No, really. I blame myself. I said, “McQuaid” five times to a mirror while writing about the spectacular collapse of Sigil. “What harm could it do?”, I chuckled to myself. Now we know.
Filed under Drama …
Great Moments in Game Advertising – Lara Croft And The Sphere of PR Disaster
In games advertising, self-administered wounds are becoming increasingly rare. As the games industry matures, there is at least some sense that what developers say to games journalists reporters is going to go to a wide, mainstream audience, so if something stupid is said a lot of people are going to hear it. Which is why … Continue reading
Great MMO Company Collapses of Our Time – Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment
This wasn’t MMO game development; this was a bloody soap opera. Continue reading
Great MMO Collapses of Our Time – Destination Games
You can get excited now, because if you picked this option, you’ve decided to back Destination Games! Destination Games Game That Destroyed Them: Tabula Rasa Studio Launch Date: April 2000 Studio Closure Date: 28 February 2009 Invested In By: NCsoft Estimated Money Blown: US$106m Cause of Death: Restarting the project, internal culture of fear and secrecy, … Continue reading
Great MMO Company Collapses of Our Time – RealTime Worlds
If you selected this option, congratulations – you decided to back RealTime Worlds! RealTime Worlds Game That Destroyed Them: All Points Bulletin (APB) Studio Launch Date: Early 2002 Studio Closure Date: September 2010 Invested In By: Private investors Estimated Money Blown: Over US$100m Cause of Death: Spending all the budget before the game had even launched, … Continue reading
Trolls Vs Tropes Vs Women In Video Games
So a female vlogger (lord, that’s an ugly word) Anita Sarkeesian turns to Kickstarter to help fund some shows about female character tropes in video games. Trolls show up en masse to abuse her, deface her Wiki page and basically do the awful things they can do to drive her off. At what point did “protecting … Continue reading
What’s Wrong With The AAA MMO Industry, Using An Imperfect Baseball Analogy
You’re the head manager of a new baseball team. You’re passionate about what you want to achieve, have some great ideas in mind and have at least enough money to get things rolling. When you tell other people about what your team is going to achieve, they sound excited too. You know that you are … Continue reading
New Blogger Initiative (#MMONBI) – Fear The Power of Syp!
In the past month: Dominus closed EA BioWare laid off a lot of people from Star Wars: The Old Republic 38 Studios imploded Fallen Earth was cut back to bare bones staffing numbers The Secret World delayed its launch Some may see the above as just the culmination of a number of bad things happening … Continue reading
How 38 Studios Spends $4m a Month On Operation Costs (Probably)
An interesting factoid emerged in the wake of 38 Studios struggling to come up with the cash to make a good faith loan payment back to Rhode Island and fund its payroll: it was announced that it costs them US$4m per month in operating costs to stay open. 38 Studios apparently has 379 full-time staff. … Continue reading
Path Finding and Kick Starting
As previously discussed, I’m fairly cynical of Kickstarter for video game development. Backers see it as supporting something they are interested in; I see it as companies leveraging off their previous reputation and gamer hope to get money gifted to them. Because that’s what the money is: a gift. Once the pledge target is met … Continue reading
World Class Villains 