Ritual bought by Mumbo Jumbo
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http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=15054
It's nice to see the company that gave me a chance doing so well now.
I like Mark Cottam, he's a very nice guy.
It's nice to see the company that gave me a chance doing so well now.
I like Mark Cottam, he's a very nice guy.
Replies
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Ritual Entertainment, known for its work on such games as 25 To Life, Delta Force - Black Hawk Down, Counter Strike*, Painkiller, Quake 4, and the SiN franchise,
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THE HELL THEY SMOKING
*= former hot potato dev of counter-strike condition zero
One got cancelled, the others they made assets for.
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"bla bla bla solidify bla bla bla casual games bla bla bla Everyone at Ritual will leave bla bla bla we will be saddled with a mountain of debt bla bla bla one of the dumbest moves we could have made bla bla bla
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Sounds like someone just bought some magic beans. Which reminds me I have to put a new coat of paint on a bridge and call the CEO of Mumbo. Now where did I put that snake oil?
It just wreaks of a bad idea. Buy a studio and tell it to stop doing what it does best? I would imagine people work there because they liked the IP and the type of work the studio did. Now that has all changed and it will become just another 8-5 job till they can go back to doing what they like, or find some place that suits their interests. I bet most of the talent leaves, if they haven't already.
Smart move take the lazy way out and buy a name that stands for talent, instead do the leg work and find your own talent that is interested in your type of game and hire it. The name Ritual won't get your games made guys, the people will. If those people don't believe in the new products and are excited to work on them they should have given the cash to a hog farmer.
Mumbo better be nice to that new talent or Mumbo will be stuck with nothing but the Ritual name, a big pile of bills and empty seats where talent once was.
I saw what happened to Humongous Entertainment when it became part of Infogrames (now Atari) I was painfully close to the whole deal. They did the same thing, switch content and froze IP's. People left crazy fast and it destroyed the place.
Edited for clarity
After having worked there in the past... you know they really weren't that great at doing what they did, which is why a ton of people left that place over the years, they had some of the best artists working there, but they never managed to keep any of them. Tons of projects got canned, out of the 3 that i worked on while i was there 2 got canceled and the one that did come out didn't really do very well.
They are a small company and change is really good for them because they were really going nowhere with what they had going in the past, barely making it going project to project constantly losing and hiring new people, morale was really low and i think this change is really good for them. I mean they have 30 people working there, maybe even less now, and thats tiny compared to some of the other developers out there, i think an average team for a next gen project is at least double or even tripple that, its very hard for a small company like that to compete with bigger developers, so doing smaller games is going to be much easier for them and they'll be able to be much more competitive at that.
Its not like Mumbo Jumbo is a giant evil corporation, i think all this buyout means is now Ritual has some resources to get started and make some games, can't wait to see them make something cool.
I must admit, my fondest experience making a game was at Mumbo Jumbo. It was our ip and we didn't have to answer to any publishers, because we were the publisher. We had total freedom within our own ip. (snowball run)
I'm interested in seeing where this goes.
Yay for Ritual! Enjoy!
It makes me VERY relieved to read what the rawk and skanker had to say. I really hope this unleashes their creative potential and in general allows them to make good games while at the same time improving their work situation. In most of the examples I have seen and lived thru of this kind of thing, it was meant to benefit the top 5% who promptly cash in and leave.
So is Sin episode 2 coming out or what?
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They better finish Ep. 2. I need to know what happens to Jessica
UPDATE
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Alas, what this means for Ritual and its fans is a new era. In fact, it would appear that new games in the SiN series and others won't be happening anytime soon now that Ritual is owned by MumboJumbo. "The idea of acquiring Ritual was to have them strengthen our development in the casual genre and not to have them involved at all in the action style games," Cottam explained. "If there's an opportunity to have them do something on the SiN episodes, we would look at that, but that will not be the focus of the company. The combined companies will focus exclusively on casual, unless opportunities present themselves that we think are strategic from a business standpoint... Again, I wouldn't close the door on [traditional games] but that's not the primary focus."
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NOOOOOOoooooooeeeeesssss!!