Core Design Loses Grip On Lara

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to an Eidos press release discussing major changes to the Tomb Raider franchise. Following the recent resignation of the managing director of Tomb Raider developers Core Design, seemingly due to the disappointing reception for Tomb Raider:Angel Of Darkness, Eidos has announced that "...in recognition of the Company's need continually to enhance the value and maximize the commercial opportunity of one of its key franchises, for which all intellectual property rights belong to Eidos, the Board has concluded that it will transfer development of the franchise to its Crystal Dynamics studio in the U.S." Crystal Dynamics are probably best known for the recent titles in the Legacy Of Kain series, so it'll be interesting to see what they make of the latterly lackluster Tomb Raider franchise.

Comments

Re:fp (what they need to do)

[Txiasaeia]

I agree. If they leave it alone for long enough, people will only remember the good, earlier games. Then, they just need to plug the game by saying, "From the guys that brought you the ORIGINAL Tomb Raider..."

Re:Good choice

[easychord]

For someone who apparently loves the Tomb Raider franchise so much, you have a hard time spelling Lara Croft.

Tomb Raider games are not deep things. They are about vertigo, sudden surprises and a unusual but shallow female english protagonist.

The formula gets boring pretty quickly.

Media Industry is full of corporate crap

[ihatesco]

I can remember When Tomb Raider was born, and who made it. Core Design was a hell of a publisher. It published very good games for the Amiga, like Premiere (a very colorful platformer), Jaguar, and a very nice helicopter simulation.

Core Design at the time was synonim of quality, of a good group that could make his own name to stand out.

Then Playstation came out, Commodore crash and burned, and Core Design found herself to do three things:

1. create a 3d game because all the lamers, pardon, the new videogamers brought in by the Sony Playstation wanted a 3d videogame, after having seen that spectaular demo (but gaming shite) of Toshinden they wanted a 3d game.
2. find herself a new patron, because the playstation development model demanded your team to be under a patron publisher at all times (in order to get the sdks you have not only to spend gabazilions of dollars, but also to demonstrate to be "worthy" of attention).
3. find a new way to create action videogames "the United Kingdom school"-way, since they lacked at the time. (Nowadays very few titles are action videogames like they were in the years of the Amiga, now all the software houses are american, and either they publish fps, or other action arcade titles they do are lame, lame, lame. Oh, yes, and Crash Bandicoot is shit, and the other titles mentioned by Crystal Dysuxmix is either inferior to many Amiga platformers or is something that has rpg-ey elements, so they don't count. There is no "American School" for arcade games. All the good action/arcade games are either english, japanese, or just overrated because there is no competition).

After Tomb Raider 1, Eidos put the gun to Core Design's head and said: "if you want more money (a) surrender Lara Croft, (b) publish other Lara Croft games. No, we are not Nintendo, don't even TRY to do something else or you are OUT".

Now what happens when the public gets tired of playing the same games for 7 times in a row?
What happens if you get the same team to reprogram the same game for 7 times in a row and NO research and development (which is IMPORTANT in the Videogames Market, Japanese do a great deal of R&D)?
What happen if in a franchise you put more hype than substance?
You got it: you produce lame ass games and people will let them stay on the shelves.
That was the rule in 1980 with Commodore 64 and Nintendos, that is the rule nowadays.

Eidos taking Lara Croft from Core Design and giving the scepter to Crystan Dysuxmix is the sign that the dickheads at Eidos haven't understood a shit of what makes the videogame industry tick, and even if they have good developers and marketers under them they will soon be doomed. It happened to Square and to Sega which produced excellent games to be on the brink of death, why shouldn't it happen sooner or later to Eidos?

Maybe Core is having a party right now because they already tried to kill the bitch some time ago (wasn't Lara supposed to be dead at the end of "The Last Revelation"? Or at least >?) and maybe they programmed the new videogame with their own asses just to say screw you to Eidos and screw you to Paramount... I wouldn't be surprised by that

Anyway in 80s and 90s was the success of a movie that made or ruined the career of videogames. Paramount bitching about the poor sales of the videogame that reflected on the movie is someone spewing LIES to save their asses. A Movie Sells Itself. Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within, it was a great movie but wayyy off-topic from Final Fantasy. Its sales were low. But Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and IX, and the subsequent X were great sellers. Why do we have to believe to Paramount and Eidos corporate shit?

And now mod me down as troll and flamebait, but American Videogame Industry is good for RPGs, FPs, Strategy Games, and might be good for sports games as well, but for action games American Videogame Industry sucks my balls.

Re:Media Industry is full of corporate crap

[PainKilleR-CE]

Maybe Core is having a party right now because they already tried to kill the bitch some time ago (wasn't Lara supposed to be dead at the end of "The Last Revelation"? Or at least >?) and maybe they programmed the new videogame with their own asses just to say screw you to Eidos and screw you to Paramount... I wouldn't be surprised by that

Actually, I think Eidos just did them a huge favour, because Eidos forced the game to release to meet a fiscal quarter anyway, and the game did sell pretty well at first (it is #2 in the US in terms of sales($) so far this year, how bad is it that the top 2 games this year are generally considered buggy crap? Oh, and the first XBox game on the list comes in at #5 only because #6 and 7 are GBA titles (therefore have lower sales in terms of dollars, even though they sold far more units, surprisingly, though, that #5 title is not the XBox port of the #1 title, which comes in at #10). Of course, whether or not Core will be able to ever get funding to do anything else remains to be seen, since Eidos seems to have gone to great lengths to push the blame over to them.

Anyway in 80s and 90s was the success of a movie that made or ruined the career of videogames.

It still does make or ruin the success of the game. That #1 title is severely tied to the success of the Matrix series, obviously. Of course, the video game industry has always been hit & miss with movie licenses, and the same can be said of movies made from video game licenses, but neither stops people from looking, like people driving past a bad wreck.

Paramount bitching about the poor sales of the videogame that reflected on the movie is someone spewing LIES to save their asses. A Movie Sells Itself.

This is very true. I'd also add that the timing is just really bad for a Tomb Raider sequel, considering the other overhyped sequels this summer (and possibly the disappointment of those sequels, leading people to wait on Tomb Raider, whether they liked the first one or not). Not to mention they've just got to find a reason to shift the blame when a movie marketed towards kids took the #1 spot, although they should just admit that the summer market was itching for a kids movie now that we're 2 months into the summer break for all of those kids.

Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within, it was a great movie but wayyy off-topic from Final Fantasy. Its sales were low. But Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and IX, and the subsequent X were great sellers. Why do we have to believe to Paramount and Eidos corporate shit?

Final Fantasy doesn't require much to be on-topic, I just don't think the US market is completely ready for mature animation (and by mature I don't mean hentai), even computer animation, nor do I think that Square is necessarily the best group to try to break that market open. Their stories may work for games, but the movie, though stunning visually, just doesn't hold as well.

And now mod me down as troll and flamebait, but American Videogame Industry is good for RPGs, FPs, Strategy Games, and might be good for sports games as well, but for action games American Videogame Industry sucks my balls.

I think the American video game industry just has trouble figuring out what people want in those markets, and the Japanese industry has done a much better job producing (which probably has a lot to do with the fact that the Japanese industry takes a lot more risks and doesn't release in the US until they think they can sell it here). The US industry knows that if they make them good enough, FPS, RTS, and PC-RPGs (and sports) are all they really need, until the market turns away from them.

On the flip-side of the coin, a lot of people are still trying to figure out how to do action games that people will enjoy now that everything's gone to 3D. Nintendo seems to have gotten this right, but their market for these types of games still isn't nearly as big as it used to be. Of course, now that Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire has sold ~