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Studios Rise And Fall

Posted by Zonk on from the harsh-world dept.

The fortunes of game studios are fickle. Gamasutra reports that former Blizzard developers have formed another studio. This time, vets from Blizzard North have congealed Hyboreal Games. Their first title is slated to be a PC game entitled 'Starfall'. Meanwhile, ShaggusMacHaggis writes "Stainless Steel Studios, developers of Empire Earth, Empires, and the yet to be released Rise & Fall, have shut their doors. Despite the game being 'almost gold', Midway wanted the game held back from an October 05 release date, instead being released in Feb 06. The catch was that Midway did not want to pay Stainless Steel Studios for this delayed time period."

4 of 19 comments (clear)

  1. Tactics by Red+Flayer · · Score: 4, Informative

    A former Stainless staffer gives the info... they've shut their doors due to lack of cash. Summary implies Midway pushed the release date, article doesn't say that.

    Anyway, once Midway realizes they are 'losing' bundles more by not releasing than the cash advances would cost them, they'll pony up and the game will go back into production.

    Or, they'll sell the IP to help offset their losses, and another dev house will take over, hiring many of the people who were working on it under SS.

    I suspect that SS is playing the only card they have left, which is to halt production until they get payments.

    Midway is not exactly doing well right now, and they can't afford to lose a potentially big revenue stream next year... even if it widens their cash gap this quarter. Funny though, their market cap has tripled over the past six months.

    Maybe they'll restart in January, so management can keep this quarter's financials looking not terrible.

    --
    "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
    1. Re:Tactics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Stainless tried to play that card, and Midway balked, so the company is no more. Unfortunately without money and the support of the publisher a developer simply cannot continue to exist, if it were plausible to "work a few more weeks for no pay" I'm sure that would have been explored. Unfortunately it isn't, and wasn't. There is 0% chance of SSSI reforming, sadly. Hopefully Midway will find someone else to finish up the development of RAF, but who knows how reliable that system will be (have fun learning the code).

      -a former sssi staffer

    2. Re:Tactics by ShaggusMacHaggis · · Score: 2, Informative

      yeah, the link i submitted for the accepted article was NOT the gamespot article, it was a link to the rise and fall forums where several ex sssi'ers have been posting (and more info is provided). Not sure why it was changed. Anyway - Midway came right out in their quarterly report and said something to the effect that they felt the market was too crowded (with AOE3 + Civ 4), so they wanted to delay the release of R&F. I was looking forward to the hero mode of R&F. Oh well.

      Here is a link to the R&F forums
      http://raf.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display. cgi?action=ct&f=9,132,,10

  2. Re:More Diablo II Please ! by Ford+Prefect · · Score: 4, Informative

    Unfortunately, past experience has shown that great games are frequently 1-off flukes. When I first played Lemmings I thought a great new era of gaming had arrived... Now I couldn't even tell you what the guy who wrote it is doing currently.

    Oh, you've probably heard of it... ;-)

    --
    Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?