Infogrames has Sold the Civilization Franchise

Reo Strong writes "Yahoo Finance is reporting that Infogrames isn't making enough money and as part of an announcement it was revealed they are selling the rights to the Civilization series. "Bonnell also said that Infogrames recently sold the franchise for the game Civilization, making a capital gain of 15.5 million euros, which should help second-half accounts."

Comments

To Who?

[TwoStep]

Does anyone know who they sold it to? Firaxis? Another publisher?

Wait, isnt Infogrames Atari now?

[darkmayo]

I thought they had adopted the Atari moniker from when they picked up Hasbro Interactive?

As well where is ole Sid Meyer? Did he go as well or will he still be pumping out stuff (mmmmm PIRATES!)

Re:Wait, isnt Infogrames Atari now?

[Mattb90]

The parent company based in France is still called Infogrames - or Infogrames Entertainment to give the company its full title. This is the head of the group, which contains units like Atari, Inc. (which operates officially in the US, and is the parent for all the 'Atari' offices, like Atari UK).

Did they just sell the name?

[Dr. Spork]

The article is pretty unclear. I assume that coding for Civ4 is well under way; Civ3 has been out for a while. Will this affect development? Or is it that Firaxis will just be coding for new masters, and little will change in the project? Wow, I would sure hate to see this excellent series start floundering for reasons of ownership...

Civ 4 in development still.... any changes?

[Sailsa]

The Civ series has been one of my favorites for years now. I have probably spent more time playing Civ 2 than any other game and still remember how I failed an eye test following the weekend I received that game. Normally I have 15/20 but too many hours staring at a screen with no sleep can change that. Anyways, I know Civ 4 is in development with Sorea Jackson leading. He gave a presentation regarding franchises earlier this year and mentioned what was being developed in the new edition. I'm confused as to how this series is not making enough money. Civ 3 was a huge success in terms of sales when compared to previous versions. I only hope that the new owners can continue this great series for many years to come. I know they'll get my money the day Civ 4 is released.

Re:Civ 4 in development still.... any changes?

[Aloekak]

I'm confused as to how this series is not making enough money.

The Civ series is making money. That's why they sold it off, they thought they could get plenty of money for the rights...the rights to distribute it.

You've got to remember that the gaming industry is much like the movie or music industry (I'm not talking about the evilness, but not ruling that out as well). At the top, you have the big distributers, the Atari's, Infograme's, EA's, etc. At the bottom, you have the development studios. The development studios will pitch an idea to a distributer and then hopefully get the funding to do it.

This is an overly simplified description, but should give you a good idea. That said, Sid Meier and his studio, Firaxis, will probably keep turning out new titles, but under a different distributer(atleast as far as the Civ series goes), he may still keep future Pirates, Alpha Centari, etc series titles under Infogrames.

Hopes and Suggesstions.

[mnmn]

I hope as a result of this, more than anything else, the next Civ will have the top-down view option that the first Civ had. I've always had trouble with the side view Civ2 onwards had. The north-south directio n is twice as squished as the east-west and moving diagonally is terrible without the grid.

The other 'features' newer civs have are realistic and animated units, which go through pains to move/attack/fortify, whereas I like to build huge civilizations and move around units real fast, no sounds, animation, messages or delay.

Another feature I'm hoping for is grouping up units, like you do in Command n Conquer and Tiberian Sun, where CTRL-num after selecting a bunch of units bunches them under the number, and ALT-num selects them immediately. Usually I'm using more than one unit attacking a city, transporting them elsewhere, even with workers, flashmobbing a city zone. When you have hundereds of units, civ becomes a pain.

Lastly, the simple queueing of production in cities in Civ3 is terrific, but I'd like more, maybe through scripting. For example NEVER let a city goto civil disorder at the cost of causing starvation, or NEVER let shields fall below at the cost of civil disorder etc.

PS a civ that doesnt end in 2040, and smoothly translates into an Alpha Centauri game wouldnt hurt. At that point it would be civs on planets rather than continents, where the cost of transportation would be very high.

I'd still want Sid Meyer to be part of the development team though.

Re:Hopes and Suggesstions.

[Zemrec]

PS a civ that doesnt end in 2040, and smoothly translates into an Alpha Centauri game wouldnt hurt. At that point it would be civs on planets rather than continents, where the cost of transportation would be very high

One thing that I've always been bothered by about the Civ games (and clones) is they still adhere to the "B.C." and "A.D." timelines of our civilization. Also especially annoying is the way they scale the number of years per turn from ancient to modern times. Why is that?

For instance, by about 2000 BC (or is it 1000?), the Egyptians already had a dynasty lasting thousands of years with empire building and pyramids, etc. But in Civ, they scale the B.C. times to such a degree that I've NEVER been able to build much of an empire in that time period. Maybe I'm just not a good player, but a LOT of things happened in ancient times.

The other thing is, the BC/AD convention is an artifact of the predominant religion of our civilization. The Civ games are supposed to be simulating what could happen given different cultures/religions/etc. Who's to say that there'd still be a Christ?

I'd want the game years to start at 1 or 0 and count up. Perhaps at turning points in your civilization (change of rulers/governments, new religion) then they'd give you the option of reseting the calendar.

One other thing I've wished for is the ability for cities to produce multiple units/buildings at a time. Perhaps you could use a slider or such to determine how many resource shields go to what.

And I'll second the idea of unit grouping. They sort of have that in Civ3 with armies, but those don't appear regularly (or at least until you have the military academy), and they're limited to 3 or 4 units.

Rally points are also in Civ3, but I'd like the option for individual cities and types of units to have multiple points. Also, how about way points for when you need to get new units at your home base on one location or continent to go to ships, which then transport them to a foreign country you want to invade? You could have all that with rally points and scripting.

Here's the rundown

[EvilDonut]

HomeLAN Fed has the details, but here's the rundown:

• The buyer is not known at this point. An Atari/Inforgrames rep. has stated that it's up to the buyer to disclose. No rumors yet, either.
  
• Atari/Infogrames has sold the right to publish any new Civ games. They retain the right to sell the old Civ games until october 2005.
  
• The sale is part of Atari/Infogrames' plan to raise the capital needed in order to repay a 117 million bond due in 2005.
  

Re:Here's the rundown

[MyDixieWrecked]

An Atari/Inforgrames rep. has stated that it's up to the buyer to disclose. No rumors yet, either.

That means it was microsoft.

Perhaps FreeCiv held a fundraiser?

[leonbrooks]

Hey, it worked for Blender. (-:

How many home-baked cookies would FreeCiv need to sell to raise 15.5 megaeuros, I wonder?

Re:New Developer should Publish it through Steam

[Babbster]

If a Civilization game comes out requiring Steam, I won't buy it.

As has already been pointed out, Civilization 3 made a lot of money (if not, there would not have been two expansions), and the only reason Atari/Infogrames sold the rights was because they needed the quick cash infusion. They don't NEED to change the distribution scheme and, in fact, it can only hurt them.

Hmm.

[djdanlib]

I hope they also got a good deal on rubber and uranium from the trade. Maybe after their envoys have created such a good relationship, the two companies will unite in an alliance to smite down the Ottoman Empire, too.

Re:Smart

[obeythefist]

Did you ever play the game? Warmongering is more effective than ever before! The special units available to some Civs are incredibly useful. The addition of armies and refining of combat makes the whole system better than ever for being aggressive in the game.

There are many excellent strategies for a warmongering player to adopt. I'm not sure where you're coming from.

Total Annihilation II

[Gamelore]

With such a high profile sale, maybe they'd also be willing to sell the Total Annihilation rights to Gas Powered Games.

What ever happened to that rumored South Korean Total Annihilation II project anyway?