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.
Most folks in the game industry are already writing off E3 as an actual event to be attending. Even Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter is calling it “virtually useless” for both retail and investors. The writing is on the wall and the reasons are obvious.
Hi guys.
Sorry for not writing a comment for such a long time 🙁 I am listening nearly to every episode, but really forget to write you a line .. sorry for that!
Regarding the topics in this episode:
Best Gamepad for me is the PS4 Gamepad. I have small Hands, so thats fine for me to handle it. The Switch Pro COntroller is nice as well, but after playing some hours, i feel some pain in my hands which i dont have playing with the ps4 Controller. The xbox Controller is a little bit too clunky to play with it for hours imho. The bigger size is not the problem, i think for me its the orientation of the buttons, especially the ones on the backside.
I am playing much WOW right now … i am not able to play Magic with real cards so WOW is a welcome time killer 🙂 In addition i am playing the new Ori Game, the new Doom and i want to start the FF7 Remake.
Regaridng Fall Out New Vegas: cant tell anything about it .. never played it .. should I ?
People are really playing more survival games during this Covid Period? Oh my god 😀 they should watch Walking dead instead .. haha 🙂
Regarding the grinding discussion: i play WOW and i played it 15 years ago so i know grinding very good 🙂 But at least if you are in Discord with some friends, talking and maybe watching som tv shows on a second screen, its not that hard and boring. But sure its sad, that you you have to grind at some points to get some good rewards 🙁
Thanks again for the nice and entertaining episode. Keep on guys and stay healthy 🙂
greetings from germany,
Ralf