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Interplay Forced to Liquidate (France)
genrader writes "Voodoo Extreme is reporting that Interplay has had judicial liquidation take place. If you've been reading the gaming news, a lot has been going on with Interplay financially, it seems all this finally caught up to them. Interplay has formerly published very well known games like Icewind Dale, the Baldur's Gate series, and Descent. Farewell, Interplay." Update: 01/06 02:57 GMT by H : This affects just the company in France; sorry for the confusion.
There is an update in that article which clearly stated "I mailed you earlier about Interplay probably being dead, it turns out they're still alive (sorry about that), Titus have been liquidated but it only affects companies based in France, which doesn't include Interplay."
Was the article submitted and checked before the update, or is Interplay still considered dead regardless?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Interplay never supported their products well anyway.
Video Production Support
Well atleast they didnt get bought by EA.
...does that mean they'll be releasing keygens for all their games?
However, my question to you, the readers of slashdot, is...
How do you think they could have avoided this?
Discuss.
Love the Third Amendment?
The story is debunked.
I could have told you years ago that this was going to happen. Why? Because I own Interplay stock. It's the kiss of death, me owning one share in a company. Want to make sure your biotech firm doesn't get FDA approval for their new product? Just have me by some stock. Really. Look at Advanced Tissue Sciences. See that 50% drop? Two days after I bought it. That was all me, baby. /sticking to my boring 401(k) from now on...
the pirates I tell you, arrrg. Actually, I'm trying to remember a game I played by them, I know I can google or go to their website. I think the big hype game was SACRIFICE, I bought it, played it & ho hum. didnt't live up to the reviews IMHO.
So many games over the past several years to come from their halls.
A few the poster didn't mention:
Alone in the dark series,
Fallout,
Planescape Torment,
Kingpin: Life of crime,
Carmageddon,
Giants: Citizen Kabuto,
Sacrifice,
Dungeon Master,
MDK,
etc
From TFA:
Update: Duck and Cover takes cover as they debunk their own story:
I mailed you earlier about Interplay probably being dead, it turns out they're still alive (sorry about that), Titus have been liquidated but it only affects companies based in France, which doesn't include Interplay.
So. Apparently this story is now meaningless.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/01/05/news_61157 37.html
I'm not sure how wide the popular appeal of the game was, but an Interplay game I found realy cool was the Star Trek: 25th Anniversary game.
It was a puzzle game that wasn't the most slick game of all time, but it featured much of the original cast as voice actors which gave the game an incredible appeal. Does anyone else have an sleeper Interplay games that they thought was pretty decent?
Phew, almost "GAME OVER" -- but saved by Slashdot's bad editing :-)
I can't believe the publishers of Descent are gone. That game was revolutionary. On the other hand, the low popularity of such an amazing game can only be blamed on a bad publisher.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I bought some RedHat stock recently because I thought it wouldn't fall any lower than it was. Guess what, the week after it was 30% less. Luckily I didn't invest much there. So I'm kind of wary of buying their stock now. I don't know them to go out of business, which is something that will happen if I buy their stock four or five times.
As stated in an earlier post, Interplay has not been liquidated as of yet; only those entities in France have been dissolved (see linked article in post for update). It's true what they say: ignorance is bliss. Until it gets you into trouble with the law...
That's what it says, you stupid fuck.
They also published this game where you control three vikings, one at a time, each having different skills. And you have to get them all through to the end of each stage to continue. I got up to one of the last levels, possibly even the last one, when I either hit a dead-end, got bored or a life (can't remember which). But I still remember the password to jump back to that level though: "MSTR". Sad...
why run from Vincenzo?
...published very well known games like Icewind Dale, the Baldur's Gate series, and Descent. Farewell, Interplay.
5 64 /
There was also a not so well known game called "Out of this World" which is still one of my favorite games. I just played through it again a few weeks ago.
http://www.mobygames.com/game/sheet/p,2/gameId,
---
Yeah, I do it for the attention ;-)
Microsoft stock and stock in each of the companies listed here: http://www.riaa.com/about/members/default.asp
This may or may not be related to the current topic, but I've just bee to the Interplay online store which appears to be down and unable to complete transactions at this time. Is this a result of the stated legal action?
Link: http://www.interplay-store.com/
kitco.com
dude, stocks are scam, buy euros, your dollar is toast, you cannot create 600billion in extra slush, and not see 8-20% devaluation yearly. So get out of the cycle, buy euros or gold or a mix.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
"Baldur's Gate forced to Liquidate?" ...that DOES sound better.
Despite the many people who will probably try to correct you on this issue, stick to your guns. While Blizzard (then known as Silicon&Synapse) did indeed develop Lost Vikings, the game was published by Interplay.
This game revolutionised my life.
KIDDING LOLZ
But it was fun.
But then again interplay aren't dead.
Sooo.... right about now its pretty pointless being philosophical about things.
Thanks for your time
UPDATE: This just in, I was lying. About the whole damn thing. I don't even exist.
Finding a market and sticking to it would have saved them. What they made was so diverse, but it wasn't really designed for either everybody or someone in particualar.
They made the Clay Fighter series a long time ago. It was entertaining game but had no depth.
Interplay also had a game a long time ago called "Learn to Program Basic" which ironically crashed all the time. The concept was good but it was half-assed.
They were very creative but that probably cost them the mainstream.
Decent was a hit tho
...is what they will do with the Freespace license.
(Its been discussed here before.
British Pounds are even stronger yet. In both exchange and actual purchasing power. Sterling British Pounds, the only way to fight the Bush Economy.
...turned into "Buh-bye, Gamers(tm)".
57th POST. Bet you haven't seen that before!!
"On the other hand, the low popularity of such an amazing game can only be blamed on a bad publisher."
Now don't you wish they had the "new and improved" business model? Instead of the "old and busted"?
You missed the real point of the followups, that the game is still available today on GameBoy Advanced. Blizzard being the current publisher. Blizzard even offers a playable demo.
http://www.blizzard.com/blizzclassic/
Even though this article is now irrelevant and my post is off-topic here is a refresher on some Interplay games. They also had the Star Trek license for a while and made that ST:25th Anniversary adventure/puzzle type game that someone else already mentioned.
These results are culled from GameRankings.com
1. Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn PC
2. Baldur's Gate
3. Fallout
4. FreeSpace 2
5. Planescape: Torment
6. Realms of the Haunting
7. Alone in the Dark
8. Icewind Dale: The Ultimate Collection
9. Sacrifice
10. Carmageddon
Maybe Interplay will pull an Activision in 10 years and be rescued by a game of Tony Hawk Pro Skater stature.
Continuing a thread from a different response ...
Blackthorne is still available, a playable demo is also available. The original developer was what we now call Blizzard Entertainment. They ported their early console work to GameBot Advanced recnently.
http://www.blizzard.com/blizzclassic/
Farewell, Interplay
...ummm, they are NOT faring well, nor does it sound like they will.
My best memories of Interplay would be playing Descent. That game absolutely rocked, it was one of the first games that convinced me to buy a joystick - no other game had succedded earlier.
I remember even having problems configuring the joystick, took me days to work out to manually set a jumper on my sound card to enable the joystick port.
Did anybody like me actually edit any maps? The map editing made doom editing feel like playing with playdough. I remember printing out the manual which was enormous and was written by a russian but decided to write it in english because of the bigger audience.
I remember some people suffered motion sickness more in this game than any other.
The sources to Descent 1 & 2 were released several years ago. The Descent 2 code is being worked on in a project called d2x. http://www.icculus.org/d2x/ I'm trying to find a copy of Descent 2 so I can use the data files with it. Does anyone know if it's still available? I've googled for the shareware version, but couldn't find much. (I found it at descent2.com but i couldn't get the download to finish.)
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
What? Interplay is liquidating France??? What is the world coming to?
SSL Certificate
All those are big ones for sure, but the Descent series(not to be confused with the Freespace series) equally deserves to be in the top 10. That series had a lot of FPS firsts. I have yet to find a FPS quite like it since the license got shelved when Outrage and Volition(formally the two companies were Parallax) moved to THQ thus putting the Descent(and Freespace) license into Limbo. :(
:)
Both Freespace and Descent are games that truly deserve sequels as both series were excellent. I personally put Descent 1/2/3 right up at the top of my favorite FPS of all time along with Half Life and some others.
I have fond memories of played Doom 2, Descent 1, Descent 2, and Duke 3D over Kali back in the starting days of modern "internet gaming". Back when we had to convert those darned IPX packets
You are who you are, let no one tell you different. But, never close your mind to a new point of view.
(Year - Price)
Q1, 2000 - ~$3.75
Q1, 2001 - ~$2.75
Q1, 2002 - ~$0.60
Q1, 2003 - ~$0.07 (Then changed to IPLY.OB)
Q1, 2004 - ~$0.10
Q1, 2005 - ~$0.01
The price, as of today, was 1.6 cents per share, (which is actually a nice purchase, if they pull out of their rut). Contrary to what the
I suppose they could raise capital by issuing more stock -- only 1,000,000,000 shares, and they could have a cool $16M! (Okay, maybe not.)
I'm not sure what IP assets they have left to liquidate, but such sales may breathe new life into properties that have not been celebrated since (say) 2002.
____________________________
Inago Rage - Fight, fly, and create your own arenas in this first-person shooter.
We're indie. We're working on our 14th game.
That's even bigger news!
"The Lord of Murder shall perish, but in his doom he shall spawn a score of mortal progeny. Chaos shall be sown from their passage. So Sayeth the Wise Alaundo."
The "Lord of Murder" is clearly Interplay France.
The "score of mortal progeny" are the former Interplay employees.
Finally, the "Chaos" will be Electronic Arts churning out crud games.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
Finaly! I was wondering when someone was going to get an assfull of the French... It had to happen sooner or later!
Although probably a lesser known title by some but
the Bard's Tale series was one of theirs but the
main developer left to his own pursuit.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think I speak for many Linux users when I say, "Thanks, Rorshcach1!"
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Interplay, Infogrames, what terrible names. Now Blizzard thats real computer company name.
just because your a schizophrenic doesn't mean people arn't really out to get you
Don't forget Interplay was the company responsible for Wasteland back in the 80s (published by Electronic Arts when Trip Hawkin still ran the company,) along with the Bard's Tale franchise. Without Wasteland, there would not have been Fallout. I will miss Interplay. I used to live in Irvine and actually went to the HQ a few times, very nice people.
Thank you, Interplay, for all the great games and fond memories.
After they fixed it, you gay moron!
All I could think was "Oh not again."
They probably didn't even get a chance to man the Maginot Line this time...
RIP descent. one of the best games/series of games EVER. I will probably cry myself to sleep tonight about how they arent doing any more descent stuff.
Some fans tried to make their own "descent 4" but they were sued by interplay. (fux0r)
Even on their website they don't have anything regarding Klingon Academy but it was an awesome game. At startup it says Interplay so they obviously did quite a bit of work on it.
Candle burns its brightest in the dark
"...very well known games like Icewind Dale, the Baldur's Gate series, and Descent." What about Fallout? IMHO, that's the greatest series from Interplay. I wonder what will happen to the "rumoured" Fallout 3 development now that Interplay is officially falling apart.
I thought the story was about a game company destroying a European nation with lasers! How disappointing.
read the bunni comic
It's primarily Syrians and Iranians killing Iraqis, although some Baathist Iraqis are among the foreign-directed terrorists and some Americans are among the victims.
To reiterate: Iraq, USA vs. Syria, Iran, Iraqi holdouts from Saddam's regime
eom
Here's product support for you..
A little while back, I was over my friends house and he was complaining about how Klingon Academy would crash under a NT kernel and nVidia drivers. He missed the game so, as a joke I took a look at the ASM dump. Sure enough, there was a instruction I recognized right at the point of crash. It was a string compare pseudo op. There was a little note next to that instruction in the book I learned assembly from and it was in my friends as well. It turns out that the instruction could be set to run in reverse by setting a processor flag. I figured this was the probable cause of the crash. After failing to reach Interplay via email, phone, website. I took it upon myself to patch the game (in a hex editor with machine code generated from MASM). Now the game works. Well, there still is one bug with the particle generators, but I can't figure that out from the ASM dump. He got his game back, he can live without the particles.
I know someone is going to point out the ethics of editing someone else's binary. However, I do not see the harm in editing a dead companies dead product so it will work again.
Titus was liquidated, together with three French subsidiaries, this only affects Interplay in the sense that the 67% stake of Titus will move hands.
w s_61157 37.html
Just check
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/01/05/ne
and the comments at
http://www.nma-fallout.com/
Brios
In the days when Interplay would publish a new title that had an edge to it, things were great. But they did a number of things to upset the folks over at Bioware. That's the sort of thing that shows why some companies crash.
Interplay had a few great older titles that I still find memorable. Didn't they publish Stonekeep? I loved that game, even though it had it's problems, it was one of the few games where your party members wern't really under your control or responsibility to control. It made it interesting.
If not, yay!
irc.enterthegame.com #linux
It was me who mailed voodooextreme, and also mailed them again to correct the article - my mistake. As others have said, all the French assets are liquidated, not the worldwide ones (which means Interplay is still alive). It's only a matter of time for Interplay, anyway. http://www.duckandcover.cx/forums/viewtopic.php?t= 10299
For those interested in Bethesda's response (basically, it's "no comment").
"Aha you have triggered my Titus terminator
...
sub-routine !"
"Zey haff been poisoning us all with that crap
factory they called Titus software."
"Vor yearrz we hav been trying to reroute their
pipes so that they would drown in it."
"Justice prevails. Take that for
*counts for ages*.... well everything !!!"
Some of us french ARE ashamed of Infogrames too !
We also imagine Mr Bonnell with a large armadillo
up his rear end but that's something else.
Pretty bad fighting engine, but an incredibly fun game. And the best intro music ever. It was released after Killer Instinct, when fighters were still a big deal. One of my favourite touches was the 40,000 hit combo or something equally vast, but I forget the character that had it. I'll never forget playing against a friend and all of a sudden he's hitting me repeatedly, and very fast. I look over to see shock on his face and the controller lying on the floor =)
Your brain is not a computer.
Liquidate....
Is that another word for Surrender?
I'd really like to see a remake of that game. All the new 3D technology could make it a lot of fun.
did the french regulators and french taxes put interplay out of buisness?