started to get very worried aftrer they canned their NWN-like RPG. I can't think of the name right now, but its on the tip of my tounge. Canceling games is bad business, and they're really made it a tradition.

You mean Torn? Yeah, I felt the same way, the game had huge potential, and they cancelled it. Morons, the move with Fallout 3 came as no surprise after that. I'll sound vindictive, but they deserved it, its not like they never knew the rent was due. Shot themselves in the foot with a slew of bad-decisions. Pass Fallout 3 to someone else and go away!

I am curious if Interplay is going to be able to find any further capital. I mean, I know they've borrowed money numerous times now to stay afloat (they also sold Shiny pretty much because that was the only way to get additional funding), but I wonder if a venture capitalist who dips into high-risk ventures (there are still a lot of them) will step forward and either lend them money, or take them off the hands of those idiots at Titus and try to build it up again.

Parallax Abstraction
Technical Consultant, Hardcore Modern and Retro Gamer, Video Game Historian
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

I'm glad some people are remembering Freespace 3. Freespace was a GREAT space sim, and it helped to fill the void after Wing Commander: Prophecy came out (sure, nothing can beat WC, but FS sure as hell came close). FreeSpace 2 was left so damn open and then they just cancelled it, not even letting the team explain anything about the story that they left totally open. Screw you, Interplay.

Ah, I don't claim to be an electronic gaming historian though. I am a heavy social drinker. The only reason I remember my name is because it's on a note pinned to the inside of my cardigan.

Well hey, social drinking's got its merits too. True enough that you don't claim to be an electronic gaming historian, but I corrected myself and didn't claim to know anything about the guy that invented billiards and croquet.

Parallax Abstraction
Technical Consultant, Hardcore Modern and Retro Gamer, Video Game Historian
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Brian Fargo's the only reason the company survived as long as it did. When the board of directors sold it out to Titus, they are the ones who completely ruined them and kept pushing them to making console games.

Uh, no, Fargo was the one that wanted to push towards console games. He even said recently in an interview that he thought the problem with Interplay was that they didn't get in to the console market soon enough. Of course, Interplay hasn't had a lot of success in that market, so I'm not sure they would have done better if they had gone that route earlier.

Also notice that Fargo's new company's first game is a console game, basically. Sure, they're also porting it to the PC, but we're talking an action RPG using the Dark Alliance engine here.

When you see Leibowitz again off in the distance you realize whats about to happen and the emotional impact of that moment is simply astounding

ssshhhh, dude, you're sounding like a girl....

EDIT and apparently everyone has read Canticle by the looks of it. It is one of SF's biggies after all, and on a Fallout comment thread a bit of a no-brainer if you're into post-cataclysmic fiction. How about who's read Lucifer's Hammer?

This comment was edited on Apr 17, 04:41.

To call you on your own tactic though:

Approximately how many Atari Jaguar units had been sold as of early 1995 according to Sam Tramiel? This isn't a hard one either.

Ah, I don't claim to be an electronic gaming historian though. I am a heavy social drinker. The only reason I remember my name is because it's on a note pinned to the inside of my cardigan.

Interplay was going down long before Titus showed up. The writing has been on the wall for a while - they just don't know how to handle their properties.

I disagree. The Baldur's Gate games and a number of other successfull titles from Interplay were released after Titus' arrival and while Interplay wasn't an EA before Titus, they were doing decent. I'm not saying they didn't make some stupid decisions before Titus, but Titus is the reason they have all but abandoned PC games and made many of the bad decisions they have.

Parallax Abstraction
Technical Consultant, Hardcore Modern and Retro Gamer, Video Game Historian
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

That's what you get for not patching Tempest 2000!!!

Interplay was going down long before Titus showed up. The writing has been on the wall for a while - they just don't know how to handle their properties.

Troika is the natural as all those boys did the original

Nah just three of em, and five people were involved with the initial design for Fallout. I'd rather see Obsidian finish the game, Urquhart knows how to produce a game, Tim Cain doesn't. I'd rather have a solid but smaller Fallout 3 than a massive, ambitious yet heavily flawed Fallout 3.

I mean, how many people - besides Tim and myself - have read A Canticle for Leibowitz?

I have. A powerful book, I especially liked the conclusion to the first part. The appearance of Leibowitz marked the beginning of Brother Forget-His-Name's professional life. When you see Leibowitz again off in the distance you realize whats about to happen and the emotional impact of that moment is simply astounding.

Yeah, I definitely wouldn't argue with that either. Problem is it won't be the original developers doing it any more. They got bought by THQ.

Parallax Abstraction
Technical Consultant, Hardcore Modern and Retro Gamer, Video Game Historian
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Freespace 3 ! Freespace 3 ! Freespace 3 ! (ad inifinitum...)

OK, I wasn't aware of that and if true (and I don't doubt your sincerity), that is pretty low on Fargo's part. But was Interplay not already controlled by Titus at this point in time? Much of what I've read and researched would indicate that Titus was largely responsible for many of the idiotic decisions made by (or rather forced on) Interplay and is also largely to blame for them focusing too heavily on consoles. If so, would it not be possible for Titus to have been making these decisions and just making Fargo be the fall guy for them? I mean, Fargo started Interplay, lead them to their high place in history and was at the helm throughout pretty much all their successes. What shift in his vision and management ability coudl have caused such a plummet as the one they're not experiencing? By the way, if you've got an e-mail address, I'd love to get on some kind of list to be notified when your book is done.

Parallax Abstraction
Technical Consultant, Hardcore Modern and Retro Gamer, Video Game Historian
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Brian Fargo's the only reason the company survived as long as it did.

Bullshit. I, like you, have watched the gaming industry a LONG time. In fact, I'm in the process of writing a book on it. The one shining example I can give you to prove that Fargo is Satan's illegit child is Klingon Academy . I watched the deveopment of it from the start, right after Starfleet Academy was released. At first, the dev team wanted to write a new engine for the game/sim. Fargo said no, use the SFA engine and modify it to save time. Obviously, the SFA engine was rather limited. In the end it wouldn't really matter, as that engine caused so many problems that the dev team had to work around that they wasted almost as much time fixing it. Later, toward the end of development, the only resolution available was 640x480. This is in 2000. Unacceptable. The game would have tanked on that fact alone. Part of the team, and one guy in particular, worked their asses off to jury-rig the engine to allow higher resolutions. The in-game art, such as the interface, could not be changed, so it appeared blocky and sometimes even unreadable at the higher resolutions. Q&A took a long time. They did some amazing things with what they had to work with! KA came out as a very respectable game that still has a small mod community around it. It's a good thing that the game ended up being moddable, because a few weeks after KA was released, the whole dev team, save for 2 people, were let go! By none other than Fargo himself...

He got what he wanted and then gave up on the ones that had given it to him. Much like a dictator promises big rewards for mercenaries and then kills them after the job is completed...

I hope he never gets anywhere in the industry again and he should, IMO, be blacklisted for life...and afterlife...

=-Rigs-=

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?

Three according to the old ad with the owl.

Parallax Abstraction
Technical Consultant, Hardcore Modern and Retro Gamer, Video Game Historian
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Eat shit and die, Interplay.

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?

Um, terrible seems a bit harsh.

OK, perhaps it was. But certainly far below average I think you'd say. It's a shame that they also lost NWN which could have helped them survive as well.

Okay, what's the connection between the guy that invented billiards and the guy that invented croquet? Don't be offended, this is just an easy one to start.

You're too funny, really. Electronic gaming may have been more accurate. I don't claim to know everything about gaming, but I like to think I know quite a bit. To call you on your own tactic though:

Approximately how many Atari Jaguar units had been sold as of early 1995 according to Sam Tramiel? This isn't a hard one either.

Parallax Abstraction
Technical Consultant, Hardcore Modern and Retro Gamer, Gaming Historian
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Shiny...the one company that could have saved Interplay by releasing a terrible, yet very successful game.

Um, terrible seems a bit harsh.

Gaming Historian

Okay, what's the connection between the guy that invented billiards and the guy that invented croquet? Don't be offended, this is just an easy one to start.