The Business Side of Video (Space) Games EXCLUSIVELY ON IDLE THUMBS

[Henroid]

The New York Times interviewed Bobby Kotick and has a four page article about it. It's worth a read, because as far as I'm concerned Kotick doubles-down on reasons why he should be disliked.

Edit - Or no, not doubles down, but now we can dislike him as a person rather than dislike his business MO in the video game industry.

[Lu]

"Gamers went ballistic. “It’s doubtful he even knows the name of Azeroth,” the video game writer Ben Kuchera said of Mr. Kotick"

[Sno]

So how about all that THQ stuff?

Sega owns Relic and their franchises. (This seems to have been the biggest, closest battle. Zenimax was going after Relic too.)

Koch Media/Deep Silver now owns Volition/Saint's Row and the publishing rights for Metro: Last Light.

Crytek bought the rights to Homefront. (I believe they were developing a sequel for THQ or something?)

Ubisoft ended up with the publishing rights for Obsidian's South Park RPG, as well as ownership of THQ Montreal. (The studio that Assassin's Creed creator, Patrice Desilets, left Ubisoft to found.)

Take Two ended up with the rights to Turtle Rock's next game, Evolve. (I have not heard anything about this game, but Turtle Rock definitely has a strong pedigree.)

Nobody bid for Vigil or Darksiders, so that's a bummer.

[miffy495]

Ubisoft ended up with the publishing rights for Obsidian's South Park RPG, as well as ownership of THQ Montreal. (The studio that Assassin's Creed creator, Patrice Desilets, left Ubisoft to found.)

Wow. Cold, Ubisoft. Fucking cold.

What else to Koch media do? Did they also acquire Red Faction, as that's a Volition joint as well?

EDIT: Huh. Dead Island, Risen, and Singles: Flirt Up Your Life. Man, I hope Volition gets to keep being Volition, because this is not a promising start.

[Sno]

I actually had to look up Koch Media, i wasn't familiar with the name, but they're the parent company for Deep Silver. Most recently, you'd probably recognize Deep Silver as the publisher for Dead Island and Risen. Helpful wiki page!

I don't know if Red Faction came as part of the Volition deal, but it sounds like they definitely have Saint's Row.

[Henroid]

The remaining properties oh THQ and THQ itself are to be sold after the Chapter 11 business concludes. But yeah, the company has been dissolved at this point pretty much.

I feel bad for Vigil not getting any bids at all, but I think the idea the potential buyers had is that they can get it with the rest of the company / assets for a cheaper price overall. Cheaper than whatever minimum bid was working during this auctioning that is.

[Sno]

Platinum, of all companies, has apparently already been expressing interest in trying to nab Vigil and Darksiders for dirt cheap.

[Henroid]

Platinum, of all companies, has apparently already been expressing interest in trying to nab Vigil and Darksiders for dirt cheap.

I was just now coming here to post about this, and also note that they kinda fucking missed their shot because the only way to get it now is getting the THQ package as a whole when the bankruptcy filling has run its course.

[Sno]

Apparently Homeworld will be auctioned off as part of a "legacy assets bucket" at a later date. There's also a rather fishy, flaky looking indie team trying to secure those rights for themselves.

Dammit, i wish Relic had done something with that series after THQ had recovered it for them. They had it back, and now they've lost it again.

[syntheticgerbil]

Feel bad for Vigil, they were one of the few Austin studios right now trying to be self sufficient and make worthwhile games. I heard a few guys give a talk here among Harvey Smith and some other companies a few weeks ago and the two Vigil guys seemed incredibly optimistic about their future. Hopefully they'll at least keep the optimism and reform.

[melmer]

1313 canceled! What the dick

Lucasarts shut down

http://kotaku.com/disney-shuts-down-lucasarts-468473749

[Sno]

In response to this, Raven released the source code for JK2:JO and JK:JA.

Pretty classy, those are great games that still have a pretty big fanbase.

I love the whole Dark Forces series, i'm sad there was never a sixth game.

[Sno]

So this happened.

Great PR for a really sensitive time.

After first reading about it, I watched it take literally minutes for this story to explode across the internet. People are feeling particularly vitriolic about the implications of always-online, Sim City seems like it was the last straw for most people.

Anyways, they're trying to save face, but if they were just joking around, then the issue is: Recognize your position, Twitter is not a private messaging service.

[elmuerte]

Really dumb analogies. How about this, a friend of mine used to have a car where the immobilizer would sometimes fail, while driving! He then had to pull over an wait like 15 minutes before he could start his car (really useful when you're on a freeway). Did he deal with it? Yeah, he had the immobilizer fixed (and eventually bought a new car).

So yeah, I will deal with always on DRM by not buying into it.

 

You might have a working internet connection 99,9% of the time. But that doesn't mean I can reach these DRM servers 99,9% of the time. There are multiple points of failure in this system that all bring down the whole system. This include power outages

 

Anyway, a service industry is more lucrative than a product industry (given the fact that you sell the same "thing" for the same price)

[Sno]

It's just an unbelievable stroke of unprofessional behavior and a startling show of arrogance.

Quite a worrying glimpse into one of the minds behind the next X-box.

[Roderick]

Microsoft just turned into the upcoming generation's Sony. It's baffling to me that companies still think they can get away with these acts of unchecked arrogance and disrespect for their audience. That's a business culture sickness rearing its ugly head time and again.

[Gormongous]

It's always discomfiting to see companies begin to marinate in their own hype. Like Rodi said, first Sony, now Microsoft. I know of no company ubiquitous enough to say, "This is just how it's gonna be from now on, so deal with it," but way too many try anyway. I guess it's the holy grail of tech companies.

 

At least, if this ends up being the harbinger for an online-old NextBox, we can look forward to another round of accusations masquerading as apologies.

[Nappi]

So this happened.

Great PR for a really sensitive time.

After first reading about it, I watched it take literally minutes for this story to explode across the internet. People are feeling particularly vitriolic about the implications of always-online, Sim City seems like it was the last straw for most people.

Anyways, they're trying to save face, but if they were just joking around, then the issue is: Recognize your position, Twitter is not a private messaging service.

 

Now in handy animated gif form:

[Roderick]

Disappointed they didn't come to the logical conclusion of not buying consoles altogether, but trading one DRM machine for another.

[Sno]

Sony's been quite silent on the always-online front, but all signs point to yes.

People are going to be so, so bummed about the next-gen consoles, the way things are shaping up.

[Sno]

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat. Somebody just fired this at me, and i'm having difficulty believing that this is real. It seems like the most elaborate, amazing April Fool's joke ever. Every line of dialogue in that piece is hilarious.

Look at those videos though, they gave MegaMan a gruff voice, a machine gun, off-handed grenades, executions, and put him in an FPS. (Complete with an ugly, over-designed new look.) It's like a parody of every terrible, gritty, unnecessary reboot. It's this perfect encapsulation of how creatively bankrupt video games can be. Obviously it never happened, obviously somebody realized how hilariously misguided this was, but i almost wish they didn't.

Can you imagine the outcry there would have been if this got the go ahead instead of MML3? (Which, speaking personally, is a game i really, desperately wanted to play.)

[Lu]

Wow! That redesign reminds me of that atrocious Bomberman Zero thing. I gotta say, ignoring the aesthetics, some cool combinations of mechanics. And I did like the idea of projecting robot man's face as a hologram though! Other than that, as a Mega Man game, I'm glad this got canned.

[tegan]

Appropriately enough considering the developer, the videos just look like an early draft of Metroid Prime to me. Also, it was based on the Mega Man X series. Making it deathly serious while also being the dumbest possible thing would be entirely appropriate.

 

[Nachimir]

Can you imagine the outcry

I'm trying to imagine the pitch: "It's a little bit like Vanquish, but in corridors… and with the good stuff taken out".

[Sno]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/190985/Gearbox_Software_has_acquired_the_Homeworld_franchise.php

Huh.

Huuuuuuuuuuuuh.

So Gearbox owns Homeworld now.

Apparently the #2 and 3 bids were Stardock and Paradox Interactive, trailed by that sketchy indie team and their kickstarter campaign.