One of the great downfalls of an acquisition or merger, in the game industry, is the loss of great franchise titles. Sierra, or Sierra Online, once stood on its own as a company with great gaming titles but later fell into the depths of Hades under many different company names.
Sierra’s last stop on the acquisition highway was Vivendi, years after much of Sierra’s steam had slowed. Now, they’re part of Activision Blizzard so we had high hopes they’d find a great use for some of the old Sierra properties long since collecting dust. Space Quest, Kings Quest, Leisure Suit Larry and especially Gabrielle Knight were some of our favorites, but times have changed.
“We are retaining only those franchises that are a strong fit with our long-term strategy including Crash Bandicoot, Ice Age and Spyro, as well as Prototype and a second game that has not yet been announced. We will not publish any other titles that previously were part of the Vivendi Games portfolio and we are currently reviewing our options regarding those titles,” says Activision Blizzard (joystiq)
This is unfortunate news, Activision Blizzard now has a large set of franchises on their hands, many of which have collected dust for years. Those dust collecting franchises could rise from the dead and reinvigorate their old fan base… or be dropped to the earth as unwanted scrapes after a big hunt with the vultures awaiting their take (sorry, too much watching of Animal Planet)
A reworked Kings Quest or Gabriel Knight could have seriously awesome potential in this time and age, imagine a dark comedy version of Gabriel Knight or a huge scaled world in King Quest using todays graphic engines. Although, these titles could also go the way Atari has gone and taken a well remembered franchise and made mud of its great name (*cough* Alone in the Dark).
Unfortunately, we’ll probably never know the distance an old franchise could go in this new world. We’ll have to pull out an old copy of our prized posessions and remember just how great they once where.
@Gaming flashback: did any of you played Mission Impossible on NES?
@“Linear is not a dirty word for an FPS”
Well, what can I say, if you wan to push for a very specific story/experience, then linear is the only way to do it.
However, you get better replay value from sandbox games. Heck, I still love playing all STALKER games.
Jonah, good point on building a climax easier on linear games. I harp back to STALKER: the first game was a sandbox game up until reaching Chernobyl. Afterwards, it turned linear, and it didn’t feel bad at all.
I feel so sorry for GSC having to shut down. I hope Vostok Games (the startup from the former GSC games) will do better.
@Pachter decries on-disc DLC as “just plain greed”:
You know, this time I agree with the dude.
@Crysis 2 returns to Steam:
Hmm, lemme guess, Origin didn’t work that great? Or is it that money has no color, so Steam customers are just as good as Origin customers?
Did Valve lower their demands in the cut from DLC?
@The Old Republic still has one of the biggest dev teams in industry:
It’s hard to sell 3 mil. of copies of anything, never mind a new IP. It’s a risky bet.
@QOTW:
What do you guys think of “Amnesia: The Dark Descent”? That is, if you played it.
i am sorry i disapeared but i do not have much time…
@qotw how long does it take to make a single episode of a podcast from early planning to final editing?
Not much interested in the news, so I’m going to comment on E3.
Plenty of games have been added to my list of games I want to play, among them are:
-Need for Speed Most Wanted
-Epic Mickey 2
-New Super Mario Bros. U
-Pikmin 3
-Rayman Legends
-Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist
-Tomb Raider
-Watch Dogs
Worst E3 conference was Microsoft, best was Ubisoft. What I don’t get is how many people are “disappointed” by Nintendo’s conference, expecting huge releases such as Zelda, Metroid, F-Zero or even Smash Bros. I think that many people do not understand how long it takes to make the great games Nintendo makes, and expect them to churn them out like Call of Duty. I also think that it’s a smart move by Nintendo, releasing quite a few good titles at launch, and then pace the awesome games one by one for the future. Maybe this way the WiiU won’t run out of first-party games as soon as the Wii did.
2 questions, both for Paul:
So, did you shit your pants when Nintendo announced the WiiU will come out Holiday 2012?
Have you finished Skyward Sword yet?