Hawken it was a good game, if you are into it. I didn't see the errors you mentioned and if they are there, they probably don't break the gameplay. I had the same impression of Diablo, the first time I saw a friend playing it, I thought it was dumb. Then I tried it and loved it. You can't really judge a game from videos or just watching until you try it. The first time I saw an RTS game I was like WTF, it's silly. Then I tried them and love them.
As for Iron Lore closing, this fucking blows. Good luck.
I gotta say...I enjoyed TQ a great deal. I purchased a copy for myself..and then purchased another copy for my roommate because he loves those types of games(Diablo) and we wanted to play Co-Op. HE played that game for probably several hundred hours, and when the expansion came out...I bought him that too.
You IL guys made a great product that a lot of people love. I'm sorry to see that piracy and other issues had such a detrimental impact on your livelihoods. Good luck moving forward, I know all that talent will find its way to new homes soon.
[ QUOTE ]
my condolences. I'm sure you'll all do fine though!
Titan Quest was great? I'm not seeking the un-popular vote or being devils advocate here, but anyone who can ignore the terrible animation, hilarious collision detection and lame hack and slash repetitive gameplay is just doing lip service to the guys here who might have made it.
[/ QUOTE ]
Wow
I worked at Iron Lore.
A ton of guys just lost their jobs busting their ass for a project and company they believed in. Ya sure the game had some flaws but is this the appropriate moment to be harping on them? Especially when you haven't even played the game?
Have some tact.
B
Sorry to hear this guys. It's never a good day for the industry when one more of the small studios closes. A particular shame given the dearth of games studios on the east coast too.
If anyone knows of anyone laid off looking for work who don't want to resort to EActiUbiSoft (CA I'm afraid), pm me, we've a number of folks were still in need of.
Well I'm sure the talented people will get snapped up and the un-talented people won't.
In any case, there's always a reason for the closure of any business, speaking objectively.
When UGA closed I was saddened because they were making some of the best games of the day, breaking new ground and inventing new gameplay styles. That studio was focused and creative.
Why anyone should feel sad for a games company who's only known game took way over the industry average (time) to make, I have no idea. Sure if you have a personal connection to someone that's fine, I understand. People lose jobs. But this company closed because no one wanted to give them any money.
Also one has to ask, where did all the money made from Titan Quest go anyway? Isn't the concept of a games company to make games that pay for the next game to be built?
Really sorry to hear it guys:( I played Titan Quest all the way through and really enjoyed it. Hate to see such a great pool of talent get broken up. I'm sure everyone here will land on their feet if they haven't already though:)
[ QUOTE ]
Hawken why do you always have to be such a cock? I'm not one to get into things online but damn your attitude sucks and I have never seen you contribute anything constructive to this community. You shit on anything people have going. Please lighten up and think a bit about the people involved before you post such inappropriate garbage.
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QFT
Lol For real Hawken, Have you ever even worked on a video game or at a video game studio?
It is a sensitive subject. I know I loved that studio. I have never felt as appriciated or cared for as much as at IronLore. I am friends with everybody there and I compare every studio culture I go to with IronLore's because it felt like home.
A lot of my very good friends spent years working on that project. So it stings a little when Sombody like you Hawken, Just ups and passes judgment without even playing the game.
Titan Quest was a great looking game, and it's a real shame about IronLore. I hope they comeback someday.
Really sorry to hear this. Seemed like a great place to work. The best of luck to you guys finding new jobs, though I know you all are badass at what you do so it should be pretty easy.
Yeah this is really sad and I send my best wishes to those guys. Being from I the area I'm aware just how slim the opportunities can be other than going Freelance. It sux when you're on a team that you know has the talent, but business matters rip opportunity away from you. Been there...
The other point that's a bummer is losing another Boston area studio. Not all of us have the easy choice to up and head to CA or TX. Meanwhile there is alot of talent out here. Really hope we can turn that around and get some new studios with solid projects. Or make it happen for ourselves.
Hawken, I'm sure that something you've worked on has one or all of the issues you've mentioned. You might want to keep that in mind. Plus, that is not the point of this thread. So I gotta agree with Bobo, you're not contributing in this situation.
[ QUOTE ]
Michael's PC Game Dev Venting really put me in a downer.
[/ QUOTE ]
Same here, I figured I could shake it but I woke up today and I'm still down. Really if a studio with that much talent and the beginnings of a profitable franchise even in the face of rampant piracy, goes under, its just a question of who's next. Especially with every investor paralyzed by the state of affairs in the US economy as it deals with Wall Streets F-ups, again and again.
I have a feeling if the housing bubble didn't burst right when they where looking for funds they would have found them.
TQ was a good game, it had it's issues but for a first game they did an amazing job. Most of the bad PR was undeserved and came from people that didn't actually take time to play it. I wish there was some kind of online counter that showed how many actual hours a reviewer played the game and how far they progressed.
Anyway the good far outweighed the bad, its a horrible shame to see it come to an end.
man that blows that seemed to be a cool place full of motivated and talented people...sorry to heard that, I hope everyone will do fine.
On the TQ subject, I played the demo and enjoyed it, then I was lucky enough ot be able to borrow it for a few weeks from a coworker and got instantly hooked, those flaws, well, anyone can find flaws in any game very easily, but I didn't notice anything that could screw the gameplay or gaming experience in any way, and this after several hours (I think 10/12), of course I didn't beat the game, but still.
It's a shame that the company was forced to shut down, and I hope everyone affected can pull through it without too much difficulty.
It's quite a shame that TQ wasn't as financially successful as it should have been. You guys really did an amazing job on that game and I had quite a blast playing through it.
When it released I was living with 2 other roomates and we spent the better part of two weeks playing through the game on co-op on each difficulty. Then when the expansion shipped we had all moved out, so we picked it up again and played through it online.
Lots of fun, so thank you and congrats on putting together an awesome game.
Sorry to hear it, guys. I haven't played Titan's Quest but I remember thinking IronLore must be a cool company since a bunch of polycounters worked there.
Hopefully something good will come of it in the long run.
Yeah same here. This really sucks, never played Titan Quest, but its always sad to hear about a good studio closing and polycounters being laid off. Another East Coast studio lost as well...they don't exactly multiply like rabbits over here like they do on the West Coast...
Sucks that Iron Lore had to close up so early in its' life but I figure everyone will do just fine in their new jobs. Titan Quest and its' expansion where great and I had a lot of fun playing them. I knew a good chunk of you guys over there and know you put a lot of effort into the game. I miss Boston myself to some degree, not the crazy blizzards though and having to drive to work in them after doing a minor archaeological dig to find my car first in a massive snow drift at the end of the driveway. Good times.
I'm sorry for not making enough constructive posts.
Seriously though, sucks that it closed, Titan Quest was a good game, and I would have loved to see what else you could have put out.
Sucks that they closed, and I hope that's not a sign of things to come in the current economic slump. Would really hate to put my foot in the games industry door right when the tenants are leaving for the summer.
That aside I have to play devil's advocate for Hawken here. From Michael Fitch's post it seems like they shot themselves in the foot with overzealous anti-piracy measures, which amounted to bad press and bad word of mouth about their game. Of course sales will suffer. He said that the game earned money despite that, so what would have happened if they had just cut out all of the "crash to desktop" security checks and kept the forum shitfest from giving them bad press?
Little things can really hurt when it comes to a consumers choice to buy a product. Take Universe at War: Earth Assault. I've played a bit of it pirated and think there are some really sweet game mechanics there which would be fun to tinker with online. I have the cash to buy it, the computer to run it, so why not? Wait, online play is through Windows Live? Ok, not getting my cash then.
Yeah, crash to desktop is bad, might've been avoided with a simple popup window, notifying the hacker "here's one more security check you missed!"
I's just a ridiculous notion that when a company sends a build to QA they need to run a few test cases that takes pirated versions into account...maybe even writing their own crack and sending it to their testers. Who even schedules for such measure during production?? The publishers should really be on top of this kind of thing, let the game developers focus on what they do. (Problem is, they end up choosing flaky solutions like Stardock)
Btw next time you want to trial a game, run the demo.
I overlooked Titan Quest when it came out because it's not the genre that I normally enjoy, but I spoke to a friend about it just now and she has great taste in games, and said is was really good. So, I think based on that I'll pick up a copy of it and the expansion.
My sympathies go out to the guys and girls who lost their jobs, and I hope you find new ones soon.
As for the piracy talk, I think a lot of the time it is shifting the blame, finding a reason for bad sales other than ones that are directly related to quality, reviews, and marketing. Still, the problem does exist, but we don't -really- know to what extent, and how it impacts sales.
Publishers/developers often like to equate one pirated copy to one lost sale. Now, if facts of life were that simple I'd have a 10" dick, abs of steel, and driving one of my custom made Aston Martins to work one day every week.
Nevertheless. It's always a downer when people lose their jobs.
The piracy thing really is out of control. A certain Activision developer that we're in close contact with at Neversoft actually tracks pirated copies of the PC version of their game, and it was hovering around 85%. And quality/marketing/etc really can't be to blame in this particular case, since the game is reviewing in the 90's and the 360 version of the game was one of best selling games last holiday season.
It's really nuts when you think about it. Our industry does really well in general even with rampant piracy. I wonder what the real gross capital would be for the games industry if piracy didn't happen and people actually purchased everything. It'll never happen sadly but I'm sure it's an impressive number to behold. I remember when working at THQ it seemed almost every major and a lot of the minor releases from them alone would be pirated and show up online about 2-3 weeks on average before ship dates. I always wondered where along the line that happened because I remember one title I worked on was pirated and online not but 3 days after we went gold. That has to be somebody inside because they hadn't even shipped the product to distribution yet.
Everybody should do what Harmonix and Red Octane do and require a special controller to play their games. That kinds hurts the piracy thing, at least for your first release. Honestly though, the 360 must have some decent anti-piracy measures in place (which I have no idea what they are), since the software for it seems to sell so well in general. I remember piracy killing the Dreamcast. When you could pirate a game without even having so much as a chip installed on the machine, it makes it really easy.
[ QUOTE ]
Hawken why do you always have to be such a cock? I'm not one to get into things online but damn your attitude sucks and I have never seen you contribute anything constructive to this community. You shit on anything people have going. Please lighten up and think a bit about the people involved before you post such inappropriate garbage.
- BoBo
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm sorry to get a few backs up in this thread but I was just offering some outside views. Yes I do feel for the guys who lost their jobs, I hardly told them to go to hell. I am genuinely sad and concerned for people when the shit hits the fan. So apologies for looking like a heartless bastard.
Bobo, (now you chose to get into it) you must of had your reasons for leaving. My curiosity (along with some regrettable BA)as to why is just met with this kind of white wash, and personal attacks (yes I may not be the most positive person here, but I have been organising the challenges once a month for about 3 years, designed our DOM crest, polycount t-shirts etc. Bobo, just what you done except make bloody good art and post the occasional "I like this"? )
Anyway, bobo's comment aside, apologies for stepping on toes with my insensitive comments, I understand it is un-characteristic of me - I have been a bit of a fool. However it's food for thought, so try not to shoot the inquisitive minds
Sadly the only way you can stop internal piracy is to have daily entrance and exit bag searches, key cards, no internet access, no personal hardware onsite and CCTV cameras.
This is exactly what I had to put up with for 2 years.
I apologize for my tone. I posted in the moment. You really pissed me off and I never NEVER make posts like that. I edited my post above to be a bit more constructive. That was not like me. As you said, the norm for me is to simply post art and tell people they are doing a good job.
Everyone IS entitled to an opinion. Just have some tact and realize that a thread like this might not be the place to dog someone while they are down. If you said what you said in a thread dedicated to discussing TQ it wouldnt have bothered me at all. It was just pore form and came off malicious. These are peoples lives being affected here and what I look for in a community is people picking each other up not kicking them while they are down.
As far as me personally, I was never looking to leave Iron Lore. I loved it there. I simply had an opportunity present itself that I thought would be better for me and my family.
Getting back on topic (and I apologize for derailing), I know these people have a lot of talent and will have no problem finding work. I just want to thank everyone who has offered contacts at their studios. It feels great to be apart of a community that truly reaches out to each other!
yeah piracy has become insane. You can easily find big titles online weeks before they hit shelves. The 360 does updates to the dashboard to help combat this along with the firmware on their drives. Some people can still get around this with flashing their firmware and doing a bunch of other mods but it is a lot of work and not as easy as installing a few tools on a pc and faking a disk drive and running a game.
It is sad to see studios shut down and it happens all the time in our industry and these guys were so bloody talented that I am sure that a lot of them will bounce right back.
Iron Lore had a lot of good people and I'm sad to see them go.
Hawken - the time it took to make the game probably had a lot to do with the fact that they were building the company up from scratch.
Building a retail-only PC-only game is a massive gamble these days. Nobody is really doing it anymore except for the odd RTS here and there. The PC market is still strong, but it is evolve-or-die, and piracy is only one tiny part of the picture. You can't just sell a PC game on store shelves and expect to survive. Even a bigger deal than piracy is just the huge hassle you have as a PC customer to try and figure out if a game for sale at the store will actually be playable on your PC. That's why the only big time successful PC games going forward will be:
- Playable on low spec machines (Blizz, Valve)
- Also on consoles
- "Live" games for the online crowd instead of the Wal Mart crowd (Steam)
- Capable of milking lots of revenue from a small number of players (MMOs)
- Casual or Web based
The last category is where we are going to see explosive growth, IMO. Battlefield Heroes is one example. Metaplace, Facebook, Silverlight, etc are some other big areas of growth.
Games like Crysis are a dying breed - and I think its doing well almost because it is an honor badge for the hard core. There's only room for one "benchmark" game - otherwise UT3 would have done better.
Even the hardware companies that have been perpetuating the arms race of video cards realize their time is up. Look at things like Larrabee and the new hardware alliance to try and clear up confusion brought up by integrated graphics.
I'm speculating that even though Iron Lore was very capable and probably had a really cool project in the works, they probably had a big uphill battle trying to convince a publisher that money could be made there. The PC market just doesn't work like that anymore.
[ QUOTE ]
East: Read the link Telekinetic Frog linked, that explains why piracy hurt Titan Quest
[/ QUOTE ]
I did read it, but I was making a more general comment on the threat of piracy and how the industry perceives it. I'm outside the industry right now, so I don't have the emotional investment yet that many of you industry guys have. To you guys, it's personal. To me, it's a guy looking from the outside in.
However, on the other hand, I now do know a few game developers now, and I have to say the hypocrisy is pretty amazing. Developer people a, b, c, d, and e are pirating games from their competing companies, and then when they launch their game, and it sells bad, they start complaining about how piracy hurt their sales, and their trade.
Again, generally speaking, not pointing any fingers at anyone or any company.
I can honestly say i never played a pirated game except for roms from really old games which is a bit of a grey area anyway.
I tend to buy a game rarely and after much debate:
I never got a chance to play TQ, but from the screenshots, gameplay videos and some of the pimps in P&P the game looked great and congrats to everyone involved in the development of the game.
It sucks that ILE closed shop and considering the amount of Polycounters who worked before and up until the closure, you can't help but take it to heart.
I hope all of you find other work without any serious issues.
And not to de-rail the thread, don't hate on hawken. He's not all that bad, even if he is a jerk sometimes :P
Replies
Any modelers drop me a line.
As for Iron Lore closing, this fucking blows. Good luck.
Alex
You IL guys made a great product that a lot of people love. I'm sorry to see that piracy and other issues had such a detrimental impact on your livelihoods. Good luck moving forward, I know all that talent will find its way to new homes soon.
If any artists wouldn't mind working in SF, shoot me a mail.
my condolences. I'm sure you'll all do fine though!
Titan Quest was great? I'm not seeking the un-popular vote or being devils advocate here, but anyone who can ignore the terrible animation, hilarious collision detection and lame hack and slash repetitive gameplay is just doing lip service to the guys here who might have made it.
[/ QUOTE ]
Wow
I worked at Iron Lore.
A ton of guys just lost their jobs busting their ass for a project and company they believed in. Ya sure the game had some flaws but is this the appropriate moment to be harping on them? Especially when you haven't even played the game?
Have some tact.
B
If anyone knows of anyone laid off looking for work who don't want to resort to EActiUbiSoft (CA I'm afraid), pm me, we've a number of folks were still in need of.
In any case, there's always a reason for the closure of any business, speaking objectively.
When UGA closed I was saddened because they were making some of the best games of the day, breaking new ground and inventing new gameplay styles. That studio was focused and creative.
Why anyone should feel sad for a games company who's only known game took way over the industry average (time) to make, I have no idea. Sure if you have a personal connection to someone that's fine, I understand. People lose jobs. But this company closed because no one wanted to give them any money.
Also one has to ask, where did all the money made from Titan Quest go anyway? Isn't the concept of a games company to make games that pay for the next game to be built?
- BoBo
Edited - BoBo MAD!... BoBo Calming.... BoBo ok
Hawken why do you always have to be such a cock? I'm not one to get into things online but damn your attitude sucks and I have never seen you contribute anything constructive to this community. You shit on anything people have going. Please lighten up and think a bit about the people involved before you post such inappropriate garbage.
[/ QUOTE ]
QFT
Lol For real Hawken, Have you ever even worked on a video game or at a video game studio?
It is a sensitive subject. I know I loved that studio. I have never felt as appriciated or cared for as much as at IronLore. I am friends with everybody there and I compare every studio culture I go to with IronLore's because it felt like home.
A lot of my very good friends spent years working on that project. So it stings a little when Sombody like you Hawken, Just ups and passes judgment without even playing the game.
Titan Quest was a great looking game, and it's a real shame about IronLore. I hope they comeback someday.
The other point that's a bummer is losing another Boston area studio. Not all of us have the easy choice to up and head to CA or TX. Meanwhile there is alot of talent out here. Really hope we can turn that around and get some new studios with solid projects. Or make it happen for ourselves.
Hawken, I'm sure that something you've worked on has one or all of the issues you've mentioned. You might want to keep that in mind. Plus, that is not the point of this thread. So I gotta agree with Bobo, you're not contributing in this situation.
Michael's PC Game Dev Venting really put me in a downer.
[/ QUOTE ]
Same here, I figured I could shake it but I woke up today and I'm still down. Really if a studio with that much talent and the beginnings of a profitable franchise even in the face of rampant piracy, goes under, its just a question of who's next. Especially with every investor paralyzed by the state of affairs in the US economy as it deals with Wall Streets F-ups, again and again.
I have a feeling if the housing bubble didn't burst right when they where looking for funds they would have found them.
TQ was a good game, it had it's issues but for a first game they did an amazing job. Most of the bad PR was undeserved and came from people that didn't actually take time to play it. I wish there was some kind of online counter that showed how many actual hours a reviewer played the game and how far they progressed.
Anyway the good far outweighed the bad, its a horrible shame to see it come to an end.
On the TQ subject, I played the demo and enjoyed it, then I was lucky enough ot be able to borrow it for a few weeks from a coworker and got instantly hooked, those flaws, well, anyone can find flaws in any game very easily, but I didn't notice anything that could screw the gameplay or gaming experience in any way, and this after several hours (I think 10/12), of course I didn't beat the game, but still.
It's quite a shame that TQ wasn't as financially successful as it should have been. You guys really did an amazing job on that game and I had quite a blast playing through it.
When it released I was living with 2 other roomates and we spent the better part of two weeks playing through the game on co-op on each difficulty. Then when the expansion shipped we had all moved out, so we picked it up again and played through it online.
Lots of fun, so thank you and congrats on putting together an awesome game.
Hopefully something good will come of it in the long run.
Michael Fitch, the Director of Creative Management at THQ had this to say about the Iron Lore closing;
"Some really good people made a seriously good game, and they might still be in business if piracy weren't so rampant on the PC. That's a fact."
You can read his whole rant / post on the subject here;
http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=42663
Sucks that Iron Lore had to close up so early in its' life but I figure everyone will do just fine in their new jobs. Titan Quest and its' expansion where great and I had a lot of fun playing them. I knew a good chunk of you guys over there and know you put a lot of effort into the game. I miss Boston myself to some degree, not the crazy blizzards though and having to drive to work in them after doing a minor archaeological dig to find my car first in a massive snow drift at the end of the driveway. Good times.
Seriously though, sucks that it closed, Titan Quest was a good game, and I would have loved to see what else you could have put out.
That aside I have to play devil's advocate for Hawken here. From Michael Fitch's post it seems like they shot themselves in the foot with overzealous anti-piracy measures, which amounted to bad press and bad word of mouth about their game. Of course sales will suffer. He said that the game earned money despite that, so what would have happened if they had just cut out all of the "crash to desktop" security checks and kept the forum shitfest from giving them bad press?
Little things can really hurt when it comes to a consumers choice to buy a product. Take Universe at War: Earth Assault. I've played a bit of it pirated and think there are some really sweet game mechanics there which would be fun to tinker with online. I have the cash to buy it, the computer to run it, so why not? Wait, online play is through Windows Live? Ok, not getting my cash then.
I's just a ridiculous notion that when a company sends a build to QA they need to run a few test cases that takes pirated versions into account...maybe even writing their own crack and sending it to their testers. Who even schedules for such measure during production?? The publishers should really be on top of this kind of thing, let the game developers focus on what they do. (Problem is, they end up choosing flaky solutions like Stardock)
Btw next time you want to trial a game, run the demo.
My sympathies go out to the guys and girls who lost their jobs, and I hope you find new ones soon.
As for the piracy talk, I think a lot of the time it is shifting the blame, finding a reason for bad sales other than ones that are directly related to quality, reviews, and marketing. Still, the problem does exist, but we don't -really- know to what extent, and how it impacts sales.
Publishers/developers often like to equate one pirated copy to one lost sale. Now, if facts of life were that simple I'd have a 10" dick, abs of steel, and driving one of my custom made Aston Martins to work one day every week.
Nevertheless. It's always a downer when people lose their jobs.
I love my consoles too much. If a game doesn't get a console release, then chances are, I don't play it.
Hawken why do you always have to be such a cock? I'm not one to get into things online but damn your attitude sucks and I have never seen you contribute anything constructive to this community. You shit on anything people have going. Please lighten up and think a bit about the people involved before you post such inappropriate garbage.
- BoBo
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm sorry to get a few backs up in this thread but I was just offering some outside views. Yes I do feel for the guys who lost their jobs, I hardly told them to go to hell. I am genuinely sad and concerned for people when the shit hits the fan. So apologies for looking like a heartless bastard.
Bobo, (now you chose to get into it) you must of had your reasons for leaving. My curiosity (along with some regrettable BA)as to why is just met with this kind of white wash, and personal attacks (yes I may not be the most positive person here, but I have been organising the challenges once a month for about 3 years, designed our DOM crest, polycount t-shirts etc. Bobo, just what you done except make bloody good art and post the occasional "I like this"?
Anyway, bobo's comment aside, apologies for stepping on toes with my insensitive comments, I understand it is un-characteristic of me - I have been a bit of a fool. However it's food for thought, so try not to shoot the inquisitive minds
This is exactly what I had to put up with for 2 years.
Everyone IS entitled to an opinion. Just have some tact and realize that a thread like this might not be the place to dog someone while they are down. If you said what you said in a thread dedicated to discussing TQ it wouldnt have bothered me at all. It was just pore form and came off malicious. These are peoples lives being affected here and what I look for in a community is people picking each other up not kicking them while they are down.
As far as me personally, I was never looking to leave Iron Lore. I loved it there. I simply had an opportunity present itself that I thought would be better for me and my family.
Getting back on topic (and I apologize for derailing), I know these people have a lot of talent and will have no problem finding work. I just want to thank everyone who has offered contacts at their studios. It feels great to be apart of a community that truly reaches out to each other!
- BoBo
It is sad to see studios shut down and it happens all the time in our industry and these guys were so bloody talented that I am sure that a lot of them will bounce right back.
Never played it, sure wish I did now though.
Hawken - the time it took to make the game probably had a lot to do with the fact that they were building the company up from scratch.
Building a retail-only PC-only game is a massive gamble these days. Nobody is really doing it anymore except for the odd RTS here and there. The PC market is still strong, but it is evolve-or-die, and piracy is only one tiny part of the picture. You can't just sell a PC game on store shelves and expect to survive. Even a bigger deal than piracy is just the huge hassle you have as a PC customer to try and figure out if a game for sale at the store will actually be playable on your PC. That's why the only big time successful PC games going forward will be:
- Playable on low spec machines (Blizz, Valve)
- Also on consoles
- "Live" games for the online crowd instead of the Wal Mart crowd (Steam)
- Capable of milking lots of revenue from a small number of players (MMOs)
- Casual or Web based
The last category is where we are going to see explosive growth, IMO. Battlefield Heroes is one example. Metaplace, Facebook, Silverlight, etc are some other big areas of growth.
Games like Crysis are a dying breed - and I think its doing well almost because it is an honor badge for the hard core. There's only room for one "benchmark" game - otherwise UT3 would have done better.
Even the hardware companies that have been perpetuating the arms race of video cards realize their time is up. Look at things like Larrabee and the new hardware alliance to try and clear up confusion brought up by integrated graphics.
I'm speculating that even though Iron Lore was very capable and probably had a really cool project in the works, they probably had a big uphill battle trying to convince a publisher that money could be made there. The PC market just doesn't work like that anymore.
East: Read the link Telekinetic Frog linked, that explains why piracy hurt Titan Quest
[/ QUOTE ]
I did read it, but I was making a more general comment on the threat of piracy and how the industry perceives it. I'm outside the industry right now, so I don't have the emotional investment yet that many of you industry guys have. To you guys, it's personal. To me, it's a guy looking from the outside in.
However, on the other hand, I now do know a few game developers now, and I have to say the hypocrisy is pretty amazing. Developer people a, b, c, d, and e are pirating games from their competing companies, and then when they launch their game, and it sells bad, they start complaining about how piracy hurt their sales, and their trade.
Again, generally speaking, not pointing any fingers at anyone or any company.
I tend to buy a game rarely and after much debate:
It sucks that ILE closed shop and considering the amount of Polycounters who worked before and up until the closure, you can't help but take it to heart.
I hope all of you find other work without any serious issues.
And not to de-rail the thread, don't hate on hawken. He's not all that bad, even if he is a jerk sometimes :P
-caseyjones