Interview Leonard Boyarsky Mega-Interview at PCGamesN

[Davaris]

Activision was the final nail in the coffin for Troika. They could have avoided Troika's death if they didn't lock out the developers from the product for months. So yes, they did cause Troika to collapse earlier than it would have otherwise. They sabotaged the game, they killed the dev.

They didn't sabotage anything, they lived up to the terms of the contract to which Troika agreed. It's on Troika for agreeing to do too much given the time they were allotted.

While the later might be true, Tim Cain wrote in his section of the book "Gamers at Work": "First, while the game was held until Half-Life 2 shipped, we were also not allowed to keep the title in development." and "Second, while our game was being held, Valve continued to make improvements to the Source engine — improvements we couldn't add to our game." So not only did Activision decide to release the game on the same day as the much more anticipated HL2, they should also have been aware that it used an older version of the engine which wouild be unfavorable in comparisons. That was just stupid! A few more months could have helped a lot, but then the Activision QA was a joke anyway, otherwise I wouldn't be fixing stuff 13 years later!

Also don't forget to blame Valve. If they wouldn't have delayed HL2 over and over again because Gabe Newell only cared about making Steam a monopoly as fast as possible, Troika wouldn't have needed to update to new Source engine version restarting parts of development all the time. And not only that, even today the Bloodlines version that is sold on Steam will not work on a decent computer without either some serious tweaking or installing my patch, so this might be another reason why the Steam sale numbers are low. I wonder how sale numbers are on GOG without any DRM and the patch included!

This is an example of why using other people's engines is a bad idea. You are putting your company's future in the hands of another company, when they have no reason to care about your company's future. As if dealing with publishers wasn't already like dealing with loan sharks, you add even more risk on top of that.

 

[Sentinel]

Activision was the final nail in the coffin for Troika. They could have avoided Troika's death if they didn't lock out the developers from the product for months. So yes, they did cause Troika to collapse earlier than it would have otherwise. They sabotaged the game, they killed the dev.

They didn't sabotage anything, they lived up to the terms of the contract to which Troika agreed. It's on Troika for agreeing to do too much given the time they were allotted. Moreover, Bloodlines coming out a few months later would not have saved them. They still would have struggled to find another contract, and they would still choose to give up rather than take on projects they had no interest in.

Morrowind and Deus Ex both had sequels that sold millions of units in the digital download era, likely driving interest in the earlier games in each franchise.

From 2000-2011, all Deus Ex had was one lousy sequel, and it had still moved over a million as of 2009.

Yes I'm sure Troika also agreed on releasing the same day as Half-Life...

 

[Davaris]

Activision was the final nail in the coffin for Troika. They could have avoided Troika's death if they didn't lock out the developers from the product for months. So yes, they did cause Troika to collapse earlier than it would have otherwise. They sabotaged the game, they killed the dev.

What reason did Activision have for sabotaging Troika's future?

 

[Sentinel]

Activision was the final nail in the coffin for Troika. They could have avoided Troika's death if they didn't lock out the developers from the product for months. So yes, they did cause Troika to collapse earlier than it would have otherwise. They sabotaged the game, they killed the dev.

What reason did Activision have for sabotaging Troika's future?

That's a very good question. I'd suggest trying https://twitter.com/bobbykotick?lang=en and https://support.activision.com/Contact_Us

 

[Roguey]

Yes I'm sure Troika also agreed on releasing the same day as Half-Life...

No one knew when Half-Life 2 was going to be released years ahead of time. Unlucky break, but that's the way it goes.

 

[Sentinel]

Yes I'm sure Troika also agreed on releasing the same day as Half-Life...

No one knew when Half-Life 2 was going to be released years ahead of time. Unlucky break, but that's the way it goes.

No shit. That's my point.

 

[Roguey]

Yes I'm sure Troika also agreed on releasing the same day as Half-Life...

No one knew when Half-Life 2 was going to be released years ahead of time. Unlucky break, but that's the way it goes.

No shit. That's my point.

Your point makes no sense. Who loses the most out of Bloodlines's potential financial failure? The people who paid for the entire thing, Activision. Troika takes a reputation hit, that's all.

 

[Sentinel]

Yes I'm sure Troika also agreed on releasing the same day as Half-Life...

No one knew when Half-Life 2 was going to be released years ahead of time. Unlucky break, but that's the way it goes.

No shit. That's my point.

Your point makes no sense. Who loses the most out of Bloodlines's potential financial failure? The people who paid for the entire thing, Activision. Troika takes a reputation hit, that's all.

Yet they still made the suicidal decision to release alongside Half-Life. Plenty of exec's decisions are suicidal and retarded. Maybe they'd had enough of Troika, maybe they didn't care about the project anymore and just wanted it out the door and to stop wasting money on it, and since they weren't cancelling, might as well get a couple bucks from the dozens of people who'll buy it. Don't know. Ask Kotick.
The reason why is beside the point though. They killed Troika with their decisions throughout the project. That's a fact.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Yes I'm sure Troika also agreed on releasing the same day as Half-Life...

No one knew when Half-Life 2 was going to be released years ahead of time. Unlucky break, but that's the way it goes.

No shit. That's my point.

Your point makes no sense. Who loses the most out of Bloodlines's potential financial failure? The people who paid for the entire thing, Activision. Troika takes a reputation hit, that's all.

Don’t be ridiculous. ATVI may have had the most to lose in absolute terms, but by that logic the publisher should always care more than the developer, which is false, even if they always have more money on the line.

Bloodlines was one game for ATVI among many. Whereas for Troika it was make or break—Bloodlines was their last chance to show publishers that they were worth doing business with.

I don’t know how ATVI’s licensing deal with Valve was negotiated, but that’s not the kind of provision you accept unless you either have your head up your ass or don’t care that much about the title in question. How often does a company say, “Yes, let’s peg the release of our game to an as yet undetermined date in the future in exchange for using your engine.” It’s not like it had to be Valve, they could’ve just gotten Unreal 2 from Epic for standard terms.

Troika didn’t have much bargaining power here, ATVI had tons. Seems clear who’s responsible. Which is not to say that Troika wasn’t a merry band of fuckups—plenty of their wounds were self inflicted—but they also kind of got the shaft.

 

[Roguey]

Yet they still made the suicidal decision to release alongside Half-Life. Plenty of exec's decisions are suicidal and retarded. Maybe they'd had enough of Troika, maybe they didn't care about the project anymore and just wanted it out the door and to stop wasting money on it, and since they weren't cancelling, might as well get a couple bucks from the dozens of people who'll buy it. Don't know. Ask Kotick.

Delaying it further would have cost them more money, and they wouldn't have necessarily made it all back with whatever additional sales it would have given them. It's terrible for the consumer (us) but sometimes it's better for the investor (them) to release a buggy, unfinished game into a crowded season because it's the situation that hurts them the least.

The reason why is beside the point though. They killed Troika with their decisions throughout the project. That's a fact.

Saying "it's a fact" doesn't make it so, considering that Tim Cain laid out the circumstances behind Troika's demise and Activision had nothing to do with it.

Bloodlines was their last chance to show publishers that they were worth doing business with.

It was always going to be break then, because there's no way it was going to sell a million copies. They chose the wrong setting.

I don’t know how ATVI’s licensing deal with Valve was negotiated, but that’s not the kind of provision you accept unless you either have your head up your ass or don’t care that much about the title in question. How often does a company say, “Yes, let’s peg the release of our game to an as yet undetermined date in the future in exchange for using your engine.” It’s not like it had to be Valve, they could’ve just gotten Unreal 2 from Epic for standard terms.

Troika wanted to use Source. They were going to make Journey to the Centre of Arcanum using Source (now there's something that might have reached a million, but we'll never know), but it fell through so they repurposed those plans for Vampire: The Masquerade instead.

 

[Sentinel]

Delaying it further would have cost them more money, and they wouldn't have necessarily made it all back with whatever additional sales it would have given them. It's terrible for the consumer (us) but sometimes it's better for the investor (them) to release a buggy, unfinished game into a crowded season because it's the situation that hurts them the least.

See? you made sense of the situation. Basically answered your own question.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I wish they had done Journey to the Center of Arcanum

 

[Wesp5]

Saying "it's a fact" doesn't make it so, considering that Tim Cain laid out the circumstances behind Troika's demise and Activision had nothing to do with it.

Huh? Did you read the parts of his book chapter that I cited? He pretty much blamed Activision for releasing the unfinished game!

Troika wanted to use Source.

Yes, which wasn't a bad decision on the background that Half-Life 1 was a great game. How should they know that Gabe Newell would ignore HL2 because of his Steam goals, delaying it over and over again and even lying into our faces by blaming the German code theft. Activision couldn't know this either when they made the HL2 release date deal and I always wonder why people don't get mad at Valve for this...

 

[Roguey]

Huh? Did you read the parts of his book chapter that I cited? He pretty much blamed Activision for releasing the unfinished game!

Yeah, but that didn't hurt Troika other than maintain their reputation for being a producer of buggy RPGs. As I recall, he said they should have had someone dedicated to the business of running things so they could have had someone out there making pitches earlier, rather than three guys who vastly preferred working on games. Though I'm not entirely certain that would have helped, considering the game industry was transitioning to the "it needs to be a hit or we're not even going to bother" mode. Troika made three attempts at a hit ("Fallout meets Ultima meets Baldur's Gate meets Diablo", an adaptation of a popular D&D module, and Grand Theft Auto but with walking vampires instead of driving cars were reaching for the stars) and failed each time. Knights of the Old Republic 2 was a buggy, unfun mess with a story that falls apart at the end, but it sold over a million (based on the strength of its predecessor. ). Neverwinter Nights 2's OC was a buggy unfun mess and it made the toolset worse, but it did well enough to get two expansions (also based on the strength of the previous title). Alpha Protocol bombed, but it didn't kill Obsidian because they were already working on New Vegas, and then Dungeon Siege III and then South Park. I suppose the lesson here is that Troika should have either aggressively pursued a Bioware sequel or tried to be more like them.

 

[valcik]

Knights of the Old Republic 2 was a buggy, unfun mess with a story that falls apart at the end, but it sold over a million (based on the strength of its predecessor. )

Rather that STAR WARS sign than the strenght of its predecessor, methinks. The raw power of decades old trademark.

 

[Diggfinger]

Yet they still made the suicidal decision to release alongside Half-Life. Plenty of exec's decisions are suicidal and retarded. Maybe they'd had enough of Troika, maybe they didn't care about the project anymore and just wanted it out the door and to stop wasting money on it, and since they weren't cancelling, might as well get a couple bucks from the dozens of people who'll buy it. Don't know. Ask Kotick.

Delaying it further would have cost them more money, and they wouldn't have necessarily made it all back with whatever additional sales it would have given them. It's terrible for the consumer (us) but sometimes it's better for the investor (them) to release a buggy, unfinished game into a crowded season because it's the situation that hurts them the least.

The reason why is beside the point though. They killed Troika with their decisions throughout the project. That's a fact.

Saying "it's a fact" doesn't make it so, considering that Tim Cain laid out the circumstances behind Troika's demise and Activision had nothing to do with it.

Bloodlines was their last chance to show publishers that they were worth doing business with.

It was always going to be break then, because there's no way it was going to sell a million copies. They chose the wrong setting.

I don’t know how ATVI’s licensing deal with Valve was negotiated, but that’s not the kind of provision you accept unless you either have your head up your ass or don’t care that much about the title in question. How often does a company say, “Yes, let’s peg the release of our game to an as yet undetermined date in the future in exchange for using your engine.” It’s not like it had to be Valve, they could’ve just gotten Unreal 2 from Epic for standard terms.

Troika wanted to use Source. They were going to make Journey to the Centre of Arcanum using Source (now there's something that might have reached a million, but we'll never know), but it fell through so they repurposed those plans for Vampire: The Masquerade instead.

Roguey, your deductive acumen is exceeded only by your good looks and the extraordinary length of your reproductive organ.

Troika was able to use Source thanks to Sierra vp Scott lynch. He was a huge fallout fan so he signed arcanum and had signed Valve /Half - life. He suggested boyarsky and Anderson to meet valve to get them going on a project, which led to discussion with Activision who owned the vampire licence.