Bioware+Pandemic Merger

[Soln]

shotgun marriage by VC's?  http://www.ccnmatthews.com/news/releases/show.jsp?action=showRelease&searchText=false&showText=all&actionFor=565739

looks like big is still better.  <naive>Only worry I guess is that to survive game shops have to be colossal, not just good</naive>  Cf. Haemish on Movie studios business model

[Yegolev]

If this gets me Fallout 3 ... oh, wait.

[HaemishM]

Interesting. Destroy all Humans was fun. It sounds like a pretty close match to the kind of indy bonding I'd talked about, though on a much bigger scale. And they are still using their own publishers, at least for now. It sounds more like they wanted to pool resources to take advantage of the next-gen consoles.

[Evangolis]

This merger came up in passing at last night's IDGA meeting here in Chicago, during Alex Seropian's post mortem on Stubbs the Zombie.  Seropian and Wideload partnered with Inspire for the project in part because Inspire was a smaller publisher, and thus Stubbs was much more important to them than it would be for a large publisher.  I think many developers are anxious to avoid getting too entangled with the giant publishers, largely because of bad past experiences.

[Stormwaltz]

I hate consoles. Why must Bioware be a console bitch?

Dragon Age. PC exclusive.

[Sky]

Heh. How about Jade Empire and Mass Effect?

I love your company, man. Just, you know, consoles.

Ok, reading the blurb for Dragon Age...sounds watered down, splitting dev time to make separate stuff for multiplayer. The rest of my gripes would be based on my personal preferences and I'll leave them out. I'll keep an eye on it, though. I bought Jade Empire for the xbox, but only made it about 1/3 of the way through before I couldn't take the graphics anymore. 720p and widescreen on the xbox if you've gotta do it, kthanks ;)

[Rasix]

Dragon Age. PC exclusive.

You know, I've had an idea for a NWN module floating around in my head for the last year or so.  I was going to attempt to wade through the NWN toolset in order to bring my idea to life.  Then I read some material on Dragon Age and thought it addressed all of the reasons I was reticent to try and compromise my idea into the NWN framework.  So I've decided to wait.   (I should really blog the idea or write a design doc..)

I hope Dragon Age is good enough to get my off my lazy ass and actually make my idea.  :-D

And I'll agree with Stray (especially after that last post Sky, jeesh): lol, console hate. Are you trying to make me laugh?

[littledude]

I wish Bioware would have gotten Knights of the Old Republic II or have made Tomb of Elemental Evil, those are great games...althought T.O.E.E. was freaking so buggy you had to down load all kinds of third party patches to get it to play decent.

I loved playing the BG series, they really should have a neat collectors edition with everything from BG1, the expansions for BG1, BG2, and BG2 Throne of Baal.  That would be an awesome DvD, and maybe add some more stuff to it.      I also dig KOTOR (and KOTOR II), it is so fun to develope a character and see what you can whoop up on.

Would love to see a really good turn based game with ADnD 3.5+ rules or Warhammer/Warhammer 20K or MechWarrior where you control a small squad and get to really kick some heads in...hmmm turn based goodness, guess X-COM: UFO Defense still looks great to me.

[sinij]

I hate consoles. Why must Bioware be a console bitch?

Dragon Age. PC exclusive.

Thanks. Now I can be excited about something. Console and console users can burn in Xbox power cord fire.

[Stormwaltz]

Out of Bioware's titles (not including expansion packs):

Five are PC-exclusive - Shattered Steel, BG, BG2, NWN, and Dragon Age.

Two are multiplatform, console and PC - MDK2 and KotOR.

Two are X-Box exclusive - Jade and Mass Effect.

So as it stands now, there's only one X-Box exclusive released. There's another in-development, but a PC-exclusive in development as well.

I'm a PC gamer myself. I bought a PS2 last week, and that's the first console I've purchased since the original NES in '88 or thereabouts. I have been known to gleefully point out that the unreleased next-gen consoles all boast of performance inferior to that of my 18 month-old PC. I frequently lament the current downturn in PC releases. That said, suggesting that Bioware "only releases on the box" may be overstating the current situation.

No offense intended. I think this is a half full / half empty thing.

[sinij]

I wish Bioware would have gotten Knights of the Old Republic

Knight of The Old Republic was great game but it still suffered from console disease of oversimplified controls and small world areas. I could only imagine how nice KoTOR could be with Jedi Academy style of combat in it. KoTOR2 was more of the same, but this time without an ending, game stopped having a storyline half into the game. Did anyone release mods/patches addressing this issue in #2?

[Sky]

That said, suggesting that Bioware "only releases on the box" may be overstating the current situation.

Well, yes. I overstated it. Because Jade Empire is a cool game and Mass Effect looks cool ;) Remember, I  Bioware, even if I have issues with the console thing. I do not many dev houses!

Ahoy, that's a funny post. I have no e-peen issues whatsoever. I just like things to look nice, since when I'm playing a game, I'm looking at it the entire time. I could have great sex with an ugly girl, but I'm dating a pretty one. Thanks for the chuckle.

[Yegolev]

Did anyone release mods/patches addressing this issue in #2?

This is being worked on, and my wife actually bought the PC version of KOTOR2 because of it.  I am sure you are far less lazy than me and can find it through Google; I am sure it is not complete yet so I will wait.  I might have taken more issue with buying the same game twice (fuck you, Fable), but it's a Thai box so it was cheap. =)

[Soln]

I hate consoles. Why must Bioware be a console bitch?

Dragon Age. PC exclusive.

  Bioware.  Good luck in the new org.  /salute

[Bunk]

Hey Stormwaltz, the merger was tied in with an investment by Bono's Elevation group wasn't it?

Small world, our corporate parent company Homestore.com just recieved $100 million in investment dollars from Elevation.

Apparently our VP of sales was also a college roommate of one of Pandemic's founders. Bizzare.

[Shockeye]

Looks like Bono wants to make Molyneux his bitch as well.

[schild]

Ya know, what kills me about Firaxis being bought for $50M? Under the right circumstances, the IP for Pirates, Civ and Alpha Centauri are easily worth more than that. Le sigh.

[eldaec]

It's difficult to imagine that the settings (actual history / random alien planet) or the story (find buried and unburied treasure / conquer world) or even the mechanics (nothing unique at all and already copied by lots fo other people) of those titles are easily protectable forms of IP.

And the brands (except Civ) aren't really that well known to the masses.

So I doubt the IP is really worth that much at all.

[Soln]

It's difficult to imagine that the settings (actual history / random alien planet) or the story (find buried and unburied treasure / conquer world) or even the mechanics (nothing unique at all and already copied by lots fo other people) of those titles are easily protectable forms of IP.

And the brands (except Civ) aren't really that well known to the masses.

So I doubt the IP is really worth that much at all.

I'd assume the name, the AI, and the marketing rights to use those titles ("Sid Meier's ... <whatever>") would be worth something.  Of that, only the AI is "IP" but the rest are still attractive and protected by ownership.  So you might be right.  Dunno.

[Trippy]

Jade Empire 2 for Xbox 360 (Mass Effect interview)?

http://www.xe360.com/article/Mass_Effect/2871.html

[schild]

XE: Visually what we have seen for Mass Effect is quite impressive, in fact on par with other next-generation titles like Gears of War.

Lol. Who the fuck is Xbox Evolved? Just another site jumping on the HAY IT'S A NEW CONSOLE bandwagon? PR People should really be more picky when it comes to interviews. As much as I hate it, I give props to Capcom and Squaresoft for ignoring 95% of the sites on the internet. Comments like the one posted above are just....just.....goddamn it just hurts Bioware as much as their own credibility. We've seen a cinematic. A cinematic that wasn't on par with gameplay video of gears of war. I love Bioware, I really really do. But is this even reasonable? Couldn't he have said, say, Perfect Dark Zero? Or Call of Duty? But he chooses a game that's not out for 5 months and will likely be the single best looking game by a landslide? Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh. Hate. Anyway, I look forward to seeing actual hard evidence on Mass Effect.

As for the Jade Empire sequel...duh.

[Soln]

from Slashdot

"1up.com is reporting that the newly allied studios Bioware and Pandemic will become publicly traded businesses. From the article: "One analyst isn't confident the companies will have any success. How can you possibly fail with U2's Bono at your side? Albeit seemingly unthinkable, Wall Street analyst Michael Pachter isn't optimistic. 'They don't have any chance of success,' he said. 'There's not an appetite to segment the different links in the value chain.' Everyone involved, though, is slightly more cheery about the plan, believing it's an important step for developers to receive proper compensation. 'The talent is not getting anywhere what they should,' says Pandemic president Josh Resnick. 'We're the film industry in the 1920's.'"

[Yegolev]

Those props for Capcom and Squenix should be shared with Nintendo.