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Elixir Studios Closes Its Doors
Another development studio has closed up shop, with British company Elixir laying off staff and closing down development. Elixir has published two titles, the political sim Republic and the mad scientist strategy title Evil Genius. The cancellation of an upcoming project forced the company to make a hard decision. From the article: "I'm very proud of what all the staff at Elixir have achieved and the games we produced...We gave it everything we had but ultimately it wasn't quite enough. It seems that today's games industry no longer has room for small independent developers wanting to work on innovative and original ideas. Perhaps there is no longer any need for them."
It was a neat concept and was fun, but I found it becoming fairly monotonus after awhile. I'm sorry they're going out of business, I would have liked to have seen more games from this company. I might have to look for a copy of Republic and give it a try.
Well, it did. Sorry. The concept was good, but the execution fell flat. Building your lair and hiring goons was cool and all, but that seemed to be the end of it. To get anything done you just placed goons on a map of the world and waited while tehy did their evil things. After a while, it became very boring and pointless.
Am I sorry to see Elixar go? Yes and no. They did not really make good games, but who knows, maybe they would have came out with something.
"It seems that today's games industry no longer has room for small independent developers wanting to work on innovative and original ideas. Perhaps there is no longer any need for them." It is quite sad how little chance small independent developers really have in today's game industry, however I don't think many would agree with saying that there's no need for them. Actually, having seen Evil Genius in Wal-Mart, it makes me wonder what the definition of a small independent developer is these days. Now what I'd consider small independent developers would be those responsible for games like Gish, Alien Hominid, or Darwinia. And, from what I heard Evil Genius was a great idea that suffered from some serious issues later on, such as trying to keep track of what your minions were doing around the world. I guess when you start working out a publishing deal even small independent developers can easily get pushed into completing and selling something that isn't necessarily 'done' in their eyes.
You get what you give. They sure did come up with some very unique concepts, however, they weren't very fun to play. As much as I hate (read: hate, hate, hate, hate, hate) the Sims, it is an incredibly original concept. I remember watching the trailer that came on a couple other Maxis products years before the Sims was released, and I thought, "Jeeze, this is gonna be crappy. Gimme more SimCity" Boy was I wrong. (Again, I don't like it, but I understand it's level of innovation).
Point is, there is plenty of room in the world for unique and original games (*koff*Katamari*koff*), however, you also need to make them fun. This is the element that was sorely lacking from the two games I played from Elixir. The presentation was fantastic, but it seems to take more than a 95% failure rate for companies to realize that is the least important factor if gameplay is neglected.
It is a game, after all. If it doesn't feel like you're playing a game, then you're probably not playing it.
Digital Sailor
Dear Elixir,
Please open source your games so that your fans may continue to enjoy them, or modify and adapt them. The benefits will surely outway the remaining royalities/profits from keeping these games as commercial ventures.
I downloaded the demo version when it first came out. I think it was fun for about 2 minutes until I had to micro-manage everything. While it was a very cool concept and definitely had potential the execution unfortunately just wasn't there.
Ultimately I gave up and uninstalled it.
As for the comment regarding the lack of need for smaller indepedant game developers.. well I call bullshit on that. Just because 1 company fails at producing games that people will buy and enjoy does not mean that all companies will fall into the same boat. Those that can come out with games that are actually FUN TO PLAY (gasp!) should do well.
Until they are eaten up by some bigger player who will then make sequel after sequel spewing out the same regurgitated crap with "All new features!"
This is exactly wrong! We need more independent game developers, and less EA/UBI powerhouses. It's the small time developers that push out to the edge of reason and technology, looking for new angles on old hats. Seriously, if a rag-tag small time developer in a town like mine (Mesquite TX) can create a virtual industry shattering revolution, then any small time developer with the right drive and motivation can do it too. EA is not looking to innovate, and why should they, they found a model that works and will exploit it until it runs dry. The industry will stagnate and we'll just get more of the same for years and years if people start to buy into the BS that independent developers are "things of the past," when there is no future without them!
Corporations don't make breakthroughs, the exploit them. It's the 2 nuts in their garage working in the fringe that do that.
People tend to forget that games aren't just the entertainment industry, but the science and technology industry too. This isn't some simple shop or system a single entity can tie down for their own, this is where art meets science, fun and creativity reigns supreme here.
Well, at any rate, I wish the artist well in searching for new employment. The UK doesn't seem to be the best place to find a game dev job these days. But hey, EA is always hiring here in the states!
I don't understand...they have to close down because their title was canceled? By whom? Their publisher? If that is the case, then that means all of their paychecks were coming from the publisher since they didn't have enough saved up from previous games. The term 'Independent Game developer' has been warped in this case. They were more like contractors. When I hear 'Independent', I picture it meaning you are 'Not Dependant' on other sources, like income from a publisher. 'Small' means your team is small enough that you can support them, and thought I read somewhere they had about 40 members.
I've got copies of both Evil Genius and Republic sitting on my shelf... I enjoyed playing both of them.
Republic was clunky, but once you get past that, it's a good game. It was deep, and you did have to micromanage everything. It's an acquired taste, it seems.
Evil Genius was a great game. Yes, there was a LOT of micromanagement in there, but I really enjoyed the little touches... at the end of the day, it made me laugh, which I guess is the whole point for something designed for entertainment. I haven't completed it, but I fully intend to someday - It just got swept away in all those other games that came out in autumn 2004, like Halo 2, Dawn of War, et al.
Give them both another shot, Republic's on budget at the moment, and Evil Genius isn't that pricey.
In fact, I want to play Evil Genius again now... that shrink-rayed Eiffel Tower is looking lonely in the corner of my Evil Office, next to the Evil Potted Plant...
Just another harmless drunk
Dude, we heard you the first 1000 times. You know that trolls always lose the argument, right?
Why is it that every developer that goes out of business is dying because of some quirk in the industry? Bleh. Lets call it like it is. Their games weren't fun enough to enough people, period. Innovative ideas are a dime a dozen. What's difficult is making those ideas into a appealing and FUN game.
Knight37 - Once a Gamer, Always a Gamer
Both these games strike me as failing for similar reasons. Yes, they had a premise that they execute awesomely - and in both cases, literally beautifully, too. Evil Genius was, "Hey, let's make you feel like you're in a 60's movie as the villain!" I defy anyone with a reasonable experience (ie, could spot the experience, had a monitor plugged in, got the game to start up... eccet) to state in this objective, Evil Genius was anything other than a total and resounding success.
It was definately the "where do we go from here?" bit that sort of made the actual "Do I pay for this?" experience fail. The problem wasn't the caliber of your idea. I don't think I saw a single advert for it, but every gamer I knew was talking about it. To borrow a snarkism, you had us, but you lost us. If nothing else, that should definately reasonate as a success for a studio other than the Big X (solve for number of major studios like Blizzard, EA...)
Should this be seen as another reason to push for online distrubution (like steam), rather than the traditional publishing model?.
Having played EG, and Republic, whilst not perfect games they were solid, however it was clear these games were never intended for mass market consumption, and were clearly aimed at a niche. Niche though appears to be a dirty word amongst the largely fatcat publishing industry today.
I dont like Valves steam personally (mostly due to its over integration), however it does work, perhaps it would be in the interest of smaller niche developers to look into similar systems while they still are afloat?.
On a different note, I had the pleasure to contact Elixir (with questions with respect to a university research project), and was shocked at how approachable and helpfull they were in responding, going above and beyond the expected level of response - providing me with a wealth of advice and documentation, in contrast ot others who failed to respond. Sad to see them go.
The "unique mouse gesture" interface has managed to piss me off again and again. In particular the game never wants to let me change my weapons for my squads. I've never been able to get the airstrike gesture to work, and the rocket gesture can be a real PITA when I really need it. On top of that I have to deal with the fact that some of the gestures are similar enough that the game gets confused. Why the hell was a gesture based system used at all? I have all these fancy keys on my keyboard that arn't doing anything, there wasn't a need to subject me to that torture.
It sucked. It was boring, monotonus, and after the 2nd level, not at all entertaining. It felt like work. Strike that. It was harder than work, with less reward.
I didn't even realive the same studio had made E.G. until this article. And yet as I look back, I can see alot of similarities between the games. Too much information, a Not-At-All intuitive interface, and a lackluster AI in games where the interface is something you spend 95% of your time in and the AI basically has to play the game for you.
Elixer failed not because they had publisher problems, or because they had a canceled game. They failed because they were a large group of creative, intelligent people with practically no outside testing. They internalized everything, thought their ideas were good, and sent them out. No one to say "This is too hard" or "this is too slow". I think I'd rather the company dissolve and the talent migrate to other studios than they release another game I get excited about, only to see the execution fail.
Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!