Editorial GameSpy on Troika and publishers

[Naked_Lunch]

If Troika really wanted "the masses" they would HAVE NOT made a fucking vampire rpg/lite-FPS in a gothic vampire setting and an almost AO rating, or a steam-punk RPG with absolutely no brand recognition at all. Nor were they fucking greedy, otherwise they would've made console action game after console action game. They had a a good run and ended on a somewhat middle to high note (at least for me), but they failed and that's that.

 

[Volourn]

Vampires are as mainstream as you can get. They also used one of the most hyped engines ever. They also made it stupid actiony for the masses. Get with the program

R00fles!


"they failed and that's that"

Game over.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Irrelevant bullshit. They still had to follow the rules of the publishers just like any other newbie developer.

The facts that Bio had financial backing and Blizzard had money and freedom without any restrictions are irrelevant bullshit? Cool.

Afterall, Troika got helped when they started out as well. Afterall, someone had to take a chance on publishing their first game and did so because of Troika's founders' past accomplishments. Keep crying though.

Can you recognize the difference between solid financial backing and a regular publishing contract?

I alreayd have with your own words. As far as shutting up; you don't like what you are reading you can always 'shut me up' with a press of the button.

I play fair.

You simply can't handle the truth.

I simply disagree with your opinions and not even on Troika, as Troika is gone and nothing you or I can say would bring them back, but on the publishers and chances of a TRULY independent company to survive.

 

[Volourn]

"on the publishers and chances of a TRULY independent company to survive."

All developers like Obsidian, Troika (well, they were, lol), and Bioware are truly independent. They are ultimately 100% responsible for their success and/or failure. Period. Bottom line is that Troika didn't do the things they needed to succeed.

Stop blaming the Big Bad Evil Piblushers tm. for Troika's shortcomings. Afterall, BIO managed to work with Atari and live. if you also recall, it's not like BIO had a lot of options after they left Interplay with NWN - it was either they work with Atari and NWN doesn't get released yet they didn't seem to get totally screwed. WOWSERS!

Troika screwed Troika.

 

[Vault Dweller]

By the time Bio left Interplay NWN was already an overhyped, highly anticipated, 4+ years in development product. What publisher wouldn't want to get a piece of that action? Don't compare NWN to ToEE, the ballpark is totally different.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

I see you had no rebuttal for my other comments, Volourn.

Oh, and VD, for god's sake stop arguing with that fuckhead. We have to make Spazmo's dream a reality! :D

 

[dojoteef]

1) Blizzard was in a unique situation since early 90's when Vivendi bought them. Bill Roper said many times that Vivendi never interfered with game development and never pushed the titles out of the door before they were ready. Blizzard had all the time to figure out what they want, what works, and a chance to start from scratch if they wanted it. Do you think SC would have been a hit if it was released in its "orcs in space" mode?

Well if you want to talk about the details, get the details straight. Blizzard began it's life as Silicon & Synapse, Inc. in 1991. They developed several games as an independent developer and were sold to Davidson & Associates in 1994 for around 10 million dollars. They released the game they had been working on, Warcraft, that same year. Warcraft is what started it all for Blizzard. They then released Warcraft II in 1995. Then Diablo in 1996 at which point Davidson & Associates were bought up by CUC Software. Then in 1998 CUC Software merged with Cendant and in 1999 Cendant was bought up by Havas Interactive, a subsidiary of Vivendi. Note in that succession Blizzard isn't owned by Vivendi until 1999, after they have released Warcraft, Diablo, and Starcraft. Blizzard earned the right to do dictate their development cycles from their released titles before ever being bought out. With the success of the Warcraft series and Diablo, Blizzard was able to go back to the drawing board for Starcraft to make it feel less like orcs in space (since they originally used the Warcraft II engine for the game). Without those prior financial successes, they definitely wouldn't have had that luxury. So next time get the facts straight.

2) Ray: we also had support on our first game, Shattered Steel, from a bunch of great folks at a partner company called Pyroteck
http://www.bioware.com/10years/10_years_of_bioware.html

Pyrotek was a fledgling company, just like Bioware, that hadn't made a mark. They collaborated and in fact many people who were working at Pyrotek ended up working for Bioware by the end of Shattered Steel's development. You also have to understand that the Dr's worked really fucking hard to make those games. They worked as doctors and video game developers on the side. They had never made a game before and they took that responsibility on without question. Here are some quotes for you. This first one is a Wired article from 1997.

Decked out in a white coat and stethoscope, Greg Zeschuk sees dozens of patients during the day at a clinic affiliated with the University of Alberta in Edmonton. But at night, the coat comes off, and Zeschuk becomes a software mogul - leading a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Byte life as both a family physician and co-CEO of BioWare Corp., the software company that publishes the mechanized warrior game Shattered Steel.

Zeschuk met his partners, Ray Muzyka and Aug Yip, in medical school, where the three shared a secret addiction to videogames and computer programming. In 1994, during their residencies, the trio wrote their first software hit, a simulator that teaches med students how to diagnose and treat gastrointestinal ailments.

Buoyed by their success, the doctors returned to their gaming roots. Working with designers from Pyrotek Game Studios, they developed a demo for Shattered Steel, a game in which humans fight off intelligent, insectoid invaders on a distant Earth colony. Interplay Productions, an Irvine, California, software developer and distributor, paid the physician-led team a six-figure advance to bring the game to market, and today more than 100,000 copies have been shipped. A sequel is planned for 1998, and BioWare is also working on Forgotten Realms, a role-playing game due out this Christmas.

But how do the MDs reconcile the game's mayhem and mutilation with campaigns to combat violence in the media - including computer games?"There is no specific killing of humans or humanoids in the game," answers Muzyka, "and there are no scenes of cruelty or gratuitous violence. The player is pitted against an alien race intent on destroying all human life. The player acts only as a result of the alien assault."

"Some of our older colleagues consider us black sheep," Zeschuk says. "But the younger ones say they wish they could do what we're doing."

and a quote from Trent Oster cofounder of Pyrotek and developer at Bioware:

How and when did you get into the games industry?[/b]

I co-founded a game company called "Pyrotek" in 1994 and started programming on what became Shattered Steel. After programming the sound and controller engines, I became the solo 3D artist on the project and finished the game as part of Bioware. In summary, I got into games by spending a year and a half working on a game project with no real salary and throwing myself into any role required to ship that project.

So don't try to put down their efforts. These companies worked exteremely hard to get to the position they are currently in. Why must you always degrade other companies' hard work in order to try to make Troika look good. Yes Troika worked hard, but so did the people at Blizzard and Bioware. Get a clue.


Before you smart alecs start in, I said I was through discussing this with EEVIAC, not Vault Dweller. At least not yet.

 

[Volourn]

"By the time Bio left Interplay NWN was already an overhyped, highly anticipated, 4+ years in development product. What publisher wouldn't want to get a piece of that action? Don't compare NWN to ToEE, the ballpark is totally different."

Irrelevant. The point is that BIO didn't have a lot options which meant Atari would have the advantage in negotiations for the contract, dumbass.


"I see you had no rebuttal for my other comments, Volourn."

I see you have no rebuttals. Just flames. That's cool. I love when I get flamed. However, it's even cooler if one can flame AND post something meaningful at the same time. You fail at that. At least VD cna flame AND reply even if they are stupid replies. I do have a question though.. that arctile disucsses the sequel to SS which never happened so any hint on why that was FUBARED!?! Not that i really care since SS is not my type of game anyways.


As for VD, once again, Dojo DESTROYS your patehticness. Aha!

Dojo, you shoudln't waste time to dig up old links. That's boring. It's ok to have the VDs of the 'net THINk they have made ok points when in reality they haven't. :idea:

 

[Vault Dweller]

Note in that succession Blizzard isn't owned by Vivendi until 1999, after they have released Warcraft, Diablo, and Starcraft.

You are right, I mixed up the dates.

Still the point stands, Blizzard took a lot of time (and subsequently, a lot of money) to make their games. Who owned them is irrelevant.

You also have to understand that the Dr's worked really fucking hard to make those games.

Have I ever said that they didn't? My point was that their situation was different (well, every situation is different) and that comparing Bio to Troika apple-to-apple style is retarded.

So don't try to put down their efforts. These companies worked exteremely hard to get to the position they are currently in. Why must you always degrade other companies' hard work in order to try to make Troika look good. Yes Troika worked hard, but so did the people at Blizzard and Bioware. Get a clue.

Whoa! When did I degrade other companies' hard work? Just because someone had help or extra resources doesn't mean they didn't work hard or don't deserve the praise. Obsidian worked hard on KOTOR 2 and I hope they will do a great job on NWN2, but there is no need to ignore the fact that they started working on two hot sequels. That's my point.

 

[DemonKing]

"By the time Bio left Interplay NWN was already an overhyped, highly anticipated, 4+ years in development product. What publisher wouldn't want to get a piece of that action? Don't compare NWN to ToEE, the ballpark is totally different."

Irrelevant. The point is that BIO didn't have a lot options which meant Atari would have the advantage in negotiations for the contract, dumbass.

Of course, you're discounting the possibility that Bio and Atari had already held negotiations prior to the bust-up and legal action with Ineptplay.

The good doctors seem a bit canny to me to be jumping ship without a solid guarentee.

 

[Kuato]

Obsidian worked hard on KOTOR 2 and I hope they will do a great job on NWN2, but there is no need to ignore the fact that they started working on two hot sequels. That's my point.

This kind of worries me about Obsidians future I really hope they got a good deal when they signed their contracts because if they got screwed with a fucked up percentage with their advance against royalties it wont matter how many copies of Kotor II or NVN II sell. It just doesn't seem to be in the publishers best interests to have independent developers flourish because eventually the developer is going to want to cut themselves from publishers with huge overhead costs and actually make a profit off of thier hard work. Do games really need to sell 2 million copies to make a profit when break even points can float around 100-150 thousand units.

 

[dojoteef]

Still the point stands, Blizzard took a lot of time (and subsequently, a lot of money) to make their games. Who owned them is irrelevant.

Not really. They've only recently started taking an inordinate amount of time to complete the projects. They released Warcraft in 1994, Warcraft II in 1995, Diablo in 1996, Starcraft in 1998. That's some pretty tight development schedules right there. Especially considering the fact that during that time they were developing battle.net and releasing expansions to their previous games. They definitely weren't slacking.

Have I ever said that they didn't? My point was that their situation was different (well, every situation is different) and that comparing Bio to Troika apple-to-apple style is retarded.

I'm glad we can agree that comparing them "apples-to-apples style" is stupid, but I'm not the one who was making the comparison. I'm not the one that originally brought them up in the conversation. I just made the rebuttals to people's claims that since companies like Blizzard get to do x and y, Troika should have gotten to do x and y as well.

Obsidian worked hard on KOTOR 2 and I hope they will do a great job on NWN2, but there is no need to ignore the fact that they started working on two hot sequels. That's my point.

Well Obsidian is lucky to have gotten those two, no doubt. Obsidian is still a small dev house that is at the whim of the publisher though. You guys are talking about people like Bioware, Blizzard, and Valve who made their own name for themselves through hard work and making products that achieved financial success. Everyone in the industry has had their breaks, Troika included (for a newly formed development company to recieve a three year contract to work on an original IP is a HUGE break). They've all also had their share of troubles, like Obsidian rushing KOTOR 2 out the door too quickly. I honestly don't think Troika was an exceptional case in that it was screwed over anymore or less than the average developer. I just don't see it. If you do that's fine.

Anyway, I just hope the next innovative RPG maker learns from Troika's mistakes.

 

[Vault Dweller]

They released Warcraft in 1994, Warcraft II in 1995, Diablo in 1996, Starcraft in 1998. That's some pretty tight development schedules right there.

A small correction: Condor aka Blizzard North did Diablo. SC was in development since 1995, that's a long time especially 10 years ago.

I'm glad we can agree that comparing them "apples-to-apples style" is stupid, but I'm not the one who was making the comparison. I'm not the one that originally brought them up in the conversation. I just made the rebuttals to people's claims that since companies like Blizzard get to do x and y, Troika should have gotten to do x and y as well.

I agree with you here. I didn't make that comparison either. I did bring them up as an example of longer dev period resulting in high selling games, but that's a different matter.

Everyone in the industry has had their breaks, Troika included (for a newly formed development company to recieve a three year contract to work on an original IP is a HUGE break). They've all also had their share of troubles, like Obsidian rushing KOTOR 2 out the door too quickly. I honestly don't think Troika was an exceptional case in that it was screwed over anymore or less than the average developer. I just don't see it. If you do that's fine.

Once again, no arguing. My entire point was not defending Troika but bushing publishers who can do that to any developer. There are many examples: Stardock, MicroForte (MF almost went out of business after Interplay pulled the plug on FOT2), Reflexive, and Obsidian as the latest case.

We agree on all those points, the only difference is the solution, and that's where we disagree.

 

[Volourn]

"Of course, you're discounting the possibility that Bio and Atari had already held negotiations prior to the bust-up and legal action with Ineptplay."

Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, it's irreleavnt. As VD said, Bioware likely knew that unlike Interplay, Atari would not be stupid and diss them. They were right.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

A small correction: Condor aka Blizzard North did Diablo. SC [Starcraft] was in development since 1995, that's a long time especially 10 years ago.

... and especially for an RTS.

The sad reality is that at the end of the day, money killed Troika. Or rather, the lack thereof.

 

[RGE]

... I don't see a lot of uses for high speed, other then porn and MMORPGs, of course. There is about 15-20 seconds delay between accessing regular sites using dialup and h/speed. I wish I can pretent that I'm so organized and business-like that I can't afford to waste 20 seconds, but the truth is, I don't care.

I wouldn't want to wait that long when opening forum pages and webcomics. And I read a lot of webcomics.

I don't know (and I'm not asking about your financial situation), but let me assure you that for anyone who's making under 40k/year, extra 20-40 bucks a month is a lot. Especially if a person has a family, and must deal with a mortgage, car payments, child care, etc. A computer isn't only a toy, it has other uses: job hunting, resumes, letters, work at home, keeping track of expenses, etc. H/speed access is a toy.

I get around $19k a year, and I don't think $20-40 is a lot. It took me several years of not using my regular phone a whole lot before I finally got my thumb out of my ass and cancelled it, which saves me $18 a month. But I admit that I'm a special case. Almost everyone else enjoys spending money, and thus they inevitably end up in situations where $40 is a lot since it is $40 more than they can afford. I'm just too lazy to spend money.

Well, these numbers are different for everyone, and thus would be meaningless. Suffice to say that I don't see a single person here who'd say that h/speed is great and affordable, but I see a lot of people who share my position.

It is for me, because I stay logged in a lot, and here in Sweden the phone companies charge by the minute, which means that my $40 broadband equals around 30 hours online time every month if I was stuck with dial-up. I can see how people who have off-line lives might not get as good mileage from their broadband, but they might also download a lot of movies (which I don't). I could upgrade from 10 Mbit to 100 Mbit, which would cost another $35, but since I hardly ever have any use for the full 10 Mbit speed as it is, I don't see the point. Most of my connections to the web don't go higher than 100 kB/s, while the connections within the BBB network can go as high as 1 MB/s. I'd have to download a lot of stuff from fellow BBB 100 Mbit people before I'd make the extra money back, and they're probably scarce since it hardly pays as it is.