Company News Rumors are true - Feargus quit

[Saint_Proverbius]

Ive hated Interplay ever since they sold me an empty box (where there should have been game CDs) in a game I paid 50 clams for. (and then later refused to replace them) Im glad that it seems that Interplay is finally breathing its last ragged gasp.

I was pretty annoyed when I bought Giants, which was a fabulous game that I couldn't play because it was seriously buggy. Then I bought SFC2, which I was longing for because I loved SFC. It was too buggy to play too. My next game was Fallout Tactics, and we all know how ripe with bugs that one was too.

My fondest hope is to see the Interplay execs responsible for Black Isle's destruction fighting with homeless bums somewhere for a warm place to sleep under a bridge.

That would be nice, since it's the IPLY execs that are actually responsible for this whole mess. However, it's most likely the little guys that'll get screwed here and Herve Caen will walk.

With Feargus Urquhart leaving Black Isle, I think at this point the writing is on the wall for Interplay, They have been weighed on the divine scales and found... wanting. Black Isle was pretty much the only thing keeping Interplay going. It wont be long now before Interplay goes bankrupt and they bite the dust. And I feel wonderful about this.

I tend to agree that BIS is basically the cornerstone for IPLY. IPLY was founded on making RPGs and adventure titles, so it's only fitting that a flagship of the company be the RPG division.

BIS made money, and has made money for IPLY for years. There have been a few screw ups, like TORN.. And IWD2.. However, a lot of the brunt of IWD2 can be blamed on IPLY itself, because it was poorly handled post production, and IPLY forced BIS in to making it.

Feargus once stated that they wouldn't use the Fallout engine again after Fallout 2 because he didn't want the division accused of using the same engine too long. Leave it to the IPLY execs to be dumber than Feargus, forcing them to crank out IWD2.

 

[triCritical]

BIS made money, and has made money for IPLY for years. There have been a few screw ups, like TORN.. And IWD2.. However, a lot of the brunt of IWD2 can be blamed on IPLY itself, because it was poorly handled post production, and IPLY forced BIS in to making it.

Feargus once stated that they wouldn't use the Fallout engine again after Fallout 2 because he didn't want the division accused of using the same engine too long. Leave it to the IPLY execs to be dumber than Feargus, forcing them to crank out IWD2.

I think that was Feagus' call. It was his call to can Torn, and have had to been his call to replace it with a quick buck. I think had IPLY not been so strapped for quick cash that they could have continued with the effort. Oh and let us not forget Stonekeep 2 and HoW. Someone at BIS told me of their initial design for HoW and how it was to look pretty darn k3wl, but Feargus cut it down to 5 areas, and said developers jaw dropped. Nevertheless, to battle back public rep they had to add on another expansion FOR FREE!

I realize that a lot of the calls would have been different had IPLY actually been run like a company that had integrity and was not always strapped for cash, but hell we can probably blame Fargo for that with is acquiring of Matrix, DnD, Star Trek and countless other licenses for games that did not bring in the revenue to cover the cost of the license. Pity Hindsight is so much more obvious then foresight.

 

[Spazmo]

What funny is that all of Interplay's liscenced games tend to fail miserably and lost the company money, but IPLY's few real successes come from totally original games like Fallout or Freespace. That should serve as a lesson to all game publishers, I think.

 

[Psilon]

The Star Trek adventure games sold pretty well, as I recall, but I'm not disputing that Fallout, Descent, and Freespace did more for the company. With high-budget titles like Secret of Vulcan Fury getting cancelled, no wonder...

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Starfleet Command was one of the best selling games in Interplay history, IIRC. You know to know why Interplay is on the skids though, you should have picked up SFC2 when it came out. You have a hot ticket license, and what do you do? You ship the sequel way too early and at such a point where it's unplayably buggy and it's number 1 new feature that's been hyped since the announcement isn't completed yet.

 

[ecliptic]

Brian Fargo was the man.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Without further adue, I'm going to explain why Interplay is hereby fucked:

There is no "Black Isle Studios" without Feargus Urquhart.

Feargus is, after all, the man who came up with the BIS label for Interplay's RPG division (formerly known as Dragonplay) and guided all of its projects.

Some Frenchman is probably going to take his position from here onwards and most likely lead BIS in a new direction - that of console gaming.

That concludes it: Black Isle Studios is no more. The once powerful, and reliable bastion of role-playing games for the computer is now a derelict, a ghost of its former self.

Despite flawed products like Icewind Dale and slightly lacklustre games like Fallout 2, Black Isle Studios was always a company that I've always thought highly of, until now. As 'poor' as their poorest efforts were, their efforts were certainly better than most. Can any of you say the same for most other companies?

I just hope that Feargus Urquhart doesn't leave the industry - for it'll never be the same without him.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Some Frenchman is probably going to take his position from here onwards and most likely lead BIS in a new direction - that of console gaming.

That, right there, is my one big fear out of all this.

 

[EEVIAC]

That, right there, is my one big fear out of all this.

That the name Black Isle will be misappropriated to mean something else? Definately. I don't know why they just can't shut the thing down and start with a new name. I don't understand what use the BIS brand has to sell product to console gamers anyway? The prestige? The cred? They should just call the company Big Tits And Thongs Games and be done with it. Baldurs Gate 3 - the MMO dating simulator and IRC chat client.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

That the name Black Isle will be misappropriated to mean something else? Definately. I don't know why they just can't shut the thing down and start with a new name. I don't understand what use the BIS brand has to sell product to console gamers anyway? The prestige? The cred? They should just call the company Big Tits And Thongs Games and be done with it. Baldurs Gate 3 - the MMO dating simulator and IRC chat client.

The name is why. That name means "quality" to a lot of people, something "Interplay" doesn't mean to a lot of people. So, Interplay, in it's MASSIVE INFINITY MEGA WISDOM will most likely decide to use that name to release crap until it's a meaningless name much like "Interplay". That's my big fear. They'll ruin another name with lots of crappy console games.

After all, isn't that what they're doing already with Fallout?

 

[triCritical]

Brian Fargo was the man.

Yeah the man who sank IPLY into the sea.

 

[ecliptic]

How so? I've seen his name on the Bard's Tale series, Wasteland, hosts of other games I've quite enjoyed.

 

[Drazzil]

I really do believe most of the larger publishers are run by corporations who dont know what they are doing. I believe the PC gaming industry as a whole would be healthier with many smaller developers rather then 3 or 4 big ones that are only intrested in the bottom line. Thats the diffrence between large corporations and small developers. Small developers do it mostly for the love of the game and large corporations do it for the bottom line. This leads to an eventual fall out of touch with what the gaming audience really wants. Expect more huge badly run conglomerates to go under. This will be a good thing beacuase the people displaced by this mass extinction of the dinosaurs will mean more leaner meaner smaller studios putting out more innovative ideas

 

[Azael]

How so? I've seen his name on the Bard's Tale series, Wasteland, hosts of other games I've quite enjoyed.

He also spent a lot of IPLAY's money on licenses that were never used.

 

[Section8]

This will be a good thing beacuase the people displaced by this mass extinction of the dinosaurs will mean more leaner meaner smaller studios putting out more innovative ideas

Definitely true to an extent, but the sad thing is the fact that the little guys still have to answer to the conglomerates to get their product on shelves, and maintain the bullshit shelf hire fees. You could argue the the displaced employees could self fund, but given that their incentives and bonuses were probably stock options in a defunct or failing corporation, then that may not be an option.

I think the best thing to come of the big guys slowly running into the ground is that fact that "outsiders" will no longer see the games industry as something they can get into to make a quick buck, and hopefully it will go back to being primarily a "by gamers, for gamers" industry. Then we avoid french sewage workers getting their grubby paws into the mix, and hopefully we also lose idiot canadian doctors with no idea about what makes a good game. The sooner the industry is given back to the geeky dreamers who have wanted to make games since they tried their hand at programming on their Spectrum or C64 the better.

 

[triCritical]

, and hopefully we also lose idiot canadian doctors with no idea about what makes a good game.

Like my wife tells me, it doesn't take much to get a PhD these days.

 

[Spazmo]

I wish I had a wife to tell me things.

 

[Psilon]

I wish I had my Ph.D. Or a wife.

Anyway, the PR-flacks-cum-CEOs of Bioware are probably MDs.

 

[Spazmo]

Yes, they are. They used to be GPs in Edmonton.

 

[OogaBBooga]

first off...

first off..anyone who thinks that feargus was the man behind black isle never worked there to see the truth or knew anyone like i do who works there now. Feargus was a man who took the credit away from the teams that functioned almost entirely without him.

black isle made quality games in spite of his interference with the team.

I do not believe his leaving will force the rest of the team to be in turmoil as Chris Parker is probably in charge now. According to the guys who worked at BIS it has been parker all along who is the man who gets things done there.

Feargus was just the man who did the talking and while the others were busting ass he was in his office playing everquest.

Him leaving will also hopefully shut up that turdwad je sawyer who was his lackey.


cheers...long live Chris Avellone and fallout 3!!!

 

[triCritical]

Re: first off...

first off..anyone who thinks that feargus was the man behind black isle never worked there to see the truth or knew anyone like i do who works there now. Feargus was a man who took the credit away from the teams that functioned almost entirely without him.

You mean it wasn't Feargus who continually Fucked with the design of Torn and forced an engine switch a short period before E3. It wasn't his poor management that eventually cost the project and then pushed the ideas of making an IWD2 in six months. Only to back track and allow the project to gone on 5 more months missing the vivendi window causing IPLY to lose more money.

It wasn't FU that essentially cutdown the original design HoW, which would eventually force TotLM which would necessitate that BIS work on a project for free. It wasn't him that scrapped Stonekeep 2 yet another project that was being worked on for a reasonable long time, and BIS again making no money off it. It wasn't him that forced an FO2, WHEN ALL THE REASONABLE PEOPLE, were saying your fucking crazy. And what was the end result of that.

If I was Feargus I would probably stop taking credit for all these fuck ups because it will probably eventually end up hurting his reputation.

Just about the only thing I have heard him taking credit for that was positive was the development of SPECIAL. Of course I did not believe him.

cheers...long live Chris Avellone and fallout 3!!!

Thats all we need, for FO3 to be an interactive book with a pregenerated character.

Him leaving will also hopefully shut up that turdwad je sawyer who was his lackey.

Saying something like this, makes your post suspicious.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Re: first off...

first off..anyone who thinks that feargus was the man behind black isle never worked there to see the truth or knew anyone like i do who works there now. Feargus was a man who took the credit away from the teams that functioned almost entirely without him.

Well, considering he really wasn't so much a developer as he was the guy who sat over those projects, I'm not really sure he's taking that much credit away from those developers. I'd say, or at least hope, that people understand that his position was more managerial than it was developmental.

black isle made quality games in spite of his interference with the team.

Well, that's what middle management does, though. The big bossmen come in, say YOUR TEAMS MUCH DO THIS CRAP, and he has to slink down and tell them what he's told to tell them.

I do not believe his leaving will force the rest of the team to be in turmoil as Chris Parker is probably in charge now. According to the guys who worked at BIS it has been parker all along who is the man who gets things done there.

Chris Parker can get snippy though. He got snippy with me in a dev chat about Lionheart because one of the questions was, Star Trek Away Team sucked, so how will Lionheart be better? That's paraphrased, but pretty much the statement behind the question. I think it's a fairly valid question, since the person asking it obviously wanted to know what Reflexive has learned from the lackluster title. It's just that the wording for it wasn't that great.

Feargus was just the man who did the talking and while the others were busting ass he was in his office playing everquest.

Well, I know that there were some under him that didn't really like him. However, I haven't heard too many of the current people drumming for his head in a while.

Him leaving will also hopefully shut up that turdwad je sawyer who was his lackey.

Ouch.

cheers...long live Chris Avellone and fallout 3!!!

MCA is fairly loyal to Feargus, though. He's taken up for Feargus in both public and private. I wouldn't be that shocked if MCA wasn't taking this whole thing badly.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I dont know. Maybe Feargus really was "a" problem with BIS, who knows. Im not saying though that he was the sole problem, the other was Interplay itself. But who knows. Maybe they'll get someone who can stand up to management instead of being bitched around. From my perspective, all Feargus really did was "protest" and whine and bitch on the message boards. Who knows if he really did all he could? I've seen in my profession, the higher ups in a company being wrong on subjects several times, but because guys that would be the equivalent of Feargus' position never backed down from their statement, the higher ups eventually changed their mind. In short, what I'm saying is that maybe Feargus was really just one big pussy who suffered from Vagina-itus, and his leaving is really a blessing in disguise.

 

[Rosh]

There is one aspect of Fo2 that I do believe is Feargus' fault. While the fault of the time base for the next Fallout game of being that short is Fargo's (should have allowed another few months), there is other points that have to be looked at.

As the overseer of that (I'm not going to make any bad puns about that), and just like how we roast Chucklehead Cuervos because he's the lead for Fallout Enforcer, he was the man for content/quality control (ultimately).

Instead of insuring that the game was in a finished and polished state first and foremost, there were a good number of stupid and sloppy easter eggs obviously put in in a most haphazard and obvious manner. So instead of making sure the people were doing what they were supposed to be doing (i.e. telling them to cut the fluff and irrelevent/stupid shit), he was apparently getting in very early practice on the Filet-O-Fish fryer (not my joke, blame Saint for that one).

And, considering that Feargus did the Boneyards, how out to lunch must he have been to ignore the utterly craptacular area of New Reno? The electrified maze? (Well, we know how things can slip by him like the infamous forest maze in Asswind Dale 2.) Everything else that should have been pretty obvious in a basic design plan?

Chris Avellone for Fallout 3? Good joke, since it was through the negligence of Feargus that ChrisA was allowed his chance to scrub his ass onto Fallout 2, helping to erode any good effect that Tim Cain and crew did when they put down the groundwork.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Hell, things are pretty goddamn dark for BIS and IPLY, which in reality is both a good and bad thing. Its good because they'll eventually go under and sell off names like Fallout (maybe), but its a bad thing because they'll milk every goddamn brand name for what its worth, and by then, who would want it? So, in reality, its a lose lose situation for us. If they stay afloat, so does Cuevas (is that eggs in spanish?). If they sink, they'll take every goddamn name in the process. Such is life in the world of games: no hope.