even if they wanted to. go read any release regarding their sales or stock performance and you'll always see little "forward looking statement" disclaimers at the bottom. the SEC is ridiculous in this respect, and it costs companies millions in legal fees to maintain their good graces.

taks

 

[MarFish]

* snip *
Sorry Saint, but "we all know what's true" is not correct.

ouch.

oh, btw, companies can't really "tell it like it is" even if they wanted to. go read any release regarding their sales or stock performance and you'll always see little "forward looking statement" disclaimers at the bottom. the SEC is ridiculous in this respect, and it costs companies millions in legal fees to maintain their good graces.

taks

Especially privately held Canadian companies.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Anyway, reading Rob's post I do not see where you get the "concerned to get the game into the hands of the LOVABLE BIOWARE FANZ" from. It' s fairly obvious that he means "bringing NWN to the shelves in a way that it sells".

NWN would have sold off the shelves if Interplay had only put it in 7-11s next to the Slurpee machines. Hell, it would have probably sold off the shelves if Interplay had 7-11 put it BEHIND the Slurpee machines. I still stand by it being more of a question as to whether or not BioWare got their fair cut from the sales.

 

[JanC]

And what is wrong with Bioware getting their money for their work?

Honestly, most gaming fans seem to think that game companies should be charities.

I know you guys aren't too keen on Bioware, but would you really rather they made stupid business decisions, went bankrupt, leaving 100s of people jobless, and convincing other companies that there is no way to make a profit from RPGs? Really?

 

[Elwro]

And what is wrong with Bioware getting their money for their work?

I think you're being a bit oversensitive here. In my opinion everyone here would agree that splitting with IPLY was a wise decision by Bioware.

 

[JanC]

Well, you all seem to be saying that Bioware should have stuck with Interplay and gone bankrupt. Why, I have no idea.

 

[Elwro]

Well, you all seem to be saying that Bioware should have stuck with Interplay and gone bankrupt.

What? Quotes, please.

 

[Hory]

Bioware should have stuck with Interplay and gone bankrupt.

 

[Jinxed]

Well, you all seem to be saying that Bioware should have stuck with Interplay and gone bankrupt. Why, I have no idea.

Not at all. But posting such crap that bioware cared for the fans etc is just too much. Guess that charity press release wasn't enough.

BIOWARE LOVES YOU ALL! Bioware helps cripples, feeds the sickly and makes games that do a great job of converting 3rd edition to computer game form.

Surely, anyone who doesn't like Bioware at this point must be retarded and/or is jealous of their greatness and sees it as his/her purpose to slander them.

 

[aboyd]

What are you reading?

But posting such crap that bioware cared for the fans etc is just too much.

I just searched for "for the fans" in the OP. Nowhere does he use this language. Rereading it, I can't even see where it is implied. He makes it clear that there had been money problems in the past, but the potential money problems in the future were even more massive and important. I also looked through all the other posts in this thread, to see if anyone else was giving Bioware too much credit. I can't find any quote that says the things you think have been said.

Surely, anyone who doesn't like Bioware at this point must be retarded and/or is jealous of their greatness and sees it as his/her purpose to slander them.

Hmm. Reading comprehension could help dispel the notions about being retarded.

 

[Jinxed]

I'm not questioning what he wrote, it's pertaining the nature of his post. Why would he post anything like that? Yeah, to score points. It seems it's working.

It turns out that bioware is the awesomest baddest RPG dev house evar. Are they one the market? I think I'm gonna go buy some stock...

Don't you see? There is no limit to how great they are. They help out the needy, they make great games, and now, it turns out they are sincere. Non of this Troika bullshit right?

 

[garfield_hsieh]

To score points from whom? The few hundred people who actually read every posts in the specific forum/thread? There are far better places for Bioware to reveal that fact if they want to benefit from it.

The charity thing is obviously PR. But this one isn't.

 

[dojoteef]

The charity thing is obviously PR. But this one isn't.

I completely agree with you. I bashed Bioware pretty thoroughly when they pulled the charity press release, but I just don't see that hidden agenda in this one. It's a post by one dev in a forum that Bioware fans read, instead of a press release which holds the weight of the company as a whole and is meant to be disseminated to as many people as possible.


Even the contents of the post have to be heavily picked apart in order to find any hidden meaning. The only relevant quote that might be misconstrued if you are nitpicking is:

...Atari gained an excellent flagship title for their rebranding effort (prior to NWN, they published under the Infogrammes name), and we were able to get NWN out to the public...

So a Bioware developer is calling their game "an excellent flagship title", big surprise. Then they mention that they were able to release the game to the public. Nothing sinister in that at all.


Then if you want to look at Saint's line of questioning about Interplay actually being capable of distributing the game, we can do that too. Rob states:

The simple fact of the matter was that, given the financial situation at Interplay at the time, we didn't feel that they had the ability to bring NWN to market (i.e. actually get it onto store shelves where it would sell). There was also a secondary issue of some unpaid BG royalties, I believe, but the bulk of our concern was regarding the future rather than the past. NWN was an immense project and largely self-financed so you can understand why we were worried.

Not the bolded text. WHERE IT WOULD SELL. Saint's beliefs that if it was behind a slurpie machine in a 7-11 it would sell just as well are retarded. In order to sell the game, you need lots of money in marketing the game. I'm not talking about marketing to those Bioware fans who soaked up every bit of news with bated breath, but the people who have never heard of Bioware or don't follow the names of game development houses. Bioware did it for the money and it's stated plain as day in the damned post.

 

[Jinxed]

The charity thing is obviously PR. But this one isn't.

Chances are that this thing has been picked up by sites, like this one for example... DAC posted news about it too.

This was not aimed at people who weren't interested in bioware, but to consolidate their own already established fanbase. Not meant to reach out nearly as far as the charity thing. And that is why I said that they cared for their fans, otherwise they wouldn't have posted it.

Not the bolded text. WHERE IT WOULD SELL. Saint's beliefs that if it was behind a slurpie machine in a 7-11 it would sell just as well are retarded. In order to sell the game, you need lots of money in marketing the game. I'm not talking about marketing to those Bioware fans who soaked up every bit of news with bated breath, but the people who have never heard of Bioware or don't follow the names of game development houses. Bioware did it for the money and it's stated plain as day in the damned post.

Dude, like it was only all over the fucking internet, it was the Doom 3 of RPG games.

 

[MarFish]

I'm not questioning what he wrote, it's pertaining the nature of his post. Why would he post anything like that?

Because the question came up (RTFT)? Or because he hates IPLY, both reasons are good for me.

.
It turns out that bioware is the awesomest baddest RPG dev house evar. Are they one the market? I think I'm gonna go buy some stock...

Let me know when you find out where you can buy stock from a privatly held Canadian company, I'll join. If they are advertising it it must be possible.

Don't you see? There is no limit to how great they are. They help out the needy, they make great games, and now, it turns out they are sincere. Non of this Troika bullshit right?

Hit http://www.troikagames.com/ and check the title of your browser window... "Creatore of uber cool games". Where's the outrage about this one?

or hit http://www.obsidianent.com/news_archive.html and read "It's agreed! KOTOR 2 is a must have for this Christmas!". Where is the outrage about "Evil Obsidian makes their own headlines?"

unless you are living under a frigging huge rock, I don't see anything special here, and especially no hidden agenda

 

[Jed]

BIOWARE LOVES YOU ALL! Bioware helps cripples, feeds the sickly and makes games that do a great job of converting 3rd edition to computer game form.

Wha? Did I miss another press release?