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.
@Planetside
Always wanted to play it but back then it had a ridiculous subscription fee. Once it went free to play Planetside 2 was out. And my laptop can’t run it. Sux to be a student. I just stick to Battlefied.
@Obama: unconstitutional lack of liberty in choice of educational subjects
When I was in Russia, we had to do IT in Year 8. Up until then I have never touched a computer in my entire life. They made me do HTML programming. I didn’t even know how to switch the thing on. Good times…
@Wii U-U-U??? Where are U?
I agree practically with everything said here. As a Wii U owner, I believe that the hardware has potential given it’s properly exploited. Which it isn’t. I am yet to play a game that properly uses the gamepad. And I can’t see anything in the pipeline (minus Monster Hunter Tri which is hardcore oriented). All of the games I see are “ultimate” editions of Xbox 360 games. Which I can buy for the Xbox for half the price.
@QOTW
I agree with Jordan. No point in having backwards compatible console if you keep your old consoles around. Just bumps up the price of the new consoles. Once new hardware comes out, old consoles crash in price so even if it breaks you can just replace it for a relatively small fee. Backwards compatibility is a neat feature if done right. I for one could not move my save games from Xbox to Xbox 360, meaning that I had no reason to play them on the 360. You can apparently do it on the Wii U although I am yet to try it.
@Obama: Games innovate technology, interest children in computer science
No. I think one should not make programming mandatory; a choice, yes. No, I don’t have any arguments to support my position.
On the other hand, school was always intended to shape kids into future labor force. A lot of labor is done in IT, so …
Jordan does make a good point. I wrote my first Basic program way before doing anything formal in school, out of necessity. Kids today do have exposure to the tool (computer). It now all boils down to identify a need that can be solved by writing a program.
@Rumor: Sony will use Gaikai to stream PS3 games in PS4
Hmm … short term gains ….
I’ve seen this strategy, applied to nation-wide economics. Didn’t turn out well.
@Wii U sold around 50,000 units in US in January
Make it easy for devs to make games for the platform. That’s the key. Microsoft figured it out. I’m not a hardware dev, but I figured it out.
If Paul is right, then the WiiU is in trouble.
@Take 2 confirms acquiring WWE license
I hope they didn’t have to pay too much on it … I only play those games on a SEGA Genesis emulator.
@How important is backwards compatibility to you?
Quite important, to be honest. I’m quite the nostalgic guy, so I want to be able to play older games. Heck, I would still fire up ye old Gradius for the NES. Using an emulator, unfortunately, my brother gave away the NES clone …