JoWood Insolvent

[rattran]

I guess you can only shit in a box for so long before bad things happen.
http://corporate.jowood.com/content/view/224/lang,en/

Vienna, Austria, 7 January 2011; The management board of JoWooD Entertainment AG announces that all efforts towards restructuring of capitalization concerning outside capital as well as equity capital had to be considered as failed on 06/01/2011. On the basis of this fact, material insolvency occurred with this date.

It's not the same as bankruptcy, but it's close. And it didn't work out well for Ascaron, I suppose KOCH Media can keep a hollow corpse puppet of JoWood around too though.

[Modern Angel]

I've been amazed every single year they kept going since 2002 or so. Incredibly shitty company, even if some of the games in their catalog were quirky and interesting on a superficial level.

[Paelos]

I still don't forgive them for Gothic 3.

[Sky]

JoWood != Piranha Bytes, monkeyman.

And PB definitely made up for Gothic 3 with Risen, which was a good game, at least on par with Gothic 2.

Which is one thing JoWood kinda messed up on, ditching one of their dev houses with a loyal following.

[Paelos]

Is their name on it? Yes? No forgiveness!

[Sky]

Well, since they also put their name on Gothic 4, I agree :p

[Rasix]

These fuckers put giant robots in the WW2 themed spiritual successor to Jagged Alliance 2.  DIE.

[Zetor]

I thought the panzerklein thing was the russians' idea? 

Regardless, good riddance...

[FatuousTwat]

Apparently it's official now.

http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=17126

[Sparky]

Let's hope someone good buys up Silent Storm and makes a new one.

[Ironwood]

Amen to that.  As long as they make the chaps able to climb.  Nothing fucking sillier than taking out the ladder/stairs and realising you've trapped your team in the fucking basement.

[Jeff Kelly]

JoWood has always been a shitty distributor. They pulled the plug on Gothic 3 development because they needed them to ship otherwise they would have been insolvent then.

The were responsible for a lot of buggy software being prematurely released and they are responsible for killing a lot of software developers by pressuring them to change game features and release too early. They even sent out a faulty golden master disc for Gothic 3 to gamer mags (the GM didn't work). Which basically meant that every gamer mag out there basically had to write "we can't test that crap because it doesn't install"

I don't shed a tear that they are gone. Gothic 3 is like the only game a bought full price and never finished.

Insolvency in Germany and Austria is basically like filing for Chapter 11, btw.

[Amaron]

Let's hope someone good buys up Silent Storm and makes a new one.

I'd probably pay about 150 bucks for someone to make a decent turn based squad game like SS/Xcom by now.   It reminds me of how the industry just decided to stop making PC rpg's back in the mid 90's for a while.

[Fabricated]

I'm just going to post this again for good measure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3uG8-wyblQ#t=14s

[Rasix]

 

 

[Mrbloodworth]

They published a good deal of small team games, I'm sad to see them go. Some of the more creative games I have played came from this distributor.

[raydeen]

GOG has a deal on some of the JoWood games this week. I'm snapping up Gothic 2 for $4.

http://www.gog.com/en/promo/jowood_week_special

[Modern Angel]

They published a good deal of small team games, I'm sad to see them go. Some of the more creative games I have played came from this distributor.

That's sort of how I feel. I mean, they were terrible and had shitty standards. But they took chances and that's something that's rapidly disappearing.

[koro]

They published a good deal of small team games, I'm sad to see them go. Some of the more creative games I have played came from this distributor.

That's sort of how I feel. I mean, they were terrible and had shitty standards. But they took chances and that's something that's rapidly disappearing.

With more and more avenues opening up for games from indie devs and smaller studios to self-publish (on the PC at least) through places like Steam, GOG, and Impulse, I'd like to think we can do without the JoWoods of the world.

[Modern Angel]

I would agree except the sort of full length strategy and RPG titles generally (not always) still seem to need a traditional structure and JoWood helped fulfill that niche, the same way the more competent Paradox, Matrix and Shrapnel always have. Or to put another way, the next Morrowind isn't going to be launched by an indie studio at a ten buck price point as a Steam exclusive.

[Jeff Kelly]

That's sort of how I feel. I mean, they were terrible and had shitty standards. But they took chances and that's something that's rapidly disappearing.

That's like complimenting the Coyote for the hundredth time that he very nearly catches the Road Runner but not quite.

[Ingmar]

I would agree except the sort of full length strategy and RPG titles generally (not always) still seem to need a traditional structure and JoWood helped fulfill that niche, the same way the more competent Paradox, Matrix and Shrapnel always have. Or to put another way, the next Morrowind isn't going to be launched by an indie studio at a ten buck price point as a Steam exclusive.

Man you know you are a shitty company when someone holds Matrix up as someone you should try to be more like.

[Modern Angel]

Truth, but I never had a huge issue with Matrix. They've for sure had their dogs but they've had some hits for a niche strategy gamer like me. Big hits. Distant Worlds, Space Empires IV, the Grigsby stuff, Steel Panthers... shit. Great stuff.

Really, what I'm getting at here is that the niche publisher supporting niche games is a vanishing beast. It's one of the reasons I've been so happy with Paradox expanding into the publishing game like they have.

 I'd rather have JoWood with all their awfulness than not. I loved Europa 1400: The Guild. I liked the Gothic stuff. It was how I ran across Settlers. I like having as many avenues for the little guy to publish full price quality (in theory) games as possible.