Know Your Gaming Roots

[RvLeshrac]

Remembering old development companies is well and good to a point; but I think it's important that many great developers started as hobbyists, not initially under the umbrella of a vast game-making company. Games built by a couple guys or just one person, what would today be an impossible feat, during the infancy of electronic entertainment. That's were the roots of gaming start: not with large studios and budgets and publishers, but with creative individuals who STARTED those companies.

There are *hundreds* of games produced each week by 1 and 2-man teams. They expand into studios.

Just like early game developers.

 

[ilion]

AH looking glass, its amazing that Thief for example, still has a great community. I have no doubt the spirit behind them will one day be reborn. Its a bit of a shame what happened to videogames, games like homeworld dont come out every day it seems..

 

[Niveama]

Can't believe that Shamus miss that a large number of the founding members of Westwood left when EA shut the studio and set up Petroglyph games.

And that they are developing the potentially awesome End of Nations MMORTS game.

A persistant game world RTS made by the people behind C&C, yes please.

 

[Le_Lisra]

Am I old because I knew most of this?

 

[lynxus]

Ruining Bullfrog is unforgivable! I want Dungeon Keeper 3!

 

[Hexenwolf]

Its hard to believe that Activision used to put out the most innovative, interesting, and fun games on the market.

I still play Pitfall from time to time...

Yeah, I still play Battlezone every now and then, it's sad to see how much they've lost.

It's disturbing to see how little they have actually produced since Kotick took over. All they have done is literally buy existing studios and put them on the sequel tredmil. They have done NO IP creation. NONE.

No, you're both wrong. What's sad, and disturbing, and quite frankly terrifying is how wildly successful that strategy was.

It might be absolutely appalling from a creative point of view, but from a fiscal point of view, they're all rich now. Insanely so.

 

[Capo Taco]

More interesting than the remake of X-com was the other game its creators made when they had lost the trademark rights: "Laser Squad Nemesis", very solid tactical gameplay and very interesting game mechanics, where each players plans 5 seconds ahead and then is acted out simultanously.

 

[Truehare]

and thief definitely wasn't the first stealth game. Try the original metal gear, which only opted for the stealth focus because of a combined hardware/software limitation that made having character collision a pain in the arse.

I came in here to mention Metal Gear, and I'm glad I got ninja'd.

OT: You know, despite them being still in business, I think you should have mentioned Lucasarts at some point. They're pretty much dead today, by my standards.

 

[Nurb]

Back when there were at least a dozen larger developers all competing with one another, and the people in charge of making games were gamers themselves.

Now we have 3-4 conglomerates that have bought up all those devs, milking 15 year old IP to death because good, new ideas are too much of a risk. Now people in charge of making games are execs in suits who don't really give a shit about games, which has given us content removed from release and sold as DLC instead of making expansion packs because charging a few dollars for more, smaller items costs more in the long run, and control taken away from gamers who built communities around private servers so the damn corporates can shut down servers and force fans to buy the sequel to continue playing.

RIP Maxis

 

[Desenova]

Ah yes - back when Activision at least tried to do something different and still be fun. Still got and play a game called HyperBlade by them. Basically hockey with swords for sticks and an energy ball for a puck, but was so much fun.

And speaking of old companies - Cyan anyone? I mean they only created one of the, if not still the biggest PC games of all time - Myst!

 

[senataur]

class act compared to other guys I could mention.

- hovers over hyperlink
- looks for 'kotick'
- Found! no suprises
- moves on....

Thanks Shamus another stroll down memory lane.

Get off my Lawn u Kids!!!!

 

[senataur]

Low on cash after the lawsuit, they were bought up by an investment group run by... guess who. They filed chapter 11, renamed themselves again, restructured the company, moved the company, and then began buying up other companies.

The description there brings to mind the image of a parasitic organism (Kotick in this case) finding a wounded animal, infecting it, and then using the poor creature to spread itself to others.
Tell me I'm not the only one thinking this.

So, Kotick is a Xenomorph?

Far too glamorous. I'm going with virus, sexually transmitted, say Gonorrhea of the face.

 

[Kliss88]

" I think a first-person, party-oriented, turn-based RPG would be an impossible pitch in today's market."

screams Estrian Odyssey to me. and atlus has made 3 already

 

[demouse]

who else remembers micro pose for the mech warrior games?

 

[Smooth Operator]

So the lesson here... go bust or go greedy?
The Activision story is actually no more cheerful then the rest, but it hits the mark, once businessmen take over there is no soul and innovation, just a money hungry conglomerate, swallowing and milking other companies and their ideas.

 

[Fetzenfisch]

Wow i never really realised that westwood isnt no more. Strange...right. Always when i see C&C i automatically had westwood in mind, not noticing they arent mentioned anywhere anymore.

who else remembers micro pose for the mech warrior games?

Oh yea i do. Sooo great games. Still play them once in a while