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.
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@PSvita loosing weight
I am not sure this is necessary. Especially since I hear this is more of a step back for the Vita. PSP needed a slim version because the original was chunky and had loading time issues. Is there anything so wrong with the Vita that needs fixing? Especially in UK? For me it’s a problem because I wanted to buy a Vita as it’s gotten quite cheap here. The new version will play havoc with local prices. I am not sure how this will play out.
@First the manuals. Now this.
I agree with Paul. The industry is not ready for discless consoles. And not just because people like hard copies. Major concern is that it requires a system of digital game sales on consoles that will actually work. At the moment, a digital game release costs almost twice the price of a hard copy. £60 for a new PS3 title from their online store as opposed to £40 for a disc. I am not OK with that. If digital stores were along the lines of Steam, this would work well. Otherwise it would just kill the used games market and force us to buy games at extortionate prices. On the account of the disc less Xbox I say meh. It will be an alternative that no one will buy. It will be seen as lacking compared to the standard Xbox one.
@Rescuscitation of the walking dead
The heads of Nintendo took a pay cut because it’s their fault Nintendo tanked. No one else’s. In my opinion they should have stuck the whole management crew into a space cannon and shot them to Alpha Centauri. The stubborn old fools will only damage the company further of they stay in power. This restructuring move should have happened a year ago. Instead Nintendo carried on as usual and sunk itself even further. Now it’s in dire straits and needs extreme measures. I hope that Disney buys Nintendo and makes Satoru Iwata work in one of their parks in a Micky Mouse suit. He deserves it.
@QOTW
Has to be Crysis. The game took a nosedive once the aliens started shooting everyone but the ending was of the shelf action movie crap. “A gigantic alien mothership is attacking. I wish we had a super mega ultimate secret weapon to shoot it down. Oh wait, it’s right over here.” Worst part was that the ending suggested that everything you just did was pointless and you have to go back to the island to “roll credits”.
Great Episode guys.
@Kotor II: I am with Jordan and I didn’t notice that it was unfinished, only that I was an overpowered character destroying everything in my path. I also didn’t find Kria impressive, just seemed like another whiney character who didn’t get their way and is taking it out on everyone else.
@Miner49er: I loved that you guys mentioned this game, I played it as a child and I had forgotten it’s name! I also played Jumpman Junior along with that one.
@Chocobo Tamagotchi: There was in fact a companion App game for FF8 on the Pocketstation. You played sd the Chocobo who got to fight monsters and collect treasure so it wasn’t too bad. It never came to America though.
@Black Isle: Speaking of Baldur’s Gate what do you guys think the chances are of getting the Baldur’s Gate 3 Beamdog is supposed to be working on? Did the Enhanced Editions do well enough?
@Facebook games: I find the whole Pay to win game mechanic to be very weak. More a ploy to milk customers of as much money as possible and give poor gameplay in return. I used to play Backyard monsters and it would constantly have stopping moments while I had to wait hours or days for things to finish building. It really can take the wind out of your sails to want to play. All the while giving the message “Save on resources by spending real money!” When I keep getting THOSE messages that tells me they don’t have any real game here just bait for you to click the Pay to Win. There was no real consequence to losing you could always easily recover. There just isn’t any challenge for these casual games.
Another example of a terrible Pay to win game is StarTrexels which has giant pay walls preventing you from going forward until you either spend HOURS collecting enough Dilithium or pay $15 to go to the next area.
So to answer Paul’s possibly rhetorical question, Yes I would rather pay for a 50-60 dollar game then deal with the Pay to Win crap.
At least Paul’s game Pinsanity sounds nice if you can actually win physical Pins and you are supporting our Olympic team.
@QotW: Best unfinished game would have to be Minecraft since they are still working on it.