Archived News:
The promised Mike Wilson interview is now online at GameSpot, talking to the Gathering of Developers CEO about the consolidation of GoD's operations at Take Two's offices in New York, and his plans for the future ( story). The article chronicles the changes the company went through from independent publisher to subsidiary of Take Two, also quotes two of the founding developers, and offers more on their new SubstanceTV project. Here is a quote:
In reality, the concept behind the Gathering of Developers was a pie-in-the-sky ideal that never got the funding it needed. GodGames initially wanted $25 million in venture capital, but it ended up settling for what eventually amounted to an estimated $22.5 million in advances from Take-Two as part of a 20-product deal in exchange for 19.9 percent equity in GodGames. That might have been enough money if all the games arrived on time and were hits, but when the titles started falling behind schedule, the money quickly dried up. "We ran out of money three times," Wilson said, explaining that the sale of GodGames to Take-Two in June 2000 was the only way to stay afloat. "GOD was always hanging by a thread, but when it had to sell to Take-Two, that's when the whole downward spiral really began," said 3D Realms' Scott Miller, one of the founding developers.
In a day of site openings and company closures, Red Storm has opened the official Rogue Spear: Black Thorn site for business, featuring the usual array of game information, screenshots, and more on this upcoming standalone tactical shooter expansion.
PC.IGN.com has conducted an interview on Shadowbane, the fantasy massively multiplayer RPG in development at Wolfpack Studios that will now be published by Ubi Soft ( story). Wolfpack's Todd Coleman and Ubi Soft's Jason Rubinstein are at hand to discuss how the deal came about, the features that should set the game apart from the many other MMORPG's in development, their network infrastructure, and a variety of other topics.
- SoF 2
Shacknews has posted over a dozen, mostly new Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix screenshots, offering more scenes in the mercenary shooter sequel in the works at Raven Software, which they got to check out at QuakeCon.
- Star Wars Galaxies
Keeping up the pace, Verant has released another 3D screenshot of Star Wars Galaxies, this time showing off a Male Twi'lek character in that roundabout QuickTime fashion.
- Spider-Man
GameSpyDaily has posted four new Spider-Man screenshots (along with four familiar ones), illustrating the third-person comic action game being ported at LTI Gray Matter.
- From Dusk Till Dawn
Eight new screenshots of From Dusk Till Dawn are online at EuroGamer, showing more from the imminent third-person action game by GameSquad.
- Battle Realms
Battle Realms Network has posted three new screenshots of Batte Realms, the 3D RTS that is nearing completion at Liquid Entertainment.
- Bridge Commander
The official Star Trek: Bridge Commander site sports another irregular screenshot of the week from the capitol ship space sim by Totally Games.
- Freedom Force
Another single new Freedom Force screenshot has trickled out at Freedom Force Center, featuring a new scene in the 3D tactical RPG of superheroics in development at Irrational.
- Camelot
A handful of new, thumbnail-free Dark Age of Camelot screenshots can be found at Camelot Guild today, captured from the ongoing beta test of Mythic's medieval MMORPG.
TribalWar has posted an email from an anonymous Dynamix employee with more details on the events at Dynamix today, as well as plans for the immediate future of the studio. Word is that a meeting on Monday will determine whether any employees "have any employment opportunities with Sierra in the near future. Most of us will be out of work at that time." and also that "The patch and demo are still likely to be completed, but that will probably be it. It's not clear when they will be completed and who will do the work." Thanks DarkJedi.
Firaxis and Infogrames have opened the official Civilization III site for business, showcasing the third installment in Sid Meier's long-running turn-based strategy series. Naturally, the site features plenty of game information, 16 new screenshots, a FAQ, and more. Thanks jhol lyfingerbiter for the tip.
Arx Development Report #4 on RPG Vault is a new diary penned by Arkane Studios lead designer Raphael Colantonio regarding their upcoming first-person RPG. While brief, the diary has word that the game has gone alpha, meaning that all features are now incorporated in the game and the major technical hurdles have been taken. The remainder of the article looks back at the difficulties at reaching this stage, and forward to going beta.
Deadly Dozen Revealed on GameSpot has the first details on a new first- and third-person action game that will be published by Infogrames. In development at nFusion Interactive, the article describes the game premise where the player controls a squad of up to six soldiers chosen from a total of twelve through missions in a WWII setting, along with a few other details. The game should be released for a budget price of US$ 19.99 and the first screenshots of the game are expected next week.
Garage Games has announced that the first release of their V12 Engine SDK is now available for purchase and download. V12 is based on the TRIBES 2 technology and available to developers for the princely sum of US$ 100 ( story). Thanks Schnapple and David Brink for the tip.
PC Gamer magazine has relaunched their website, and one of its features is an interview with Warren Spector and Doug Church conducted on occasion of their Classic Games Collection issue of July 2000. The discussion focuses on Ultima Underworld, the first-person RPG created at Blue Sky Productions (which later became Looking Glass), and Warren and Doug talk about the game's development, their involvement, the game's ground-breaking features, and their perspective on first-person games. Note that the site's DNS doesn't seem to have fully propagated yet, so not everyone may be able to access it already.
F**ked
Company.com has posted a rumor suggesting that around 300 Sierra employees
are being laid off from the company on Monday. Other reports, including this
message board post by former Dynamix employee Scott Youngblood, take this
a bit further, suggesting that Dynamix, the studio behind TRIBES 2 has actually
been shut down. We try not to post things like this until they're officially
confirmed, but we have heard this from multiple sources suggesting that there
may be some truth in it. Also, this is not the first round of layoffs for Dynamix,
which shed a third of its development staff shortly after TRIBES 2 shipped to stores
( story). When contacted for comment, we were told by a Sierra
representative that he was unable to confirm any Dynamix layoffs since he hadn't
received any information about it either way.
GameSpot has posted a whopping eight new Red Faction movies, showing off Volition's upcoming destroy-everything shooter. The movies take around 11 to 15 MB to download in MPEG format, are also available in the usual streaming choices, and each offer about a minute of in-game action from various areas in the game.
In the past few weeks there has been rampant speculation about the future of
Gathering of Developers, and we have spoken with a representative for GoD,
and we can now officially say what will happen to the company. Take Two Interactive
has apparently been considering consolidating GodGames into their New York office
for some time now, and the original plan was for Mike Wilson to relocate up
to that office. He decided to pass on this, and instead has started Substance
TV, a new, subscription-based, interactive DVD magazine. Almost all of the
former GodGames staff has joined Substance TV, with only a handful of people
making the switch to New York to be part of Take Two's new GodGames label. The
person we spoke with assured us that all of GoD's planned titles will still
be published, including, of course, Duke Nukem Forever. As for future titles
under the label, he didn't know what Take Two's plans will be. Substance TV
was an idea created by the late Doug Myres, and this new, privately-held company
will focus on creating a magazine that lives up to Doug's original vision. Each
"issue" of the magazine will contain roughly four to six hours of
original content, including independent films, shorts, animation and music videos.
As far as gaming content, there will be game trailers, but don't expect too
much. The person we spoke with estimated that approximately 1% of the magazine
would be related to video games. They are already taking charter subscription
orders and the first issue of the magazine will be sent out in November. More
information on Substance TV and the future of Gathering of Developers will be
available on Friday, as part of an interview with Mike Wilson that will run
on GameSpot.
German developer SUNFLOWERS sends word that their official Anno 1503 site has now opened its doors to the public, showing off the empire building strategy game they're developing with Max Design. The site offers game information, plenty of screenshots (some of which have already appeared elsewhere), a new 29.4 MB movie trailer in self-running Bink format that sports over a minute and a half of in-game footage, a short FAQ and more.
A new version of the
TrueCombat mod for Quake III Arena is now available, bringing it up to version
045 build 8 (thanks Stomped). This latest
release contains new bullet impact effects, configurable crosshairs, a new shooting
range map, a visible respawn counter and more.
GameSpy.com's Soldier of Fortune 2
Developer Diary Volume 5 is written by Raven's Zachary Quarles, talking
about his role as sound designer on the upcoming mercenary shooter sequel.
Having lost track of the dates of recent events, Zach gives a general rundown on
what he's been up to lately, and also offers "A Tutorial on Real-Life(tm)
Gun Sounds." In addition to the article, there are some exclusive new SoF2
sound files to download so you can hear them for yourself.
There's a Real
War Interview on HomeLan talking with Rival Interactive about Real
War, their upcoming isometric RTS game based on Joint Force Employment, a project they
created at the behest of the US military. The conversation covers the project's
roots as a training simulator, what will differentiate it from other RTS
offerings, the premise, units, missions, and more.
NWN Online's GenCon 2001
report is online (thanks RPGvault)
with descriptions and photos of what they saw, including some of the costumed
folk that were putting themselves on display. Also, there's a
GenCon 2001 report on neverwinter-nights.net with their impressions of the
NWN demonstration at the show, as well as some
photos of their own. Finally, there's a
GenCon 2001 gallery on The Wargamer showing off more costumed folk, booth
babes, and dudes with swords.
Game Boy Advance gets a Hello Kitty version
on GameSpot, to be bundled with "a pink-colored Hello Kitty version of
the Game Boy Advance." In further color-related news, Planet GameCube
announces that the color of the GameCube upon its US launch will be Purple (sure
to delight the artist once again known as Prince). Interact Brings the Peripherals
on Cube.IGN.Com announces a full lineup of third-party GameCube adds-ons and
peripherals. Going Soft on
Cube.IGN.Com says "Softimage delivers its advances tools to developers
working on GameCube projects," announcing the collaboration between
Nintendo and this former subsidiary of Microsoft. Infogrames Announces First Details on The Terminator
on PS2.IGN.Com has word on this upcoming third-person action game.
Robert Duffy updated
his .plan, the id Software programmer offering a challenge for attendees of
this weekend's QuakeCon festivities who are willing to take on a pair of id
employees (or, as he put it "If you feel like getting
your butt whipped...") at two-on-two CTF. Also, another
.plan update by id Software's Paul Jaquays has word that Saturday's planned
"TRASH MY MAP Seminar at QuakeCon" is in danger of having too few maps
to critique (perhaps next year's seminar will be "praise my map"?), so
if you are a level designer who plans on attending, you may want to consider
participating in this one. Finally, The Quake
The Movie website has word that Quake The Movie: Escape from the Bastille,
will be premiering this weekend at QuakeCon 2001.
A new version 2.4d of the QStat game server
status utility is now available. The release notes
offer details on this update, which the page describes as "All this and the
kitchen sink!" QStat features support for "old Quake (NetQuake),
QuakeWorld, Hexen II, HexenWorld, Quake II, Unreal/UT, Turok2, Sin, Half-Life,
Shogo, Tribes, Tribes 2, Quake III, BFRIS, Kingpin, Heretic II servers, Soldier
of Fortune, and lots more."
GameSpot's Diablo II:
Lord of Destruction Game Guide is online, offering guidance through the
add-on, with specific tips for the new classes, and advice on the new scenarios.
Also, Xezol.com's Anachronox
Walkthru offers an illustrated guide to the game, along with specific tips
on how to complete its quests.
More anniversary madness: Today is the fifth anniversary of the first release of
Linux Quake (am I correct in thinking this was the first-ever Linux release of a
major PC game?). It was four years ago today that Angel Munoz offered Jason Hall
a $2,000 bet that Thresh would "kick Craig's ass" in Quake, after the
Monolith CEO posted a .plan update staking $100 that Monolith's Craig Hubbard
could beat Thresh in a deathmatch (this all eventually fizzled out without the
match being played). Three years ago today the departure of Mike
"Chaos" Werckle from Ritual Entertainment was announced. Finally, it
was one year ago today that it was announced that Warren Spector and ION Storm
Austin would be creating Thief 3.
Also, some noteworthy stuff from this month in gaming history (from before
this site's existence), courtesy of David "Sopranos" Chase, who seems
to like this stuff as much as I do: In August 1990: Three Softdisk employees
collaborate on Catacomb II. Their names? John Romero, John Carmack, and Tom
Hall. August 1991: Duke Nukem is released. August 1993: Tom Hall leaves id
Software to join Apogee where he helps create Rise of the Triad.
Story of the Day: Man
Out to Bond With Gorillas Jumps Into Zoo Exhibit (Fox). Thanks theAntiELVIS
and John Riordan. He was saved... lucky he didn't desire to "bond"
with piranhas.
Bonus Story: Dog
That Saved Owner, Three Others From Fire Scheduled to Be Put to Sleep (Fox).
Thanks theAntiELVIS. Anyone in Florida want to adopt an older dog or two?
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