Company News Is Troika Dead?

[Sol Invictus]

Tags: Troika Games

According to posters at the <a href=http://mapcore.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2073&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0>MapCore forums</a>, one of whom works as a mapper at <a href=http://www.troikagames.com>Troika</a>, David Marsh, everyone at Troika has been laid off because Activision pulled their funding for the company. According to that thread, David "Zaphod" Marsh is supposed to have said that sometime before (I'll dig it up, if it's there). However, David did post a follow-up on that supposed statement in that very thread:
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<blockquote>I think the answer is for everyone to send me money so I can retire.
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In all seriousness, you don't have to worry about me, I'm a big boy and can take care of myself</blockquote>
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He also made a statement at <a href=http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11676>No Mutants Allowed</a>, where he did not opt to deny any of the claims on that thread.
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<blockquote>While I appreciate your enthusiasm about this, if you look at the thread in question you will see that I do not state anywhere that "Everyone got layed off because activision pulled the funding."
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In fact that exact phrase was posted by the original poster of the thread, not me. I just want to clear that up becuase I do not want people assuming things based on something that I was falsely quoted as stating. The rest of the quotes are indeed my public comments, and you have every right to post them.</blockquote>
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I think that Odin has every right to post anything he wants, David, especially if it's true, but I digress. It looks like it's true that Troika is indeed dead. While some of you might choose to hold out for Leon to make an official statement come February, it is doubtless that the contents of his message will include an affirmation of the company's demise.
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In the end, I can't say it was a good run, because it wasn't. You fucked up.
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If any of you readers are at a loss for words, I believe the word you are looking for is "pwned".

 

[Spazmo]

Or possibly people are assuming too much too soon. This guy is essentially denying that the entirety of Troika has collapsed. HE may have been fired, but not necessarily the entire damn payroll. I think it's entirely more likely that Troika is just laying off much of the Bloodlines team because they don't need that many people. Still, I'd rather not make a decision and start making definite statements until all the facts are made public.

 

[jiujitsu]

*sob*

 

[Sol Invictus]

Hey, even if they aren't 'dead' per se, it still doesn't change the fact that the employees have been laid off. At best, they're 'as good as dead' since they wouldn't be developing any more games.

 

[jiujitsu]

Unless they are just getting rid of the traditional rpg makers and are hiring new console game and mmorpg makers!

 

[Eclecticist]

Damn.

 

[Sol Invictus]

If that's the case, Jiu, then we'll likely dismiss Troika as a meaningful entity on the Codex.

All that remains to be said is that there will be no more free rides for Troika. They'll have to actually work for a living now, to stay afloat if they haven't already drowned as I seem to think.

It's going to be rather difficult for people like Tim "Producer, Original Game Designer, Lead Programmer" Cain to ride on the popularity of his success in Fallout. Fallout's almost a decade old, and a man's can easily lose his edge in that span of time.

One hit wonder.


No more free rides for this retard, either:
http://www.ogrish.com/archives/2005/jan ... of_car.wmv

Pwned.

 

[errorcode]

i wonder if the pushed back schedule of their royalty payments for bloodlines being delayed by HL2 screwed them.

i hate to say it but if they die because they invested too heavily in creating the technology for their PA game when they should have been pinching pennies till they had a stable project lined up, then them going under is a matter of poor management and not poor games.

 

[Ap_Jolly]

TROIKA DIES
No free rides indeed.

 

[merry andrew]

I want to work there when I finish school

 

[Sol Invictus]

If you haven't yet purchased Vampire: Bloodlines, this should dissuade you from buying it. With Troika's demise I doubt there will be any future patches (especially the much-needed performance improvements and further bug fixes) for the title.

Even if Troika isn't 'dead' the entire Bloodlines team got laid off. Good luck finding a new patch.

 

[xemous]

Troikas great

 

[Killzig]

Free rides? I thought this news bit was about Troika shutting down not Obsidian?

 

[Sol Invictus]

Zing!

However, KOTOR2, from what I understand, is a game that's leagues better than anything Troika's ever produced. For one thing, there's no idiotic obvious gamestopping bugs, and Feargus doesn't go on about how he had a part in making Fallout.

 

[roguefrog]

I have to admit, I'd hate to lose Troika as they are one of the remaining few US-based PC only single-player CRPG developers in existance. Besides I really liked two of their games (Arcanum and Bloodlines) even with there blarring design and technical flaws. I haven't even played ToEE so I could end up liking that one for whatever reason.

Then again maybe not

 

[Killzig]

Zing!

However, KOTOR2, from what I understand, is a game that's leagues better than anything Troika's ever produced. For one thing, there's no idiotic obvious gamestopping bugs, and Feargus doesn't go on about how he had a part in making Fallout.

Uhm... take a look at the gamefaqs.com forum or even the obsidian forums. Hell, I think I even saw a thread begging Bioware not to let Obsidian touch KotoR3. The bugs are a plenty. Loading times suck. Frame rates are awful. Hell, I even got stuck in walls a few times. Oh yeah, and there's a nifty little bug that won't accept your answer to a "PUZZLE" depending on the games mood. For some reason * 1 and / 1 will work some times but not other times. It's fun to get zapped even when you solve the puzzle correctly!

 

[Sol Invictus]

I think aptyp and I came up with the perfect analogy for Troika:

<+Exitium> Troika is like a seed of unfulfilled potential.
<_aptyp> Troika is like a seed of unfilled potential, except that this seed was a grain they used to make hamburger buns for McDonalds.
<+Exitium> haha
<+Exitium> good one
<_aptyp> It's a pretty multi-layered analogy. You can write an English paper on that.
<_aptyp> Like, buns are the staple of fast-food.
<+Exitium> yeah, I get it.
<_aptyp> Like FPS. Okay then.

 

[Killzig]

more like a kid who never let go of his tricycle and decided to get on the interstate one day.

 

[Sol Invictus]

That's a good one too.

 

[undead dolphin hacker]

Fuck 'em. I've wasted money on every one of their piece of shit games. The 'publisher' excuse kind of stopped working after the second time too.

Good riddance. I welcome the vacuum this will bring to the genre. Maybe someone competent will step up this time.

Tim Cain is the next Warren Spector.

 

[aboyd]

yeah, umm, no

Reading in all the requisite forums (NMA, etc.) for related topics, it's pretty clear that Dave Marsh is disowning the "everyone got laid off" statement. So Troika is alive. But maybe they're just a shell now, like Interplay. I don't know -- the Troika Web site hasn't seen an update for over a month. Maybe they no longer have any technical staff at all.

Whatever the case, I think it would be both a shame and expected for Troika to die. A shame because I loved Arcanum. I only started playing it after all the patches were out, and I had a high-end computer. So it wasn't laggy or jumpy for me, it didn't bog down, it didn't crash, and I liked the story very much. I also just got Bloodlines, and I guess contrary to opinions here, I find it to be quite good. Er, the story and setting and dialogues, that is. The game engine itself is pretty major suckage, IMHO (playing Unreal 1.0 on my 180 mhz Macintosh is a lot more responsive and quick-loading -- and it still looks decent).

But Troika did two things that made me close up my wallet and walk away at certain points. First, after the second ToEE patch didn't get rid of all the major bugs, they touted a third one that would soon be released. One developer was doing it in his own time, and I found that to be compelling and admirable. However, that patch never surfaced. A year later, we did get a third patch, which didn't feature any of the promised fixes. To me, that felt rather... hmm... not quite deceptive, but perhaps naive or flakey. So I never bought ToEE, even though I wanted to. The other problem I felt they had was the constant blaming of their bugs on the publishers. Atari wouldn't let them patch! Oh, Activision won't let them patch either! How can anyone blame Troika, they WANT to help the fans, but can't. Bah. Barf. If it were true, it would still be Troika's fault for entering into multiple bad contracts in succession. But I don't even think it's true -- I think it was PR bullshit. And I think enough people began to feel that way, and began to distrust Troika.

So if Troika died (or dies in the near future), I think there are some goooooood reasons behind their failure. But I'll also miss their lying asses, because liars can also be great storytellers, and I think that made for some fine gaming.

 

[Avé]

I think that Odin has every right to post anything he wants, David, especially if it's true, but I digress.

Um, David didnt say Odin, or anyone else didnt have a right to post whatever they want, he was just clearning up a phrase that had been attributed to him, but wasnt even posted by him.

In a hurry to slam a Troika employee?

 

[Surlent]

While it might be fun to bash someone when they're on the ground, keep in mind Codex fellas, Troika's demise brings you a day where you get to cover almost exclusively Bio and Bethesda. Now ofcourse there's still Obsidian but does that count now as BIO's division ?
Roguelikes' and indie eurogames' media value is still quite low compared to the flashspot where the big boys BIO and Beth are, which means they get less previes, reviews and interviews.

Commercial CRPG genre gets one hard hit IMO, there's one developer less and not many left.
Like in the other thread, this is still more rumors than fact though.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Reading in all the requisite forums (NMA, etc.) for related topics, it's pretty clear that Dave Marsh is disowning the "everyone got laid off" statement. So Troika is alive. But maybe they're just a shell now, like Interplay. I don't know -- the Troika Web site hasn't seen an update for over a month. Maybe they no longer have any technical staff at all.

If he's disowning the statement why doesn't he just come out and state it plain: "Nobody got laid off" or "Only some people got laid off, Troika is alive and well". For that matter, why don't Tim or Leon say it? Surely all this talk of Troika dying can't be good for their reputation, as if it wasn't already in the pits.

Marsh did in fact say it, through not on those forums. My understanding is that he stated it in the MapCore IRC channel and one of the regulars posted it on the MapCore forums to wish him well.

My take on this whole Troika issue would be that everybody except the bosses got laid off and they're just a shell, like Interplay is. If that is the case, then Troika is as good as dead. After all, Troika is a company that consists of many employees who work as artists, designers, programmers, and software engineers. It's not a group that consists only of 3 people.

I wonder if this means that Troika will start hiring new developers and refocus their development agenda on shitty console action games. Either way, they're dead to us.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Um, David didnt say Odin, or anyone else didnt have a right to post whatever they want, he was just clearning up a phrase that had been attributed to him, but wasnt even posted by him.

He certainly could have phrased it better.
The rest of the quotes are indeed my public comments, and you have every right to post them.
Reaffirming one's rights to free speech is not only condescending and arrogant, but presumptuous of one's stature, as well.

While it might be fun to bash someone when they're on the ground, keep in mind Codex fellas, Troika's demise brings you a day where you get to cover almost exclusively Bio and Bethesda. Now ofcourse there's still Obsidian but does that count now as BIO's division ?

I've absolutely no problem with that. It's not like Troika says much anyway. Have you read their interview transcript with us? It was the most boring interview we ever conducted and it was quite possibly the most boring review I've ever personally participated in. They kept offering 'No comment' as answers.

Now, the Brothers in Arms interview, that was truly magnificent. Never before has an interview ever made me lust for a game, but that interview did it.

Roguelikes' and indie eurogames' media value is still quite low compared to the flashspot where the big boys BIO and Beth are, which means they get less previes, reviews and interviews.

Commercial CRPG genre gets one hard hit IMO, there's one developer less and not many left.
Like in the other thread, this is still more rumors than fact though.

Troika hasn't been exactly contributing to the genre with their past 2 titles, either. TOEE was a horrible CRPG with a good engine and an even better combat scheme that was way too short and completely underutilized. Bloodlines wasn't much of an RPG unless you weigh the first quarter of the game over the rest, and even less of an FPS.

We'll see what happens come February.