Troika and the Fallout rights - where did I read that?

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

Rosh, you've gone off the deep end.

 

[Vault Dweller]

VD, it's still not Bethesda's fault.

Hell of an argument.

 

[Rosh]

Rosh, you've gone off the deep end.

This, from the one who keeps saying a statement as if repeating it makes it any more true.

Fact is, Bethesda had been looking at the license, as they had admitted, and they had designs on it. It was obvious to them, even then, that Fallout fans even preferred to have Troika develop the game, and that Troika has been looking to acquire the license. So then why would Bethesda go ahead and snap it a la EA mentality?

You see, if it comes as a surprise to Bethesda that Troika wanted the license, then where does the "planning and looking at the license for months" come in? You know, even over those held to be the original creators of said work? You might want to make sure your stories match those of your coworkers from now on....

 

[Revasser]

Why? Explain please. Do morals and ethics have no place in business world, in your opinion? Should someone even consider moral issues when making a business decision? Or should they only be concerned with laws ignoring anything else?

Basically, history has proven that morals and ethics have no place in business. It would be nice if they did, but that's not the way the world works. It really is true that nice guys always finish last, in regards to business, at least.

 

[kathode]

The cost of the license is out there in some Interplay financial report or some such. How anyone can look at that and still believe that there was any form of bidding war going on is completely beyond me. If that was a bigger bid than whatever money Troika put down, well suffice to say I can't even imagine them seriously bidding less for it. You'd have to ask them, though.

 

[Whipporowill]

Been a while since we had one of these "passionate" threads on the Codex - and all I wanted was some ground for my arguments... That being said MFSD, I doubt you can do much to change anybody's mind - which you should already know.

Oh, btw - this Eyesore is very much still the case - I guess it always will.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Bethesda did nothing wrong here. At all. It's not Bethesda's fault -- nor any of Bethesda's doing -- that Troika was not able to aquire the license.

Yes, it's Troika's fault for not being rich. I hate those poor people and companies. They should just all die or something.

So poor game companies need welfare? They should just be handed licenses when they can't manage their money? Wow. Sign me up for that one.

Is that what I said? Troika has managed to acquire enough to get the license if Bethesda didn't interfere. Bethesda had a choice, to do what's right and allow the creator of the setting to BUY the license, or to do what's legally right but morally wrong and outbid Troika.

As for money management, games are art or at least they should be. When an artist becomes a businessman, the art suffers. Troika didn't want or didn't care about making games that sell a lot on every platform, Troika wanted to make good games that would never be blockbusters. From the business point of view, they deserved to die. From the art point of view, fuck, what a pity...

 

[Vault Dweller]

Why? Explain please. Do morals and ethics have no place in business world, in your opinion? Should someone even consider moral issues when making a business decision? Or should they only be concerned with laws ignoring anything else?

Basically, history has proven that morals and ethics have no place in business.

No, history has proven that most people don't care about morals and ethics when they can make a buck. Should we accept that as a business standard though?

 

[Rosh]

(Snip more idiotic excuses.)

That still doesn't invalidate the point of a fucking courtesy call.

"Hello, we [Bethesda] are looking to license this title [Fallout] from Interplay, as we are big fans and don't want to see the series die. As you are the creators and were primary developers of this title, we wanted to know if you had interest in obtaining and continuing your work or not in your current state, before we purchased the license ourselves."

That is it. Simple fucking courtesy, which was obviously NOT shown. Welcome to business ethics, at least in the authoring world. That is why Bethesda isn't given any credit of "timing", "ignorance", or any such shit like that which you care to toss our way, and a sad example in which other people seem to smile and nod as if someone can get away with anything legally, then it's fair game and nobody should have a gripe.

 

[Revasser]

Why? Explain please. Do morals and ethics have no place in business world, in your opinion? Should someone even consider moral issues when making a business decision? Or should they only be concerned with laws ignoring anything else?

Basically, history has proven that morals and ethics have no place in business.

No, history has proven that most people don't care about morals and ethics when they can make a buck. Should we accept that as a business standard though?

Considering business is (most often) all about making a buck to the exclusion of all other concerns, isn't that the same thing? But perhaps you mean that that <i>isn't</i> what business should be all about? If so, I agree with you, and no, we shouldn't accept that as a standard. But do a bare handful of consumers bitching on an internet forum really have a choice?

 

[Drakron]

Bethsoft just throw money into the street ... if they were smart they would hire Troika to work on it and we would not have this discustion.

Bethsoft picked up a cult license and in the process they pissed off every single Fallout fan site since we all wanted Tim Cain and the people that worked in Fallout and we know Bethsoft pretty much stolen the license from then.

MSFD can spin all it wants but in the end they earned the dislike of the Fallout community, as Fallout Troika could be a mess and have all sort of problems we had far more faith in Troika abilities to produce a Fallout title.

And just looking at Troika titles we can see that faith being well placed, Bethsoft on the other hand have not produced anything close to Fallout and everyone expects its going to be "Oblivion with guns".

Again, if Bethsoft worked with Troika as publisher/developer things would be diferent ... in fact considering the amount of distrust over Bethsoft Fallout I expect that title will simply not please the fans and since this is a cult title we are going to be VERY vocal about it ... FBOS anyone?

 

[DarkSign]

Bethesda did nothing wrong here. At all. It's not Bethesda's fault -- nor any of Bethesda's doing -- that Troika was not able to aquire the license.

Yes, it's Troika's fault for not being rich. I hate those poor people and companies. They should just all die or something.

So poor game companies need welfare? They should just be handed licenses when they can't manage their money? Wow. Sign me up for that one.

Is that what I said? Troika has managed to acquire enough to get the license if Bethesda didn't interfere. Bethesda had a choice, to do what's right and allow the creator of the setting to BUY the license, or to do what's legally right but morally wrong and outbid Troika.

As for money management, games are art or at least they should be. When an artist becomes a businessman, the art suffers. Troika didn't want or didn't care about making games that sell a lot on every platform, Troika wanted to make good games that would never be blockbusters. From the business point of view, they deserved to die. From the art point of view, fuck, what a pity...

That's sure as hell what it sounded like. Poor poor guy. They should have gotten it instead of the rich guy. I actually support what you're saying about the original developer (insert tangent thread on how Troika ~= BIS) developing their property, but if it wasnt Bethesda, someone else with money could have jumped in. The vulnerability existed.

Artists have always been businessmen. You think patronage was given just based on artistic merit? No. Even great artists have had to explain/sell their work for it to be lauded. Artists talked their way into the courts of kings and queens. Especially nowdays when development companies can hire businesspeople who know what they fuck they're doing, there's no excuse for financial mismanagement. (See Rosh's quip to me about fiduciary responsibility to investors)

You make a decent argument (art for art's sake) but its not realistic - its idealistic. Nothing wrong with having ideals, but at some point reality has to set in. Who's to say that Troika might not have, due to financial reasons, botched the development of FO3?

But ultimately you're right. It would have been better if Troika had gotten it.

 

[bryce777]

Disagree, Steve? Feel free to express yourself with more than an emoticon.

Grabbing the license may have been a good business decision (time will tell, but I hope it will bite Bethesda in the ass somehow), but it sure as fuck was one of the most immoral things I've ever heard of.

Well, let's not go crazy. Causing troika to go out of business is not the same as being responsible for it, if that makes sense. Sort of like people who 'cause' accidents not being at fault for them - they might have slammed on the brakes in the intersection but that doesn't mean they're responsible for the pileup.

Personally, I think it was completely stupid to buy it. They are not going to make a game anything like the original in basic style, so the old fans will just be angry if they buy it. Also, the game never sold fantastically well, s it makes zero sense to pay millions for a license that sold mediocrely.

The name itself has no magic, and neither troika or bethesda slapping a deathclaw on the side of a box would have made a crap game into a good one. The name nonsense is for the knucklehead publishers - they obviously know nothing about game publishing or their increasingly nonexistent fanbase (easily proved by the massive decreases in sales caused by putting out worse and worse games aimed at the wrong market). They think if they emulate hollywood that they will be sucessful and don't have a brain in their sad little heads.

If troika could have made a game with the dialog from bloodlines and the combat of toee then it would be an amazing classic, but chances are they would have made a crap game due to lack of funds anyhow...whereas bethesda will make a heartily mediocre game that is nothing like fallout in the least.

 

[Vault Dweller]

(Snip more idiotic excuses.)

That still doesn't invalidate the point of a fucking courtesy call.

"Hello, we [Bethesda] are looking to license this title [Fallout] from Interplay, as we are big fans and don't want to see the series die. As you are the creators and were primary developers of this title, we wanted to know if you had interest in obtaining and continuing your work or not in your current state, before we purchased the license ourselves."

That is it. Simple fucking courtesy, which was obviously NOT shown. Welcome to business ethics, at least in the authoring world. That is why Bethesda isn't given any credit of "timing", "ignorance", or any such shit like that which you care to toss our way, and a sad example in which other people seem to smile and nod as if someone can get away with anything legally, then it's fair game and nobody should have a gripe.

Exactly. Makes way more sense than "Oh, please, if they wanted the game so badly they should have come up with more money!" and "No, we did nothing wrong, our lawyer said that!" excuses.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

It doesn't take a genius to figure out something like that:
Troika's Fallout:

The engine they were going to use wasn't exclusively 3D isometric, by the way.

Vault, it's undeniable that Troika had a concept of design that not only we appreciated on many occasions but also gave Fallout much of its charm and appeal - but they didn't always worked. All of their three games have ocasional bad or questionable elements of roleplaying and dialogues. Most of Temple of Elemental Evil's dialogue was pretty poor, Arcanum was an unbalanced mess at times, and Bloodlines was a frag fest in the later stages. I didn't expect Troika to be nothing short of great but I also wouldn't assume that they'd be able to create good dialogues or roleplaying all the time. Now, I believe their version of Fallout 3 would likely have things which we'd all enjoy... But if all their three titles are anything to go by (and why shouldn't they, given we apply the same scrutiny to other companies, Bethesda included), nothing says it would be as good as we hoped it would.

Bethesda's Fallout:
- MW with guns, i.e. exploration, "living in some crappy world" game
- actiony RT all the way
- Crappy dialogues
- Crappy role-playing
- The most violent game evar! (according to Todd)
- PC and XBOX game

Without playing the Bethsoft apologist, which I definetely am not seeing as I don't particularly like a whole lot of things in their game design, their planned 'actiony RT' seems to be no different than that of Bloodlines. Which to me means it's not an optimal choice, and definetely not one I think would benefit or improve Fallout in any way, but it's an attempt which remains 'will have to do' at best.

As for 'crappy dialogues and role-playing', I doubt Oblivion will be a radical departure from Morrowind concerning dialogue, but the inclusion of dialogue trees alone already suggests that they are at least making attempts to correct their static NPCs with lifeless dialogue. While this is no guarantee, its opening a door to the use of proper dialogue structures for Fallout 3.

Why is that? If they had the license, they would have had a publishing deal which would have eliminated or pushed back their financial problems.

They were already shopping for a publishing deal with their own post apocalyptic title but there were not many publishers interested. What makes you think it would be different with a license like Fallout? Name recognition? Likely, the assumed rabidness of the fanbase is more recognized by developers and publishers than the game itself. Setting? Fantasy is much more of a financial paradise for publishers. And the gameplay isn't what most publishers want, either; that's why they were including RTwP. Who knows how many more changes they'd have to make to sell the game?

 

[Vault Dweller]

But do a bare handful of consumers bitching on an internet forum really have a choice?

Yep. Expressing your opinion is always better than keeping silence. Democracy 101

 

[Revasser]

But do a bare handful of consumers bitching on an internet forum really have a choice?

Yep. Expressing your opinion is always better than keeping silence. Democracy 101

Hah! You've got me there. Unfortunately, while we may actually want a good game to bear the Fallout title that recreates some of the gameplay we liked in the original Fallout games, the big, wide, "casual gamer" market that Bethesda probably acquired the license to sell the game to doesn't give a shit. Just as businesses don't give a shit about anything as long as the corporate execs get their sports cars and hookers and the share holders are appeased, the vast consumer market doesn't give a shit what the businesses providing their products do as long as they get their shiny pretties.

 

[Claw]

Bethesda did nothing wrong here. At all. It's not Bethesda's fault -- nor any of Bethesda's doing -- that Troika was not able to aquire the license.

Meh. Trokia wasn't able to aquire the license because Bethesda aquired it. How is that not "any of Bethesda's doing"? Whether it's immoral, amoral, legal or "business as usual" is a different matter entirely.

Oh well, I guess just about everything has been said already, and it's all old news anyway.

 

[Zomg]

I would have preferred that Troika got the FO license as well, but I don't have any particular animus towards Bethesda over it. I'm not in a position to judge to what extent a corporate drone said, "What a cheap price for a B-level brand!" vs. designers begging, "You must buy the Fallout license, we've been shadow-planning Fallout games every second of our lives." so I make no artistic evaluation prima facie.

Just adding my voice to the gale.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

In addition to what MSFD said, even IF one takes your point of view which I don't, the only one who may have done something "immoral" would be Interplay, who didn't grant the license to Troika for whatever price, based on the grounds that they are nice chaps, and worked on previous Fallouts, and... yeah, I am sure that is highly immoral!

Sorry, the idea of this being a moral issue is just absurd. Like it or hate it - ok, but morals got nothing to do with it.

Why? Explain please. Do morals and ethics have no place in business world, in your opinion? Should someone even consider moral issues when making a business decision? Or should they only be concerned with laws ignoring anything else?

Should business be judged by ethic standards- hell yes. Can business transactions be morally wrong but legal? Sure. Do I see anything of that sort here? No.

A courtesy call to Troika might have been a very knightly thing to do (although it's an impossible demand from a business point of view. But is it required by any Ethical norm? I don't think so. There is a different between not being the nicest person possible and being Ethically reprehensible, you know.
So tell me - which Ethic norm did Bethesda break, in you opinion?
Common courtesy is NOT an ethical norm, BTW.

 

[Rosh]

. Unfortunately, while we may actually want a good game to bear the Fallout title that recreates some of the gameplay we liked in the original Fallout games, the big, wide, "casual gamer" market that Bethesda probably acquired the license to sell the game to doesn't give a shit.

So, because all indications point towards that, why should we ever be nice to the Bethesda people? It's one thing to cover a title because you like it, another because someone expects you to reprint their hype while also selling out the game design for a quick buck, kind of like what EA did to Ultima 8. Again, so why should Bethesda get any respect for that kind of selling out?

We've heard all sorts of things about what their people think Fallout involves, many amusing items from when the licensing was announced, the moronic arguments a la Chuck Cuevas and the FOT developers about how something trendy NEEDS to be put in for casual gamers, and we have heard little as to what they intend to do with the license, especially after rudely acquiring it from over the head of the development house that most fans acknowledged as having the skills and design style preferable for a continuation of the series. Nobody shells out that much money without having an idea of how to fully take it to fruition, unless we're expected to take that Bethesda leap of logic as well.

GhanBuriGhan: That still doesn't mean that it can't be called a shit trick for not having the courtesy of respecting anything of the original creator or fans wishes. So then, why should we respect them? That is the same reason why I do not respect vaporware or name-dropping developers in turn.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

It really boils down to development style. Bethesda's is quite far from Fallout's in terms of game design.

No argument there, Rosh. Just making a point about Bethesda not being the only one who kept their overal goals for the franchise to themselves.

At least it would have died in the hands of those most capable and most inclined towards developing towards that style.

I understand this point of view. However, doesn't it strike you as unethical if Troika had acquired it knowing full well that it might have not been possible to develop the title? We are talking of the community's expectations, after all. It seems either result would have been equally troubling for many Fallout fans.

Which is a good thing, compared to having it handed off yet again for someone else's "development style" to work it's magic upon the title, whom also hasn't really developed anything like Fallout. No, Morrowind doesn't count.

I share your concern regarding Bethesda acquiring it, no doubt. But it would likely be in the market for others other than Bethesda. Weren't Silver Style at one point trying to acquire it as well? Something like that...

On the bright side, the developers of Ballerium didn't get the license

 

[Whipporowill]

On the bright side, the developers of Ballerium didn't get the license

And lets not forget Silver Style! Seems they got their hands on Simon the Sorceror though. Weird company...

 

[bryce777]

I really don't blame Bethesda for grabbing the rights to Fallout - that's just business, and business is about making money in whatever legal way you can. Why should a company care that if they buy something they believe can make them some more $ - another company goes bust? That said, I still very much wish Troika was around and working on Fo3.

There is room for ethics in business, and it is not all about the greedy algorithm. The greedy algorithm acually makes you fall hard in business in the long run.

I don't think there is any way you can say this is genuinely wrong, though. There is no way to say that troika would have done better and if they couldn't get the money for a license they probably couldn't get the money for a decent game. They might even have aquired it and failed to even make a game. Someone had also pointed out it was going to be a first person perspective fallout. So, if it is going to be nothing like the original, who cares who makes it?

Now, if they had done something like promise troika not to bid on it if troika promised not to make any fantasy setting games for x years if they got it, and then outbid them at the last minute then yeah I would say they are dograping bastards who deserve to die. That is a bad example, but it is similar to how a lot of companies agree to collude with each other a bit.

If you want examples of ethically wrong companies they are easy to find in the software world. Microsoft, Oracle, both are companies that stifle competetion by whatever means possible instead of trying to compete by making better products, and enter into business deals with companies for the sole reason of getting leverage on them to drive them under. Frivolous lawsuits, ludicrous sftware patents - all these are out there in the game world and no one mentions it.

It is ridiculous to compare Bethesda to these guys just because they are not the company most of us wanted to see get the license....

 

[Revasser]

. Unfortunately, while we may actually want a good game to bear the Fallout title that recreates some of the gameplay we liked in the original Fallout games, the big, wide, "casual gamer" market that Bethesda probably acquired the license to sell the game to doesn't give a shit.

So, because all indications point towards that, why should we ever be nice to the Bethesda people? It's one thing to cover a title because you like it, another because someone expects you to reprint their hype while also selling out the game design for a quick buck, kind of like what EA did to Ultima 8. Again, so why should Bethesda get any respect for that kind of selling out?

We've heard all sorts of things about what their people think Fallout involves, many amusing items from when the licensing was announced, the moronic arguments a la Chuck Cuevas and the FOT developers about how something trendy NEEDS to be put in for casual gamers, and we have heard little as to what they intend to do with the license, especially after rudely acquiring it from the development house that most fans acknowledged as having the skills and design style preferable for a continuation of the series. Nobody shells out that much money without having an idea of how to fully take it to fruition, unless we're expected to take that Bethesda leap of logic as well.

Simply put, we shouldn't be nice to Bethesda, especially considering what forum this is. But it's really not the rank-and-file code monkeys' and artists' fault. They probably had to sign a contract stating that they wouldn't bring the company into disrepute with their public comments, or they simply might be biased toward their employer as Codexers are usually biased against everyone and everything. From what I've seen here and even on the TES boards, Bethesda don't get an awful lot of respect for what they're doing at the moment except from the most devoted of fanboys, and grudging witholding of judgement from some others.

You never know, though, Bethesda might just surprise us all by doing some decent with the Fallout license. I wouldn't take those odds, though.