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Ion Storm has Financial and Personnel difficulties
Shane McLochlainn writes "The Dallas Observer Online is reporting that Ion Storm, who employs ex-ID Doom/Quake hacker John Romero is in severe financial & personnel difficulties. Apparently most of the team programming the debut flagship game, Daikatana, have jumped ship to rival Games company Gathering of Developers (GoD), founded by ex-Ion Stormers. "
They weren't planning a Linux version anyways. The world hardly needs yet another boring 3d-shooter.
How can you spend that much on a stupid 3d
shoot-em-up game? Didn't they just license the
game engine from Id software? I't not like they
had to recode a whole new program. And given
the product lifetime of 3d now, they better get
it out fast.
Well, at least John Romero is better off than the bosses of Chinese Airlines :P
ION Storm is a prime example of the rampant
Dysfunctional Gaming Startup.
Todd Porter is a flaming incompetent. His actions
demonstrate an appalling self-delusional personality. His behavior at ION Storm and before
have been solely directed at lining his pockets
in any way possible. He has little real interest
in making good games, no talent, and no vision.
Most of the blame of ION Storm's impending demise
rests on his shoulders.
John Romero is the other part of the problem.
Most of the usual complaints about him are valid.
He stopped contributing to game development
during the development of Quake, which was why
he was fired from Id. This non-contribution
streak has continued throughout at least the
recent history of the ION Storm fiasco. His
desire to play the role of a game development
hero and live the life of luxury conflicts with
the goal of creating a hit game, in this case
at least. The creative energy that Romero
contributed to Doom and Doom2 are gone, at least
for now.
AC
First of all .. Romero's a designer, maybe not even that, he's more like the project manager .. not even a code-god like Carmack. Carmack is the brains behind all the big 3d games. He's the 3d code messiah as far as I'm concerned.
Romero's an egotist trying to hog as much spotlight as he can.
I will say that Daikatana looks nice, but by the time it comes out Q3A will be out and will dwarf Daikatana.
O well, that's one sinking ship I am _very_ glad I'm not involved with.
It is just another Windows game. Why even bother to post the story about it?
The one thing I've garnered from reading all these articles and .plans -- which admittedly contain half-truths & rumors along with solid facts -- is that Romero and a bunch of the other guys are living in the past. He's milked his Doom/Doom2 glory card a long time ago. Yes, he did a fantastic job on those two games, but what the hell has he done since? Interviews, interviews, and more interviews. When Doom's birthday came around a month ago, I recall (correct me if I'm wrong) that Romero made a big deal about it in his .plan. But did Carmack? No, because he was (presumably) hard at work on Q3A. Wasn't American Mcgee also fired from iD for not producing quality work, but relying on his past level design (Doom) accomplishments?
Ok, I rambled. Hopefully you can find a point in there somewhere.
It seems kinda fishy to me that all this took so long to "come out". What were all these developers that walked out waiting for? Maybe they were writting a good story or something.
X: YoduhForce (yoduhforce@hotmail.com)
I partially agree to this. We definitely need more good designers like Miyamoto and Tim Schafer (Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, etc). It is hard to find original games. Or as Brian Hook (iD) put it, "if you have to circle strafe, it's a Quake clone."
But clones are not all that bad. Rarely is the original product the ultimate form of that (new) genre (with the exception of Tetris). Personally, I far enjoyed Jedi Knight over Quake / Dark Forces / etc. It's not an original game in any sense (the lightsaber can be seen as an advanced version of Quake's ax), and it didn't have the best graphics, even at the time, or the best cutscenes, or the best story, but the overall package was phenomenol (again, IMHO. I know a few who absolutely hated it).
As there is room for more flight simulators, there's more room for 2D fighting games, 3D shooters, RTS's, RPG's, etc. I think companies should start acknowledging they're cloning a product with new twists (weapons, graphics, techniques). That I can live with. I can't stand it when they claim it's "nothing like Quake" when it really is.
But back to the original point, if for every 10 clones there's 1 original product, I'll be very happy. The ratio doesn't need to be any higher than that.
My $.04
I'm pretty sure that back when ION Storm announced their new 3D shooter John Carmack was the first to say that their expectations were unreasonable, and that he doubted that they would successfully complete the project. I was a big Romero fan back then, and figured that Carmack was exagerrating. He probably knew they would go down in flames from the beginning, but refrained from saying it publicly.
This whole incident gives me a new respect for the core developers at id, and the other hugely successful game makers who don't let the fame go their heads. I'm glad that all the rich game coders don't turn into lazy, greedy guys like Romero.
Romero and ION Storm deserve every that's coming to them.
One word: PGP
I'd hate to write-off John Romero's efforts as
futile, but during his break-up with id, the
id guys seemed to imply that Romero was a slacker
resting on his success. Maybe slacker is too harsh
but it seemed like he didn't have the
up-all-night-on-nodoze ambition needed to make
a game like Daikatana within a reasonable release
date.
John Romero should rejoin id. Reunite!!!!
and they require shockwave plugin to view their web pages ... nothing to see folks, move on.
I know half a dozen people, who with that kind of money would make a game that would even rival Q3a
Uhh... yeah.
Seems like since Virtual I/O went bankrupt people have givin up on VR. Retina Displays need to researched more, thats the next best thing, 3D games on a CRT/LCD display can only go so far. lets all hope that they become cheaper this next decade.
:) Damm near total immersion, oh well one can only hope.
I would love to play Quake6 on a P5 2ghz xDSL OpenNT platform using a 3072x2304x64 Virtual Retina Display w/Head Tracking
then u can figure out where all that money goes!
like that other guy said, office space.
then there are salaries. then there are business
meetings with potential buyers, right? then there
is marketing to build up enough hype so that you
can keep cash coming in to pay the salaries etc.
you gotta buy actors, musicians, digital art studio work maybe, accountants, god i dont know.
anyways its a big gamble, and alotta times software startups (and all businesses) die before
they ever get off the ground. at least they were honest and tried,
unlike alot of companies that exist only to inflate stock price so the CEO can sell it at a profit and walk away.
ok, maybe not a conspiracy, but it looks like all the ex-ion storm people are ganging up on them. I seen a thing over at legions.com that I agreed with on this point.
I don't know why they would want to trash ion and daikatana but it sure looks like they're trying to.
Johnny
I've got a dual Pentium 450 Mhz thingy running NT (I'm a VHDL Circuit Designer), and whenever I play Quake II, I gotta stop after 5-10 minutes cause I get dizzy and feel like barfing (It's still a fun game for those 5-10 minutes). It doesn't help that I have a Riva TNT card on a 21" montior, either.
I never have this problem with my 300 MHz K6-3D sytem, tho, cuase it has a slow ass ATI Rage Pro video chip.
I fear the future, when we have this Virtual OpenNT P5-3GHz shit. *PUKE*
-bobby, who plays Age of Empires 95% of the time... "2-D is fine enough for me... especially with AoE"
What the hell is so hard about being a game designer? Umm...lets make a Quake type game with a medievil theme! Have at it guys.
Just wishful thinking is all.
Fantasy Quake: http://fantasy.stomped.com
Reminds me of junk bonds...
How about ION Storm monitoring their employee's
r e1-x1.html
e-mail to determine if anything bad was being
said within and without the company?
Maybe legal, but it's still scummy.
http://www.dallasobserver.com/1999/011499/featu
Your not throwing Firaxis in there. Microprose hasn't been the same for years know. The last good game I like from them was Master of Orion 2. Firaxis also has the talent sure Sid as got to have a ego by know but at least he can design a game. Alpha Centauri is even coming out next month, according to the demo.
And if it wasn't for startups nothing new would ever get done.
I have only respect for Carmack. It's obvious that Amercian McGee and Romero were nothing more than dead wood.
I couldn't stand another day of American McGees ego-trippin! I'm happy he moved off to never be heard of again.
Another wad of dead wood is the EIDOS person DUMB enough to pay Romero that much money. You're right, EIDOS deserves to lose that money
The Dallas Observer article is pretty interesting, but all in all Ion Storm doesn't come out as that different from quite a few other companies. When you have an organisation which depends upon the sheer creativity of its management and officers, there are bound to be tensions.
Making a game is a difficult thing to do well, and the participants wind up investing a large personal stake in the product, which means the atmosphere tends to be emotionally charged, especially when the game is nearly completion. This isn't to say absentee management or bully-boy tactics are acceptable, just that they're more likely to crop up in that kind of environment.
Personally I don't think I'd work at Ion Storm if this article really does accurately represent the internal company politics; I'd probably want to visit the place first and get a feel for myself on that score however.
But don't count Ion Storm out yet. Daikatana does have the potential to be a very good game if it meets its design goals. Once a game is out and earning big money no-one cares how late it was. Half-Life is a huge case in point as is Starcraft. Similarly, Anachronox and Deus Ex are both shaping up to be good games which will generate revenue for the company.
This has got rather too long, so I'll wrap it up with the following comment about the perceived work ethic of game designers: unless you've been involved with the games industry, you may not appreciate exactly what being a game designer entails. It's a lot harder than it looks at first glance. After all, to a layman software's not much more than a few windows and icons.
The entire article starts here: http://www.dallasobserver .com/1999/011499/feature1-1.html
Didn't some of these guys start out at apogee, then to id, and then to ion storm?
I hardly think Ion Storm is going to die anytime in the near future. Sure, Daikatana has had some problems in the development, but it's not the only Ion Storm game, just the one Romero's working on. Fellow Ion Storm co-founders (and also former id software people) are also heading development of Deus Ex and Anachronox, both of which received favorable reviews and lots of hype in last month's PC Games. they both look like they'll be good (and sell well).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Posted by modefan:
I hope that Daikitana will be given away (source code that is), much like Golgo was. It's too bad that these people don't know how to sharpen their skills to release stuff.
Posted by Q!:
I knew this would happen. Romero is such a dork. So he wrote a little code in Wolf and Doom, BIG DEAL, this was supposed make him a "VISIONARY." I can see how working with Abrash, Carmack and company would make someone's head swell, but if EDIOS couldn't see this little snot bag for what he is, and who the real talent is over at id, they
deserve to lose all that money. You'd have to be brain dead to invest in that guy.
Engineers hate management for many good reasons. One is you need someone to focus the engineers on the end result and getting it on time. Someone to force a compromise (to the worse) to get something out on time.
Management also needs to focus, and stay focused. Thats why Steve Job's had to kill Apple's Newton program. It was a good product, but there was too much on apple's plate. ITs better to be a small profitable company then a large unprofitable one. (Of course it is even better to be a large profitable company)
Now that I think about it, those two hour meetings every couple months to introduce a future Dilber comic are good if only because they keep upper managemnt busy with minor things while the work gets done, instead of commiting to the latest fad all the time. Something to think about.
I also noticed they fell into man-month traps in the above.
"How can you spend that much on a stupid 3d shoot-em-up game?"
Well, I know $2 million was spent furnishing their expensive and luxurious high-rise office space.
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
Well, fuck, I guess that the fail-safe formula for finding boring game genres is "whatever the hell I don't personally like".
I love both first-person shooters and fighting games (the finest of which, VF3, has a depth of gameplay comparable to any game on any genre), and guess what, RPGs bore the living hell out of me. This does not necessarily mark me as stupider, shorter, uglier or younger than you.
The success of hunting games originated a lot more from an influx of people who just bought their first Packard Bell to go on AOL and want a game to go with it than from any hypothetical backlash against the FPS genre.
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
Heh... Frankly, I find a lot easier to believe that ION Stom is so FUBAR is not even funny, than there is some kind of libelous conspiracy of ex-employees to badmouth their former employer. Use Occam's Razor, kid.
"Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity"
It was an amusing read, though.
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
I always heard it referred as Heinlein's razor, but you are right.
:)
What I meant is that stupidity is a simpler explanation than conspiracy, at any rate...
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
Its all Romero...his ego got too big for iD so he moved to someplace where he could let it reign...as history shows, big egos usually come crashing down.
My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...
The Daikatana Vaporware Fiasco has gone on long enough and deserves to die. Romero has had lot's of fun playing up to the press, playing the rock-and-roll badboy of software, but the prodigal son's joyride has to come to a close sometime. There's nothing of substance to hold it up underneath. His Official Id Game Development Hero card has been played to the max. I hope they (Id) take him back someday (as an employee, not a partner) to do level and concept design.
**>>BELCH
I have absolutely NO interest in Daikatana anymore. None whatsoever.
Their petty bickering in the offices will delay this thing until something better comes out, which will force them to revise their code to compete, delaying it even more.
The trend these days also seems to be that the more hyped a thing is, the uglier it will turn out to be.
But who knows how this will turn out? I lost interest awhile ago. :P
IMHO as gamer Romero leaving ID was best thing. He was always into the medievil stuff & started gearing doom/quake that direction ie heritic/quake1 ...wasn't untill he left that id got back on track with gameplay & kickass weapons. I mean that lightening rod in Q1 wtf was that!
Carmack is THE MAN & no I hope ID doesn't let him back.
I read the Dallas Observer every week, living near Dallas. I read that article this week and laughed and laughed and laughed.
3d first person shooters are boring, how many of them do you need? Half-Life is pretty, but it's the cream of a dull crop.
John Romero may be a very good programmer, but he's not very creative.
i've been keeping up with this "soap opera" that's going on in Dallas. and here is what i think:
1)John Romero has alot of talent in game design, i don't think many will dispute this. he is undoubtably a man with a vision. the problem is he wants to create a landmark game in the FPS genre. well...i think that is an exercise in futility. Diakatana is intended to be of comparable stature to the Legend of Zelda, or perhaps even Zork. and, suprisingly, it might even be able to do that; if it were to be produced in another genre. FPS is too saturated for a game of this stature to really get noticed.
2) Romero, dispite all his press, still doesn't have enough clout to delay a game this long. i think only Shiguru Myamato (with apologies for spelling) and a very few others could do this without fear of losing funding.
3)the FPS genre itself works against Romero. consumers want fast everything: frame rates, action, and production timelines. That is why, perhaps, so many of the future FPS titles are going multiplayer-only. because single-player is too slow and boring for the all-night caffine-crazed frag-fests (i should know). but, in order to produce a game of such epic proportions as Zelda or Zork, you MUST have single-player. which is something us FPS freaks are increasingly un-interested in.
4)admittedly i am a loyal id software fan, but at the same time i do respect Romero for his ambition and i really wish he could finish his vision of a game, just because i'm curious if he really is that good.
okay i'm done rambling.
on a side note: i was really sad to see American McGee go...oh well, i suppose that's how this business works.
D. Alan Hurst
I'm fed up with this whole thing, between Ion Storm, Firaxis, G.O.D. and all the other start ups of supposed gaming geniuses that got sick of the corporations they worked for. These guys must get written up and interviewed so many times that they seem to believe they are the most important people on earth and that we care where they are developing their games. Come on, they're just games, it's your JOB, if you're not happy than oh well, it's a JOB. Had Romero and his ilk stayed at their original development houses, they could've created several games by now, and I don't think that any of those games would be significantly worse than the games that they've spent the last three years developing.
...I'm not *at all* surprised. John predicted this when Romero announced his plans, and we all agreed. Look at Quake: it took a long time to come out, and really wasn't a spectacular improvement.
Why? Romero spent so much time "play testing" and not enough time actually coding. He thinks his a coding god on the same level as John or Michael, but he just isn't. And he's too egotistical to admit, or at least _see_, when he's taken on too much. Romero leaving id was a great boon for Q2. And QA is coming along quite nicely without Mr. Romero's "expertise".
And, so, Ion's product is going down in flames. Wow, John was *right*? I'm amazed...really...
Actually, most game designers spend the majority of their time on something else. Maps, code, art, QA, whatever. There are a few cases (massively multiplayer RPGs come to mind) where there's enough detail for a designer to spend all of his or her time doing designer stuff. But FPS don't exactly fall into that category ;)
-Cybrid