Activision shuts down The Silver Lining - UPDATE: Episode 1 of TSL has been released! - by Enchantermon
Thirith on 4/3/2010 at 12:19
Regardless of the Blizzard bashing: what I'll never understand about this sort of thing is how companies don't recognise what a PR boon good community work could be. It wouldn't cost them anything to be nice to these guys, rather the opposite, but they go for the most blunt, dumbest way of addressing the issue.
Yakoob on 4/3/2010 at 22:27
To play devil's advocate, all those little fan-projects always get shut down (well, 99% of the cases). Most of the time it doesn't even matter which company owns the IP, it still gets shut down. So can we really be arrogant enough to call almost every single publisher / dev "dumb" for doing that? If everyone is doing it, there obviously has to be a reason for it; just because we don't see it, doesn't mean there isn't one.
We can play armchair lawyers and businessmen as much as we want, but I don't think there's many (if any) people at this (or most) boards who really understand what the politics, law and business of those decisions really looks like behind the closed doors.
Digital Nightfall on 4/3/2010 at 22:50
I believe that none of the Ultima remakes were shut down... even the ones using the Morrowblivian or Dungeon Siege engines. One was even finished and released!
Minion21g on 5/3/2010 at 17:32
Quote Posted by Digital Nightfall
I believe that none of the Ultima remakes were shut down... even the ones using the Morrowblivian or Dungeon Siege engines. One was even finished and released!
(
http://www.u5lazarus.com/AboutLazarus.php) Ultima V: Lazarus to be precise.
Taffer36 on 5/3/2010 at 18:52
You know, I wonder if Activision will succeed in doing to Call of Duty what they've done to Guitar Hero. They got all of their revenue while they could, split the music genre and basically drove it into the ground.
Music games were WAY down last year, and apparently accounted for a monster fraction of overall losses in the industry last year. I'm guessing that they'll make bucket-loads of money for two or three years, then when the sales begin to dramatically fall, they'll drop the corpse of Call of Duty and run.
gunsmoke on 5/3/2010 at 19:44
I think they need to re-tool CoD. Now that they have split into a 'Modern Warfare' setting...make it just that, a separate i.p. Give the WWII setting to Treyarch (though I think EvaUnit02 told me they are done with it. I could be mis-remembering though) and keep the modern mechanics in-house.
Either that, or just fucking drop it already, though that is UNLIKELY at best. Challenge your-fucking-selves for once. Move on with a *gasp* new i.p. and show the world just how good you are as a developer.
Taffer36 on 6/3/2010 at 02:31
Quote Posted by gunsmoke
Now that they have split into a 'Modern Warfare' setting...make it just that, a separate i.p. Give the WWII setting to Treyarch (though I think EvaUnit02 told me they are done with it. I could be mis-remembering though) and keep the modern mechanics in-house.
Actually, Activision is giving parts of the IP to TWO DEVELOPERS. Both Treyarch and Sledgehammer games will be creating new Call of Duty games going forward.
The status of Call of Duty games set after the Vietnam era is going to be hazy, because Zampella and West claim that they retain the rights to games in the series set after said era, whilst Activision is claiming that they have all rights over the entire series. What I assume will happen is that Infinity Ward will maintain the Modern Warfare series under Activision's direction, but I'm not positive.
Some are predicting that West and Zampella could return to EA to create a competitor to Modern Warfare, but I'm not so sure about this given that they just got burned by working for a big publisher and that they left and, effectively, crippled EA in the past (not that EA would hold any grudges given that MO MONEY would be involved if they came to EA).
Matthew on 5/5/2010 at 08:44
Well, let's hope so.
