For some reason, this episode was never uploaded, though it was recorded two weeks ago. The Gaming Flashback is Mass Effect, and the news includes:
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.
The podcast is back this week after being knocked out by Hurricane Sandy hitting New York City hard. As the Kickstarter continues to struggle to find donors, Jordan discusses his hands-on experience with the new Microsoft tablet, the Surface, in lieu of a Gaming Flashback.
This week’s news items include:
All that and Reader Feedback. This week’s Question of the Week, “What do you do for fun when you can’t access the internet?”
Help the TD Gaming Podcast with its Kickstarter fundraising.
The past week has been rife with news about Pokemon GO! and all of the chaos the mobile game has caused around the world with people hunting creatures in museums and police stations. The podcast mostly avoids the craze.
The news this week includes:
We also announce the winner of the contest.
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