Company News Troika Demise Confirmation

[Briosafreak]

True they are not provable without further information

So i`m right after all. Everyone is assuming too much.

 

[taks]

I'm curious, have you ever run a company and thus speak from experience or do you talk about things you don't fully understand? I have, and all that speech about people, hard choices, and tough decisions sounds like a lot of naive bullshit to me.

i have, too, and what he said actually makes perfect sense. luck is absolutely what you make it. people too often confuse luck with hard work and smart business decisions.

As a result, both the flagship title and the company are fucked. One can say that that's where the downfall of Troika has begun.

maybe the downfall started with making a deal with a failing publisher... that's not bad luck, it's a bad business decision.

Some of the best? Like what? 1.5 years to make ToEE when an average dev time for a decent game is 2-3 years?

uh, the average is 18 - 24 months according to most developers that i've seen post. NWN is an obvious exception as it took 5 years, but that was half a dozen engine changes. IWD2 was 14 months... troika had 20. puts them right in the middle of average.

Capitalized? How about using words you actually understand?

he used the term correctly, exactly what are you trying to say? they got the jobs because they "developed fallout," i.e. capitalized on previous success, but failed to deliver after that.

More bullshit.

last i heard, getting a D&D title is a license to print money. a) a golden opportunity and b) they didn't deliver. sounds to me like a pretty cognizant statement.

taks

 

[DarkSign]

Are you listening at all or is there a streaming media interview for Troika fanbois?

[Don't you make it sound a little too easy? "You! Get off your lazy ass and keep money coming in the door! You! Hold the door wide open!" Like I said, they did get 3 contracts, and it looks like they were fucked in 2 cases, which is enough to put them either on hold or out of business. Your comment would have been valid if they were open for 7 years and failed to get a single contract.

No. I dont think its easy at all. You come at these arguments from strange angles, friend. I didnt say it was easy to sell your games or your company...but its the most basic premise for opening the doors!!! For FUCKS sake, if you cant sell yourself then you cant expect to be in business. If one business dries up youd better go find another one if you want to keep working for yourself. I cant even believe you think that was an argument. No my argument is valid because the point of the company is to sell their services. No one is going to sell you but you.

And have I disputed that fact? It does take money and in gaming industry this money comes from publishers. Now, I'm neither a banker, nor a developer, so honestly I have no idea how easy it is for a game developer to get an independent financing. If you know, not if you can guess or heard, but know for a fact, then tell me, and I'll take your word for it, and maybe even learn something. Otherwise....

These words dont diminish my argument in the least. My "it takes money" point was that if you dont get enough start up capital to keep you going...even through the lean times, youre fucked from day one. And seeing as how I am in the financial world...you might want to listen to me on that.

You would have to prove that with something other than "maybe they fucked up somewhere".

Again with the bullshit. I gave several CONCRETE reasons why they might have failed and alluded to others. Dont portray me as a generalist.

You obviously think that they got fucked by publishers and like a dog with a bone you wont let go. If you cant realize that good management is able to overcome hardships and that adding good planning to that management makes that more pallatable...theres no hope for you. I sincerely hope you dont go into business for yourself in the future.
There wont be anyone for you to cry to when it goes belly up but your mom.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Vault Dweller, you are definitely making excuses on Troika's behalf based on unfounded assumptions. When someone points out that Troika made mistakes you say yeah, but that's not what caused their situation, it was the publisher's fault.

Well, publishers are in control. That's a fact. Take a look at Obsidian's KOTOR 2. LA rushed the game and cut the endings. 'nuff said. Of course, Volourn would jump in to say that that Bio wouldn't have taken that crap from nobody and would have sent assassins to Lucas Arts, but that's Volourn. He's biased and stoopid, but he's family.

Overall, Troika could have done a better job on every game, and they did blow a chance with ToEE (that's mismanagement 100%), but in every case, the publisher has managed to screw up the game even more.

The idea that the publisher pulled funding is a bit bogus. The publisher is not going to open itself to legal action for breach of contract.

From the Stardock article:

"The other developers told me I was daft to write a space based strategy game for OS/2! So I wrote Galactic Civilizations for OS/2. I was a college student back then so I couldn't afford to get it into the stores. So a publisher called Advanced Idea Machines "published" it. They never paid us royalties and disappeared soon after. Since I had no money, I couldn't afford a lawyer at the time.

So I got smart. Stardock would publish the OS/2 sequel Galactic Civilizations II. So we made the game, manufactured the boxes, took care of all the marketing and getting it into the stores. And just to be safe, we had two distributors. One called Micro Central and the other one called Blue Orchards. Both went went out of business owing us hundreds of thousands of dollars.

That particular incident nearly wiped out Stardock.

But no matter, we recovered. We clawed our way back up and made it into the Windows market. We decided to make a Windows version and we decided to work with a well known publisher on it (Strategy First). This time everything would go perfectly...

Well, that was a year and a half ago and we're still waiting for royalty payments on most of their sales. But this time, we had an out -- direct electronic sales. People were able to buy the game directly from us and download the game."

As you can see "breech of contract" is just a phrase. Yes, you can sue them, but that takes months, sometimes years, which is much longer than a company can go without getting paid.

A likely possiblity: Troika ran low on funding during the project and ended up asking for more funding to finish the project, thus when the project ended they weren't paid for the final milestone because they had already recieved the money set forth in the contract.

Occam of the Razor's fame says you are wrong. Your explanation is less likely than the current rumors. Besides, the game was released almost 4 months ago. Overall, it got 80% average, and it's safe to assume that it did ok. If Activision is playing fair, where are the royalties?

The fact that Troika has supposedly been screwed over by three different publishers is a very dubious claim. Is it more likely that Troika has goofed or that every publisher Troika has worked with has screwed them over?

Do you deny the fact that Sierra's stupidity was the reason Arcanum didn't sell well? 6 months they were sitting on a game that was anticipated (read pirated), forcing even the most patient gamers to download a copy. Do you deny that Atari published a wrong build by mistake thus releasing a much buggier version?

I'm not even going to go into the fact that after ToEE was released in such a buggy state, that they should have fixed those bugs as quickly as possible, even without monetary compensation if needed in order to save face with the gamer community.

It's good that you are not going into that because everyone can tell you that you can't fuck with licensed properties like DnD, Star Wars, WoD, etc. No matter how much you want, you can NOT release or fix anything that has NOT been approved.

So what do you say Vault Dweller? Do you care to comment on these points that I have enumerated?

Of course, I care to comment. I always do. Anyway, overall, it looks like you are trying too hard to put all the blame on Troika by inventing all kinda hypothetical situations. What if they got all the money and wanted more, what if they couldn't stick with the terms, etc. At least when I defend Troika I use facts and rumors that make sense, while you go with wild imagination.

 

[DarkSign]

At least when I defend Troika I use facts and rumors that make sense, while you go with wild imagination.

Not really but go on. Or respond to my latest post.

 

[Avé]

VD, you realise that Strategy First(who filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection or some shit last year), and 3 tiny publishers that all went bust, are slightly different to Activision who posted extremely healthy profits recently?

*edit*

Debts include over $30,000 USD in unpaid rent (probably for the office lease) and over $80,000 USD to the Canadian Government while employees are still owed around $48,000 USD. Aside from the approximate total of $4 million USD owed to various investors, Strategy First's biggest debt is the $1.7 million USD in royalties owed to game developers around the world.

 

[Vault Dweller]

i have, too, and what he said actually makes perfect sense. luck is absolutely what you make it. people too often confuse luck with hard work and smart business decisions.

While hard work can overcome bad luck, luck is very important. Getting a good client, for example, that would become a foundation of your business is luck. Of course, you have to provide quality services to keep the client (hard word), but getting him is pure 100% luck.

maybe the downfall started with making a deal with a failing publisher... that's not bad luck, it's a bad business decision.

It was a perfectly good publisher during Arcanum's release. Sierra had money for development, distribution, localization, etc. No wordcount, btw. It was a business mistake on their part that resulted in Arcanum's commercial failure. I don't think that anyone could have predicted that.

Some of the best? Like what? 1.5 years to make ToEE when an average dev time for a decent game is 2-3 years?

uh, the average is 18 - 24 months according to most developers that i've seen post. NWN is an obvious exception as it took 5 years, but that was half a dozen engine changes. IWD2 was 14 months... troika had 20. puts them right in the middle of average.

I said decent game, not average game. Check the dev time for BG, Arcanum, MW, DA, Oblivion, etc. NWN you've already named.

Capitalized? How about using words you actually understand?

he used the term correctly, exactly what are you trying to say? they got the jobs because they "developed fallout," i.e. capitalized on previous success, but failed to deliver after that.

They may have got the first contract that way, but hardly the second, and definitely not the third. Besides, Fallout wasn't such a hot seller to begin with, so I don't think that publishers give a fuck. "Ooh, they've made this cool sci-fi (first strike), turn-based (second strike) game that didn't sell very well (third strike)". So, the only capitalization could have come from fans eager to buy anything from the creators of Fallout. We all know that didn't happen.

last i heard, getting a D&D title is a license to print money.

That's why PoR2 did so well. The first 3E game, btw. You are probably confusing the real DnD that most people don't get on account of all the rules and decisions, and that pseudo DnD crap for retarded that was Bio trademark for years.

 

[Sheriff05]

At least when I defend Troika I use facts and rumors that make sense, while you go with wild imagination.

Not really but go on. Or respond to my latest post.

I will.

You know Darksign, your sanctimonious "I'm a Lawyer, I'm in the financial world, I'm spending someone else millions" YET, I have time to jerk around over at RPG Codex half the day, only leads me to conclude you are thoroughly full of shit.
Your black and white view of "good management will solve all problems" also leads me to speculate you've NEVER run your own business that operates in a risk filled enviroment. Because if you did you'd know there are certain mitigating factors that simply can't be controlled. I personally won't make excuses for Troika as it very obvious to me there are some "management" problems in the company. Creative people aren't always geared for direct managment, though anyone whose produced a successful computer game from start to finish and knows their industry has the chops to get the job done. So it's obvious someone at Troika hasn't made some good decisions and that's very clear. Having said that, Troika's demise (IF it's even true) is a symptom of an industry that's run amok with the same problems that plague any entertainment business. When your at the mercy of someone else money, It all boils down to how many widgets you must sell to a gullible public. Quality of product is simply not an issue.
I'm sure when Troika started their company they didn't have the foresight to see Computer games being blow by the wayside in favor of consoles everything in creation being bought up by three major publishers. ( I guess they should have)


The bottom line is that in the US there in no room for independent developers the ecomonic model just doesn't make sense. These companys can survive in Europe at this point due publishing outlets not being monopolized, (not to mention a more "cultured" sales base). Basically the bottom line for the Troika guys is either regroup and make games for download only and scrape by doing what you love or be like J.E Sawyer and go make cheesy Console games or go work in Europe. All you "know-it-all"" business geniuses out there seem to be leaving out mentioning the realitys of the industy.
I know we can all agree that either way it sucks because it's the people that like good, challenging thought provoking games that lose out.

 

[Vault Dweller]

No my argument is valid because the point of the company is to sell their services.

The point of a company is to produce something, my easily confused friend. Not everyone is a salesman.

These words dont diminish my argument in the least. My "it takes money" point was that if you dont get enough start up capital to keep you going...even through the lean times, youre fucked from day one.

That's the universal truth, sorta like "it's good to be healthy". No shit. However, many people don't have any start up capital and can't get one, but they have something to offer, and thus, it's worth to take the risk to get fucked one day than to do nothing.

You would have to prove that with something other than "maybe they fucked up somewhere".

Again with the bullshit. I gave several CONCRETE reasons why they might have failed and alluded to others. Dont portray me as a generalist.

You gave several concrete EXAMPLES why a company could go out of business. It was very educational.

You obviously think that they got fucked by publishers and like a dog with a bone you wont let go.

Yes, I do believe they've got fucked by publishers. Do you expect me to change my position just because you posted some thoughts on this matter?

If you cant realize that good management is able to overcome hardships and that adding good planning to that management makes that more pallatable...theres no hope for you.

Good management is not a cure for cancer, you know. Good management is effective when a manager is in control of everything. In this industry, it's always a partnership between developers and publishers.

I sincerely hope you dont go into business for yourself in the future.

I've been running my own business (8 employees) for 4 years. Before that I was a senior manager (VP) at a large and evil marketing company. Thanks for wishing me luck.

 

[almondblight]

To say Troika is solely responsible seems as idiotic as saying Troika bears no responsability. The world doesn't exist in a vacuum, and it's not entirely predictable. I don't think I know any successful business man that doesn't attribute some of his success to luck.

 

[Vault Dweller]

To say Troika is solely responsible seems as idiotic as saying Troika bears no responsability. The world doesn't exist in a vacuum, and it's not entirely predictable. I don't think I know any successful business man that doesn't attribute some of his success to luck.

Exactly. Agree with every word.

 

[bryce777]

Responsibilty for running a sucessful company goes to management

Responsibilty for running a company out of business goes to mismanagement

The People in charge have to be held accountable thats what they get paid big $$$ for

As cold as it may sound is that so hard to accept?

Ha, and there is no luck involved? I have started two companies, and I know better than that. One backstabbing customer or lawsuit or dry spell and it is game over in the software world.

It is different to run a business when the industry is in an upswing than when it is practically dying.

I never said anything about how hard or easy it is to run a company, and luck does not run a company... people ...run companies they make hard choices and tough decisions and sometimes they are good and sometimes they are bad, there are always risks and things can and will go bad but there also exists something called good business management to be prepared for when things will get tough. If your talking about opportunity Troika has had some of the best to get the projects it did and that wasn't good luck They founded the company to be an rpg maker and completely capitalized on being The makers of Fallout for all that it was worth. now Arcanum, TOEE and Vampire all had great potential but not one them is going to see a sequel. As noble as cause as the company has to stay afloat it has to make money.

They had three Golden Opportunities thats 2 more than most get and if they were still struggling to hold the company together after three big projects is it really just bad luck.

Having Bad luck on one project ok Ill give you that

Having Bad Luck On all three projects Maybe Im all alone here but Im not buying it

Luck is a poor excuse to dodge major responsibilites

I have respect for a person who accepts responsiblity and learns from mistakes and none for a person who will put more effort into covering up mistakes than correcting them

First off, you obviously have no clue how rough it is in the software industry. Not even remotely.

That is just software in general. If you want to talk about making games, it is probably ten times harder to make it, even if you have some real talent on your side.

Second, luck does not necessarily mean a random flukish event; every industry has upturns and downturns. Even as other software is kind of in an upturn right now, PC gaming is in a signifigant turndown. That means less money is available from publishers, and those not independently stable are in lots of trouble.

I have started two companies as a partner on the ground floor. One was a collosally stupid idea in many senses, but I managed to cash out of it with quite a bit of money because it was the right place and time for that sort of thing. Later I tried another company, and things went well for a while, but things never took off really because the market was so depressed and minor problems abounded and it eventually sort of petered out.

There are ALWAYS some mistakes; mistakes in personnel hired in a game company will instantly sink it...if you just have one bad lead programmer, your project is dead. By the time you figure out you have problems, it is too late. That is why so many times people only hire people they have worked with before. But you dont always have that option, and there is no magic interviewing technique that will always determine who the best candidate is. People who can talk about programming intelligently can't necessarily actually program, and dont necessarily have the work ethic or raw speed(very important) needed to knock off a huge project.


I can't know troika's finance situation, but it has always been believed that it was never a company that had lots of money.

I'm sure there are some decisions that were made that they think of as mistakes in retrospect, but that does not mean they didn't make the most logical decision at the time.

I am not defending them per se, anyhow; I don't have the info to comment. However, neither do you, and it is ludicrous to make blanket statements that all business failure is due to bad management.

It has to be the stupidest thing I have heard on these forums, and that says a lot.

 

[dojoteef]

You know Vault Dweller, for someone who is supposedly "in the know" about the industry you show a surprising lack of knowledge about it. For example you show a lack of knowledge of the way royalties work:

If Activision is playing fair, where are the royalties?

Activision reserves the right to recoup the publishing costs BEFORE paying a single penny to Troika for the game. In other words, if the game doesn't cover the costs or just breaks even, Troika recieves diddly shit. That's the industry. Plain and simple. So there is no, Activision isn't playing fair bullshit. It's one of those standard contract clauses.

It's good that you are not going into that because everyone can tell you that you can't fuck with licensed properties like DnD, Star Wars, WoD, etc. No matter how much you want, you can NOT release or fix anything that has NOT been approved.

Where did I say don't get approval? I simply stated that they had an obligation to fix the product whether they get paid for it or not if they wish to save face with gamers.



Then you go on to discuss Stardock in which all of the publishing companies went bankrupt? Are you that lacking in knowledge of business to know, you don't stand a chance in hell of recouping losses from a bankrupt entity? You know whose fault it was, the people behind Stardock for picking such bad publishers. There is such a thing called researching who you're working with. You cannot compare Troika dealing with well known established companies and Stardock dealing with little known now defunct publishers and expect that to fly. Also, let's remember what I mentioned about royalties. The Stardock development company would not recieve money until the publisher has recieved enough money to cover costs of publishing. If they went out of business before that time or the game didn't make enough money (which is likely the case) then they don't get anything.

Well, publishers are in control. That's a fact. Take a look at Obsidian's KOTOR 2. LA rushed the game and cut the endings. 'nuff said. Of course, Volourn would jump in to say that that Bio wouldn't have taken that crap from nobody and would have sent assassins to Lucas Arts, but that's Volourn. He's biased and stoopid, but he's family.

Once again, you don't know the facts. More than likely Obsidian wasn't going to finish in time and Lucas Arts simply said, we aren't going to spend more money on the project. Finish up what you can and release it. That is increasingly what is happening now. The games industry has become MUCH more competitive. More and more money is at stake and the publishers aren't willing to shoulder the risks. They are luckly if they are able to break even on most titles. They look for the blockbusters in order to stay in business.

Overall, Troika could have done a better job on every game, and they did blow a chance with ToEE (that's mismanagement 100%)

Agreed.

but in every case, the publisher has managed to screw up the game even more.

How can you possibliy say this? The publishers are actually smart. They are in this for the business. If they aren't making money they are lossing it. They aren't going to spend more money on a product unless that product will give a higher return. For most development house if they can't deliver on their contractual obligations, they aren't going to be lucky enough to get extra funding.

Have you noticed how the games industry is becoming more and more consolidated? You know what that is? I'll tell you. The idea in the past used to be, put the game out when it's done. Provide extra funding as needed for a while and then if they still don't look like they are going to finish scrap the project. As much as they could the publishers tried to accomodate the developers. Most of those publishers have now been ground into dust and have been scattered with the wind.

 

[bryce777]

Some of the best? Like what? 1.5 years to make ToEE when an average dev time for a decent game is 2-3 years? Activision not paying them? Wow, great opportunities. If Troika survives, that would be "despite of" not "because of "
.

Partially true. Your statement suggests that it would be "in spite of" a series of unforuntate events (to borrow a phrase). but your example, the ToEE timeline, was not a scenario in which Troika was some defenseless pawn. From all accounts, it did not happen that Atari and Troika agreed to create and distribute a D&D game, with Troika only later discovering that the evil wizard Atari had surreptitiously added a "it must be done in 18 months" clause in the contract. I believe it was more like; Atari said "would you like to make a D&D game in 18 months?" and Troika said "hell yeah!" As for the Activision non-pay issue, it has still yet to be reported by anyone whether this is true, and if so, what the circumstances surrounding it are.

Troika may not be regarded as the whore that Bio is, but it is more than disengenuous to try and portray them as some hapless victim. There's plenty of blood on their hands, most of it their own.

But the problem is when they have no other options, what can they do.

That could well have been their only offer.

If they were smart they would have just patched toee anyhow.

I do think they made some real mistakes, honestly, but they may have been necessary mistakes in a sense.

 

[bryce777]

Blah, there is some serious idiocy in this thread.



First off - responsibility: no one is saying anyone is responsible for troika than troika, but every business started up is a risk. I have actually considered starting a game company myself and rejected it as too much of a risk unless I had at least 5 million dollars to work with. When troika started up, the situation in the industry was vastly different than it is now. They could not read the future and know that it would be much, much harder to get funding in five years.

Diversity - are you smoking crack? For software, this is actually the worst way to go because you can't leverage your codebase.

There is more to say, but I dont want to waste my breath.

 

[dojoteef]

Sheriff05, I agree with you on most accounts, but I still find Troika to be at fault. They are in the industry and they are a business that depends on the money given to them by publishers. They should have adapted to the marketplace if they wanted to succeed. Ultimately they didn't understand the market, or if they did, they were hoping that the climate in the industry would change. Either way, they goofed.

When a mistake happens and you don't not only learn from it, but also implement what you learn, then you are doomed to failure. They made three games, they should have known better.

 

[Human Shield]

Don't enter business without a lawyer. Get everything in writing and enforce all contracts, or you are setting yourselves up to be conned. Enforcing contracts should be the main goal of the entire police force, it the base of all economic progress.

 

[bryce777]

Don't enter business without a lawyer. Get everything in writing and enforce all contracts, or you are setting yourselves up to be conned. Enforcing contracts should be the main goal of the entire police force, it the base of all economic progress.

This is some sensible advice.

This given me serious heartaches more than once.

 

[Vault Dweller]

You know Vault Dweller, for someone who is supposedly "in the know" about the industry you show a surprising lack of knowledge about it.

When did I claim that? I'm just a guy who likes games and played a lot of them.

For example you show a lack of knowledge of the way royalties work

Did you miss the part before that? "Overall, it got 80% average , and it's safe to assume that it did ok". If it did ok, then Activision could have already recouped the costs.

Where did I say don't get approval? I simply stated that they had an obligation to fix the product whether they get paid for it or not if they wish to save face with gamers.

I'm curious where this assumption "Troika doesn't patch their games because they want to get paid first" come from. Is it some common knowledge about the industry that I seemed to be lacking?

Then you go on to discuss Stardock in which all of the publishing companies went bankrupt? ... You cannot compare Troika dealing with well known established companies

Yeah, like Sierra. Btw, where is Sierra? Haven't heard from them in awhile. :wink: I win this one, dojo.

Once again, you don't know the facts. More than likely Obsidian wasn't going to finish in time and Lucas Arts simply said, we aren't going to spend more money on the project. Finish up what you can and release it.

I may not know facts, but neither do you. The only difference is that my assumptions are based on logic (Christmas season *wink, wink*), and yours are based on wild guesses.

They are luckly if they are able to break even on most titles. They look for the blockbusters in order to stay in business.

No, they are looking for the same thing they always did - the fast buck. Who gives a shit about quality when you can hit the Christmas season when people buy everything.

How can you possibliy say this? The publishers are actually smart. They are in this for the business. If they aren't making money they are lossing it.

Right. So, you've never had that feeling when you go into a store, look around, and ask yourself: who the fuck paid for all that garbage? How about Interplay? It's a company that traded FO3 for FOBOS and BG3 for BGDA2, in case your memory has failed you. There are tons of other examples where publishers do all kinda stupid things, like Sierra localizing Arcanum, and spend money on crap that flops the minute it's released. Many times delayed MOO3 comes to mind too. How many good franchises have we lost because publishers don't have a fucking clue? etc.

 

[Sheriff05]

Sheriff05, I agree with you on most accounts, but I still find Troika to be at fault. They are in the industry and they are a business that depends on the money given to them by publishers. They should have adapted to the marketplace if they wanted to succeed. Ultimately they didn't understand the market, or if they did, they were hoping that the climate in the industry would change. Either way, they goofed..

I don't disagree with that, I think the market changed around them and there is really no place for them in the current enviroment without serious compromises to their particular vision. They'd have been better off not making Bloodlines at all then trying to make bloodlines some sort of gaming panacea to show people "hey look we can make a game with mass appeal" too. I don't dispute that in the end they're liable for there own demise, but the industry and the market have a huge direct fucking impact on "how things played out" If anyone here can't fit that fact into their argument, Im' sorry but they've never run a business or like some here don't seem to work at all and are just talking shit.

 

[Avé]

Yeah, like Sierra. Btw, where is Sierra? Haven't heard from them in awhile. :wink: I win this one, dojo.

So, comparing Sierra during the time when they were a healthy thriving company, and when they went under, is the same thing?

That kind of thinking must mean that Deus Ex sucked because Ion Storm got bought out and let go.


Since GalCiv launched in 2003, I'm going to presume Stardock signed with them in either 2002, or early 2003.

During that time, SFI's biggest hits, werent developed by them, they were mostly european games looking for american publishers.
SFI werent large, high profile, or a sure thing as you seem to suggest.

SFI's downfall was written during that same period, when they started expanding massively based on their growth continuing, and getting approx $11million investment.

Both failed to materialise, that was bad management.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Yeah, like Sierra. Btw, where is Sierra? Haven't heard from them in awhile. :wink: I win this one, dojo.

So, comparing Sierra during the time when they were a healthy thriving company, and when they went under, is the same thing?

I wasn't comparing Sierra to anything. The point was that "a healthy thriving company" like Sierra or Interplay could very quickly turn into nothing, and that the status of the publisher doesn't guarantee anything. Wasn't MicroForte fucked and almost bankrupted by Interplay, btw?

 

[dojoteef]

I'm curious where this assumption "Troika doesn't patch their games because they want to get paid first" come from. Is it some common knowledge about the industry that I seemed to be lacking?

It is often the case that developers will ask for compensation for any extra work done on a product. Usually it would be the case that the publisher would ask the developer to do the work and negotiations for compensation would occur. It seems the industry has been moving away from that model. And anyway, I don't remember ever jumping on that bandwagon. :D

Yeah, like Sierra. Btw, where is Sierra? Haven't heard from them in awhile. :wink: I win this one, dojo.

Wow, you must be living under a rock half mile below the surface of the Earth. Have you at least heard of Half-Life 2? Guess who's name is on the box? Sierra's not gone, they were just acquired by Vivendi.

I may not know facts, but neither do you. The only difference is that my assumptions are based on logic (Christmas season *wink, wink*), and yours are based on wild guesses.

Wouldn't it stand to reason when they negotiated the contract they noted the date? Could it be that's the reason why Lucas Arts would say Obsidian couldn't have more time, especially on the console version which is more likely to sell the most units? Who knows, we're both just speculating here.

Right. So, you've never had that feeling when you go into a store, look around, and ask yourself: who the fuck paid for all that garbage?

Heck I do it all the time. And then I note the ridiculously high sales figures on these games that I think are shit and shut my mouth.

How about Interplay? It's a company that traded FO3 for FOBOS and BG3 for BGDA2, in case your memory has failed you.

Despite whatever you want to say, Interplay was smart enough to see that there is more money in the console arena than the pc arena. The problem is they tried to pawn off dumbed down PC franchises for console gamers, when console gamers don't care about FO or BG. They thought they could capatilze on the name, but the name wasn't a very well known to most console gamers.



Sheriff05, once again, no disagreement. I just think that people like Vault Dweller seem to push the idea that the publishers are the main reason Troika went out of business when instead I think it has more to do with mismanagement and not correctly adapting to the changing market conditions.

 

[taks]

While hard work can overcome bad luck, luck is very important. Getting a good client, for example, that would become a foundation of your business is luck.

sorry, luck is a myth. getting a good client is the result of hard work. the closest thing to luck is "who you know," but even that is not luck.

It was a perfectly good publisher during Arcanum's release. Sierra had money for development, distribution, localization, etc. No wordcount, btw. It was a business mistake on their part that resulted in Arcanum's commercial failure. I don't think that anyone could have predicted that.

i agree somewhat with this. however, sierra was in a funk at the time (on the way down), and somebody really tuned to the industry may have spotted it. hindsight is certainly better with this call, which is why i don't totally discount the statement...

I said decent game, not average game. Check the dev time for BG, Arcanum, MW, DA, Oblivion, etc. NWN you've already named.

like i said, NWN is an oddity simply because of the grief they went through with constant tool and story re-writes. in actuality, the NWN game was done in less than 12 months, and it shows (3 copied modules with a way too short finale). arcanum was right at 2 years. BG was 2. BG2 was under 2. the new biggies will go more (DA, NWN2, Oblivion will be nearly 3), i agree. with the proper staff, however, the issues is total man-hours, not end date.

that way, but hardly the second, and definitely not the third. Besides, Fallout wasn't such a hot seller to begin with, so I don't think that publishers give a fuck. "Ooh, they've made this cool sci-fi (first strike), turn-based (second strike) game that didn't sell very well (third strike)". So, the only capitalization could have come from fans eager to buy anything from the creators of Fallout. We all know that didn't happen.

actually, it did kinda happen. many of the fallout fans bought troika games. unfortunately for troika, there aren't that many fallout fans that bought the game in the first place. i do believe the majority of the fallout fanbase are those that pirated the game. unfortunate, of course.

That's why PoR2 did so well.

i'm assuming that's sarcasm? of course you can't discount reasonable quality when judging the license to print money. it has to be at least decent and not wipe your hard-drive. that's where the opportunity sat, btw, with troika. all they needed was reasonable quality and they would have gotten the printed dough. granted, i'm not really privy to the contract specifics, but they should have negotiated a better extension for the 3.5E changes AND, really boned up on the development staff much earlier to help guarantee a better product. they would have taken a financial hit, certainly, but the payoff could have been a massive franchise that would have made boat-loads of cash down the line. this falls under the "business decision" arena...

The first 3E game, btw. You are probably confusing the real DnD that most people don't get on account of all the rules and decisions, and that pseudo DnD crap for retarded that was Bio trademark for years.

pseudo simply because a crpg isn't a pen and paper rpg. there's a difference, good or bad. the D&D name, nonetheless, guarantees a certain amount of "self promotion" which greatly increases market exposure. PoR2, IWD2 and ToEE are all three examples of a failure to fully utilize that added potential (all three for the same reasons).

taks

 

[taks]

However, neither do you, and it is ludicrous to make blanket statements that all business failure is due to bad management.

uh, he did not say that all business failure is due to bad management, he merely pointed out that three relative failures in a row point to bad management. with that statment, he is quite in the right.

taks