Black Isle, Fallout 3 Dead

More bad news at Black Isle Studios, where lead designer J.E. Sawyer resigned just last month (story), as Farewell, but not goodbye on the Interplay Entertainment Forums (thanks Nels Nelson) is a post from Damien "Puuk" Foletto that indicates that the studio is now shut down, referring to today as his "last day at the (former) BIS." This follows suit with a note sent along by designer John Deiley:
Today marks the end of an era. Black Isle Studios is no more. In yet another sweeping layoff of employees, Interplay has officially let go the last of it's Black Isle employees (save two that I know of) and dissolved the division. Also, the non-announced title that the division was working on, Fallout 3, has been "shelved" to quote management.
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104 Replies. 6 pages. Viewing page 3.
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64.
 
Re: No subject
Dec 9, 2003, 03:37
64.
Re: No subject Dec 9, 2003, 03:37
Dec 9, 2003, 03:37
 
Why doesnt anyone blame piracy? Sure Interplay sucks donkey balls, but piracy does its deal aswell. thanks to piracy a lot of great developers went poof and others just jump on the mainstream train, so that it wont happen to them. console games sell in a much better ratio compared to PC games. no wonder more and more console shit coming out, forgetting or screwing up PC versions. you wonder why system shock 2, NOLF series and undying flopped on the market? yet you dont wonder why everyone knows those games and played them. you can do really good games and they WILL sell, but only if people HAVE to buy it. look at those MMORPGs, they sell like mad BECAUSE YOU NEED TO BUY them to play. you cant pirate them.
IMO we need to blame piracy more than interplay.

I have given up on waiting for BIS to come back to their senses and do a real ArmA 2 successor.
Avatar 12928
63.
 
Re: SELL IT TO TROIKA!
Dec 9, 2003, 03:32
63.
Re: SELL IT TO TROIKA! Dec 9, 2003, 03:32
Dec 9, 2003, 03:32
 
/slap Interplay

Bastards.

Yes, thankfully Troika is still around. And don't forget Bioware either. At least those two companies aren't at the mercy of a retarded publisher.

62.
 
Re: No subject
Dec 9, 2003, 02:39
62.
Re: No subject Dec 9, 2003, 02:39
Dec 9, 2003, 02:39
 

**** WHY DO GOOD GAMES NOT SELL??? ****

Now with BIS going under, joing the moldering corpses of Looking Glass Studios and the old Microprose, I'm left again to wonder...

For the life of me, I cannot figure out why Planescape: Torment, System Shock 2, NOLF/NOLF 2 and Undying flopped in the marketplace. H**l, even Deus Ex and the Thief series only sold moderately well. Yet Enter the Matrix sells millions. I just don't get it.

Seriously - if deep, complex and rich games sold well, you wouldn't get the debacle that is Deus Ex: Invisible War (now with more powerups!). Why is it that none of these games sell well? Are we just such a small market that a company simply can't break even on us? Is it a failure of marketing?

Istari

61.
 
Black day for Black Isle
Dec 9, 2003, 02:32
indiv
 
61.
Black day for Black Isle Dec 9, 2003, 02:32
Dec 9, 2003, 02:32
 indiv
 
They made some of the best games ever.

60.
 
Fallout 3
Dec 9, 2003, 02:30
60.
Fallout 3 Dec 9, 2003, 02:30
Dec 9, 2003, 02:30
 
Who else thinks that if they release Fallout 3 only 15% completed with a running time of 20 minutes and a $50 price tag, it would still sell several million copies?

59.
 
Re: SELL IT TO TROIKA!
Dec 9, 2003, 02:21
59.
Re: SELL IT TO TROIKA! Dec 9, 2003, 02:21
Dec 9, 2003, 02:21
 
Who didn't see this coming after Sawyer left. Given that they were at least a year or more into development of FO3 they'd be stupid not to sell this property. In fact, I can't imagine them not selling it and trying to recoup what they can.
Give them six months to shop it around and we'll see the announcement that someone is doing it.


"Physical reality is consistent with universal laws. Where the laws do not operate, there is no reality."
- Mr. Spock
"And then, suddenly and without warning, it turned into a real-life case of hungry, hungry hippos."
- Stephen Colbert
58.
 
No subject
Dec 9, 2003, 02:18
58.
No subject Dec 9, 2003, 02:18
Dec 9, 2003, 02:18
 
"Well this is just fine and fun. PS: Torment is the greatest game to have come out on the PC ever, no way around it. The loss of the guys from BIS and the loss of the studio just sucks, no way around it. But with the end of the Fallout series Interplay has said a nice FU to everyone. Yeah well thanks Interplay, I hope you enjoy your grave in the ground. "

- Agree, no more PS


57.
 
Re: SELL IT TO TROIKA!
Dec 9, 2003, 01:30
57.
Re: SELL IT TO TROIKA! Dec 9, 2003, 01:30
Dec 9, 2003, 01:30
 
Ack no! ToEE and Arcanum have convinced me Troika doesn't deserve the license.
Actually those games just prove that Troika shouldn't be making engines. Arcanum had a great story and no combat system, ToEE had a great combat system and no story. Both had a horribly flawed engine that was prone to bugs.
Then we have Vampire coming out, which is looking to have a great combat system, extensive story, and has licensed the best engine ever seen.
Xombie x0mbie x0mb|e Xombie
56.
 
No subject
Dec 9, 2003, 01:19
56.
No subject Dec 9, 2003, 01:19
Dec 9, 2003, 01:19
 
Shit...sob and shit.

Well this is just fine and fun. PS: Torment is the greatest game to have come out on the PC ever, no way around it. The loss of the guys from BIS and the loss of the studio just sucks, no way around it. But with the end of the Fallout series Interplay has said a nice FU to everyone. Yeah well thanks Interplay, I hope you enjoy your grave in the ground.

What a loss.
--
"For every human problem,
there is a neat, simple solution;
and it is always wrong."
--H.L. Mencken
55.
 
Re: dear god no
Dec 9, 2003, 00:55
55.
Re: dear god no Dec 9, 2003, 00:55
Dec 9, 2003, 00:55
 
I am sitting here wondering "What the FUCK is Interplay thinking?" What kind of fucking business sense does it make to "shelve" something as highly anticipated as fallout 3? What the FUCK is going on over there? What's next, iD decides to cancel Doom III, HL2 is dropped a mere couple of months short of release? Why won't those things happen? Because that would be INSANE. God, WTF.

54.
 
dear god no
Dec 9, 2003, 00:30
54.
dear god no Dec 9, 2003, 00:30
Dec 9, 2003, 00:30
 
"SELL IT TO TROIKA, SELL IT TO TROIKA, SELL IT TO TROIKA, SELL IT TO TROIKA"

Icewind Dale 3?

Just sell Fallout 3 to whoever can make it into an japanese animee manga type with super mutant racoons perhaps and concsole only, watch the inflow

this news bit has broken my spirit and will to study for tomorrow's exam

PB

53.
 
Sad News...
Dec 9, 2003, 00:27
53.
Sad News... Dec 9, 2003, 00:27
Dec 9, 2003, 00:27
 
This ia truly a tagic event indeed. I've been a huge Black Isle fan since day one and have played virtually every title every released by that studio. It's truly a shame to see such amazing talent canned because of the incompetent management of those at Titus (who pulls all the strings at Interplay.) Interplay used to be a great company that focused on producing quality, well-designed, well-tested games. Then they had a few bombs and sold their souls to Titus who is killing themselves as well as Interplay. Then they push out Brian Fargo and sell Shiny for a song. While it was developing a terrible game (Enter the Matrix), they put out something that made buckets of money and could have saved the company! I mean, do these morons not get it?! I know that both Brian Fargo and Feargus Urquart have started their own studios so maybe they'll give those developers a home. They'll write games that'll crush Interplay and the idiots who are running them into the ground. Screw Titus and screw Interplay. They've both lost any hope I had in Interplay rising to something good again.

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52.
 
Re: No subject
Dec 9, 2003, 00:14
52.
Re: No subject Dec 9, 2003, 00:14
Dec 9, 2003, 00:14
 
Bioware doesn't know how to make non-shit combat and anything besides FedEx quests. But I'm willing to bet if Interplay sold the Fallout license they'd be the first to snatch it up.

Avatar 15920
51.
 
Re: No subject
Dec 9, 2003, 00:10
51.
Re: No subject Dec 9, 2003, 00:10
Dec 9, 2003, 00:10
 
Bioware's got hellabig shoes to fill.

But given the PC port of KOTOR (from what I've heard, they went back to the original concept art and completely redid the textures for high-res, not to mention reworking the interface) and given the way they've listened to the community's input on Neverwinter Nights (the OC was good, SoU was terrible, HotU is--apart from the whole severely broken multiplayer--worthy of note) they MIGHT be trustable with the Fallout license.

In a few years.

Once they've proved they won't sell us PC gamers up the river by equating console gamers with PC gamers, attention-span and hardware-wise.

Athlon64 3200+/MSI K8T Neo/1 GB DDR-400 Corsair TwinX LL-PT/Radeon 9700 Pro/160 Gb SATA Seagate Barracuda/Playing X-Com and Commander Keen =)
50.
 
Re: No subject
Dec 9, 2003, 00:08
50.
Re: No subject Dec 9, 2003, 00:08
Dec 9, 2003, 00:08
 
I say hand it off to BioWare! BioWare is the future!

Ack, NO! With Troika you get talent but the inability to execute, with Bio you get polish and strong execution but the lack of any talent.


49.
 
Re: SELL IT TO TROIKA!
Dec 9, 2003, 00:01
49.
Re: SELL IT TO TROIKA! Dec 9, 2003, 00:01
Dec 9, 2003, 00:01
 
WHY GOD WHY!?!?


48.
 
No subject
Dec 9, 2003, 00:00
48.
No subject Dec 9, 2003, 00:00
Dec 9, 2003, 00:00
 
Luke: "What's wrong, Obi-Wan?"
Obi-Wan: "A great disturbance in the Force. It was like a million voices crying out in unison, then suddenly silenced."

I raise my mug to Black Isle, one of the greats.

[EDIT]
Don't give it to Troika, if we ever see Fallout 3, I'd like it to be playable. I say hand it off to BioWare! BioWare is the future!
This comment was edited on Dec 9, 00:06.
Avatar 13977
47.
 
Re: SELL IT TO TROIKA!
Dec 8, 2003, 23:59
47.
Re: SELL IT TO TROIKA! Dec 8, 2003, 23:59
Dec 8, 2003, 23:59
 
Arcanum was good but was hideously flawed in the execution. It deserved to be much better than it actually was.

ToEE on the other hand is a buggy mess of a tech demo. The game itself is very poorly done, if it weren't for the combat engine there would be no redeeming features. Even still, the combat gets old real fast, long before I finished the game anyway.

This comment was edited on Dec 9, 00:00.
46.
 
:(
Dec 8, 2003, 23:52
46.
:( Dec 8, 2003, 23:52
Dec 8, 2003, 23:52
 
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Worst news evar
-----------------------------------------------
I like pie.
45.
 
Re: SELL IT TO TROIKA!
Dec 8, 2003, 23:51
45.
Re: SELL IT TO TROIKA! Dec 8, 2003, 23:51
Dec 8, 2003, 23:51
 
Oh yeah, go consoles, keep getting bigger, keep making people even more retarded and I thought we're fucking "advancing" no otherwise.

104 Replies. 6 pages. Viewing page 3.
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