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

Good choice

[cgenman]

Crystal Dynamics has a lot of history with both Franchises (Gex, Kain, Pandemonium, etc) and with darkness (Akuji: The Heartless, Soul Reaver: Legacy of Kain, Disney's Magical Racing Tour...).

Unlike Eidos proper, they tend to make deep games that rely upon a combination of exploiting good engines and telling a story that at some fundamental level shocks the player. If Laura Craft is going to move away from "Walk to the edge. Hop back. Take two running steps and jump." style gameplay, it needs to be moved away from the group that has been working on it for years.

They need to give Laura a harder edge and a totally revamped control scheme. So long as she remains in a world overpopulated by keys and locked doors, the series will stagnate. If on the other hand she has to assassinate a mob boss who has seen her face and survive the escape attempt, the series could take on a whole new level.

Of course this being Crystal Dynamics, who have never put out a truly episodic game in their lives, the gameplay will probably be heavily based in exploration rather than in missions. But still, such open worlds could cut to the heart of what Laura Croft is about.

Now we need to find a good producer to pull the movies out of the doldrums. Cameron, anyone?

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.