Gas Powered Games - how the mighty have fallen
I don't know if anyone has been watching this saga, but I have been since I used to work with Chris Taylor from Gas Powered Games. GPG is known for the Dungeon Siege series, (where I know Chris from) as well as the Supreme Commander series, Space Siege, Demigod and Age of Empires Online.
This once big studio had fallen to the point where they turned to kickstarter to find funding for a new project called Wildman. However they timed it badly (launching their campaign after Christmas) and so they had only received pledges for half of the $1 million they needed to get this title off the ground. After a huge wave of layoffs, Chris finally gave in and sold off the company to Wargaming.net (creator of World of Tanks) - although they will be keeping Chris on in some capacity.
What disturbs me about this is that the downfall of GPG started with the last major title they released, (Demigod) that had performance problems and a lack of a tutorial. (sound familiar?) They got hammered in the reviews, and so the title didn't do nearly as well as it needed to in order to go forward.
It just goes to show how fickle the gaming industry is. You can be on top of your game one year and then begging for handouts on kickstarter a couple years later.
This once big studio had fallen to the point where they turned to kickstarter to find funding for a new project called Wildman. However they timed it badly (launching their campaign after Christmas) and so they had only received pledges for half of the $1 million they needed to get this title off the ground. After a huge wave of layoffs, Chris finally gave in and sold off the company to Wargaming.net (creator of World of Tanks) - although they will be keeping Chris on in some capacity.
What disturbs me about this is that the downfall of GPG started with the last major title they released, (Demigod) that had performance problems and a lack of a tutorial. (sound familiar?) They got hammered in the reviews, and so the title didn't do nearly as well as it needed to in order to go forward.
It just goes to show how fickle the gaming industry is. You can be on top of your game one year and then begging for handouts on kickstarter a couple years later.
Comments
Supreme Commander always struck me as a C&C knockoff, rather than anything that stood well under its own IP. Played SupCom2 for a few days, until it annoyed me enough to take a break. I haven't bothered reinstalling it since then.
They had potential. They also screwed the pooch BADLY thanks to (mis-)management more often than not.
Sadly, the ones who ruined it also likely still made a tidy profit in the end through the sale, while everyone else lost their jobs. Just the way 'executives' work. Even if they're lousy and ruin it for everyone, they still tend to get paid more (and more reliably) than those who actually produce things.
I literally never once heard of Space Siege, and again, i'm more than a typical casual gamer. I seek out content, reviews, press, etc. I totally missed that one.
Demigod sucked. I played it for about ~20ish hours and it was just a poorly through-out and poorly executed game.
AOE:Online; I'm not sure who's idea it was to turn AOE into a persistent online game. If it was their idea then it was a horrible decision. More than likely, I think they may have inherited a crappy idea and were told to make it work.
So yeah... moderate success with their first game and then consistent under-performance or failure thereafter. I wouldn't ever call GPG "mighty." At the same time, it's always a bad thing to see a developer go down. One less developer, one less group of people with jobs, dreams lost and destroyed... it sucks. I really felt bad when Ensemble Studios went down in 2009.
One thing that you and I would agree on, however, is that the games industry is incredibly fickle and, from what I've read, steady employment/job security is extremely rare. It was an article on The Penny Arcade Report, but in short, game development on AAA quality games consists of a 'core' team of about 10 to 15 people. These people do everything, concept, design, etc. The actual 'labor' is then done by a massive workforce that is temporarily hired. I think COD:MW2 was used as a reference in the article. Infinity Ward or whoever hired about 500 people to sit down and spit out the game. Once most of the actual content was finished, these individuals were let go. The core team remained, finished everything, shipped it.
Who wants to live a life like that? Having employment for maybe 8 months... with medical insurance, 401k employer match, and piece of mind all left up in the air. I wouldn't want to have a wife and kids and be a typical game developer.
The TA IP was owned by Cavedog Entertainent, which was a subsidiary of some other company.
Activision, I think.
It's on Wikipedia, and I can't be arsed to look it up.
Supreme Commander was a spiritual successor to TA.
In fact the guys who worked on SupCom/SupCom2 are making another RTS that's a spiritual successor to that, called Planetary Annihilation.
Here's the kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/659943965/planetary-annihilation-a-next-generation-rts
Name drop more m8.
Besides TA, Zero-Hour is probably the only other RTS game for which I still retain memories of really good battles.
Though of course given the existence of kickstarter that is now true of games too.
Also digital distribution allows for a return to the old fashioned bedroom programming approach, where you don't make high investment projects, instead you make smaller, low budget projects which have a higher input-payoff ratio, as well as less risk upfront, which is why the indie market is really taking off lately.
I have seen demos of games cancelled in 2008 / 2009, some of them were fantastic, one fantasy fencing game in particular.
BTW Supreme commander was fantastic game mechanism-wise, autonomous units, complex commands, I thought RTS will evolve this way, but no, instead retarded obsoleteness that is Starcraft II triumphs with 15 years old gameplay.
I find returning to the "old mechanics" of older games to be quite refreshing actually. I'm personally really sick of these bland modern games coughing up clone sequels every year. But hey at least when call of duty 400 comes out grandparents will have something in common with the younger generations when they shit their pants for the latest gun camo's. I agree tho starcraft 2 sucks.