Glittering Gems of Hatred - part 2

[Sir_Brennus]

Sir_Brennus the statements from Leon actually concur with what Sander said, I'm not following you this time.

Coudn't find the nice quote from LB where he actually admits that VtM:B bad sales put them out of the business.

The reason Sierra, Atari and Activison were not interested in officially supporting and financing further patches for ARCANUM, ToEE and VtM:B were their lower than expected sold units.

Not so much for ARCANUM, but very much true for ToEE and VtM:B. The lack of finance for the support of the old product and the lack of a new publisher got Troika into the fatal sandwich.

Troika's games were terriffic indeed, but cannot be called "satisfying and sustainable financial successful".

 

[Sander]

Coudn't find the nice quote from LB where he actually admits that VtM:B bad sales put them out of the business.

They didn't. They didn't live long enough after VtM to have reaped, well, anything from the sales, really, let alone be put out of business by those sales. As stated by Leonard Boyarsky, it was the lack of a new publisher rather than lack of financial success (it is of course not unsurprising that they couldn't continue to pay a fully staffed game studio for another six months to look for a publisher). Sure, it wasn't blockbuster success, but you can't get blockbuster success without the hype. And they didn't get any hype (or exposure, from what I saw).

The reason Sierra, Atari and Activison were not interested in officially supporting and financing further patches for ARCANUM, ToEE and VtM:B were their lower than expected sold units.

Not so much for ARCANUM, but very much true for ToEE and VtM:B. The lack of finance for the support of the old product and the lack of a new publisher got Troika into the fatal sandwich.

Troika's games were terriffic indeed, but cannot be called "satisfying and sustainable financial successful".

Source please.
Really. Because the reason I saw, was that they had no interest in going (further) over budget for more patches for VtM.

 

[elander_]

During a certain time players who were looking for games that provided good interactive stories with some dialog and interesting characters only had two choices: play adventure games or if they hated being stalled in puzzles play rpgs.

I think this is the main problem here. Rpgs are not adventure games like Oblivion or rpg pretenders like Neverwinter Nights 1/2. Adventure games work better with linearity and even a bit branching sometimes if the main quest is too long but not too much or it will distract the player. Rpgs are in a completely opposite ground. Rpgs need to be as much un-linear and span as many options as possible to provide the best role-playing experience.

Until devs see that these are two completely different game genres role-players will always feel their favorite game genre is being abused and adventure players will be playing inferior adventure games.

 

[Sir_Brennus]

Coudn't find the nice quote from LB where he actually admits that VtM:B bad sales put them out of the business.

They didn't.

WIKIPEDIA

Many, like former Troika artist Michael McCarthy, believe that Troika would have survived Bloodlines low sales had they sold the game directly to customers without having to go through a publisher such as Activision:[7]

“ If Troika was able to sell the games they made through Steam and sold only a 1/4 of the units they did, they'd be thriving today and everyone would have really cool RPG's to play. The more people who download, install, and actively use Steam the better. Its really small developers only hope to get their games out to people. ” .

At least there seems to be a consensus that it did sell poorly.

WIKPEDIA

After Bloodlines was released to the public, Activision compiled a list of problems customers were reporting to its customer service department and on various Vampire websites. It then authorized Troika to spend a week creating a patch to address the most serious issues.However, Troika's inability to find revenue from another project had already forced the developer to lay off all its employees in two waves, except for the three owners: Jason Anderson, Leonard Boyarsky and Tim Cain. Fortunately, several employees stayed on without pay to work on the Version 1.2 patch, which after another three-week round of testing, was released on December 22, 2004.

This was to be Troika's final patch despite the number of bugs still remaining. Unable to find additional work, Troika closed its offices for good in February 2005.[3]

I think we are both on the right side.

 

[Sir_Brennus]

nearly forgot...

And the god-like SPAZMO wrote

Last year, Troika Games released Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines: Subtitle: Appendum: Something Else. The game had a lot of strengths, but a lot of flaws, too, to the point that it apparently didn't sell much. After the 2003 release of Temple of Elemental Evil, which sold well but got Troika a bad reputation due mainly to its bugginess, and the poor sales of Arcanum a couple years before, Troika couldn't find anyone to fund their next game

http://www.rpgcodex.com/content.php?id=122+troika+"poor+sales"&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6[/b]

 

[Sander]

Many, like former Troika artist Michael McCarthy, believe that Troika would have survived Bloodlines low sales had they sold the game directly to customers without having to go through a publisher such as Activision:[7]

“ If Troika was able to sell the games they made through Steam and sold only a 1/4 of the units they did, they'd be thriving today and everyone would have really cool RPG's to play. The more people who download, install, and actively use Steam the better. Its really small developers only hope to get their games out to people. ” .

At least there seems to be a consensus that it did sell poorly.

Michael McCarthy? Who?
Also, Steam the only hope to get games out to people? Please.
Anyway, I don't know how into the whole financial deal McCarthy was with Troika, but revenue from games generally only streams in later. It's not unit sold => money for Troika (well, not unless you use Steam. Heh), it's unit sold => monthly/quarterly report => pay off publisher investment => Troika might get money this month.

WIKPEDIA

After Bloodlines was released to the public, Activision compiled a list of problems customers were reporting to its customer service department and on various Vampire websites. It then authorized Troika to spend a week creating a patch to address the most serious issues.However, Troika's inability to find revenue from another project had already forced the developer to lay off all its employees in two waves, except for the three owners: Jason Anderson, Leonard Boyarsky and Tim Cain. Fortunately, several employees stayed on without pay to work on the Version 1.2 patch, which after another three-week round of testing, was released on December 22, 2004.

This was to be Troika's final patch despite the number of bugs still remaining. Unable to find additional work, Troika closed its offices for good in February 2005.[3]

I think we are both on the right side.

...
Well, depends how you look at it. If they'd already laid off all of their staff (though I don't see an *actual* source for that), then no matter how much Bloodlines had sold, it would not have saved that staff. But as they said, Bloodlines was competing directly with Half-Life 2 (which is pretty damned stupid) and it would've taken them at least 6 months to get a new project. No company can run for 6 months without revenue, really.
*shrugs* I suppose we're both right. Heh.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Using wikipedia to support your arguments?

 

[Briosafreak]

Hey guys this Moriendor fellowseems to hate you guys for something, and the kid is trying to pick up on us because of that. Any idea who gang raped him, or even better, who didn't when he asked for it?

 

[OsirisGod]

Man that site has a lot of people that are some sort of hybrids between deathclaws and elves, goddamn some of them have a really wierd perception about RPGs
Btw who threateaned to anally rape Peter Hine's wife ?
And what the fuck do these Bethesda fagboys, oops i mean fan boys expect from us or why the fuck do they care about what we say or do in the first place, shouldn't they be more preocupied about the new horsie armors and maybe horsie condoms in 10 colors that BethSoft is going to launch soon. It's not their franchise we are trash talking is one that was a favourite for the majority of us, a game that was so bold that i bet it will never ever see a counterpart, i mean 18+ ratings these days won't fly with the market sector targeted being 5-12.

 

[Claw]

Hey guys this Moriendor fellowseems to hate you guys for something, and the kid is trying to pick up on us because of that. Any idea who gang raped him, or even better, who didn't when he asked for it?

You can safely ignore all German posters except me.

 

[jiujitsu]

Part Three: http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=34772

 

[Volourn]

Finally, a more honest aprt. He just flat out admitted to being a fanboy who likes to bullshit. It might be shitty; but it sure beats the lameness of trying to pretend to be impartial when you aren't.

 

[dagorkan]

Are they really going to right eight more 'parts' of this?

 

[Brother None]

Are they really going to right eight more 'parts' of this?

No, we were planning to wrong them.

Your spelling is about as solid as Volo's thinking, dago.

 

[jiujitsu]

I think it's only three parts.