Jason Moyer on 1/9/2010 at 01:01
Careful, 75% of the people who post here are still in denial about Thief being a major hit.
Chade on 1/9/2010 at 02:02
I thought Paul gave a really good interview.
The interviewer annoyed me a little bit though. He often seemed more interested in airing his own opinions then chasing Paul's.
For instance,
Quote Posted by TFA
InterviewerWe can find several ex-components of Looking Glass in Floodgate. Any plans to develop a new license for PC?
PaulFloodgate is focused on casual and social games. As such, we’re not looking to do the high-end, harder-core PC games that LookingGlass was known for. But we do still push for innovation in our games, and look to do immersion where appropriate....
InterviewerWould Floodgate be interested in it [Deep Cover] now?
Koki on 1/9/2010 at 05:47
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
Careful, 75% of the people who post here are still in denial about Thief being a major hit.
500.000 copies doesn't seem like much. But hey, whatever lets you sleep at night bro.
nicked on 1/9/2010 at 06:09
:tsktsk: Half a mill isn't much...
today. For the late 90s it's a good return on your investment. You'd see that if you read the interview.
Quote:
Thief ended up being a solid hit for us. Had we done more games at the sales level of Thief LookingGlass would be thriving today.
jtr7 on 1/9/2010 at 06:34
It wasn't intended to be a MAJOR hit, and it did not sell as a MAJOR hit, and sold as well as they expected, especially with the competition they had. The hit it was for LGS meant their budget and business model were on target and made with those sales figures in mind. Half-Life came out the same year and was all around a MAJOR hit. Looking Glass was a 70-employee studio (roughly) and had one too many failures. If TDP had sold as well as Half-Life, they also would not have shut down or needed to be bailed out (assuming they wouldn't have tried other games). It wasn't a major hit, even for 1998. It was a hit for a small studio making a game that sold minimally as well as they hoped it would. Thief is hardly mentioned, hardly known, and doesn't have any public markers of a hit like games that sold millions of units. The magnitude of the hit Thief was is not relative to games of that year, but relative to LGS's business model. The magnitude of innovation, however, is definitely more noteworthy.
Last week I tried to find a list showing Thief's relative position for number of units sold for video games, and it's not even on the top 200, but games that came out long before, during, and since fill up the lists, never dropping below 2.5 million units sold.
Koki on 1/9/2010 at 09:11
Quote Posted by nicked
:tsktsk: Half a mill isn't much...
today. For the late 90s it's a good return on your investment.
I knew you'd say that, so I checked out some other game sales in that period. Q2 sold over a million, for example.
Quote:
You'd see that if you read the interview.
"for us"
242 on 1/9/2010 at 10:55
Quote Posted by Koki
I knew you'd say that, so I checked out some other game sales in that period. Q2 sold over a million, for example.
Doesn't that mean he's right?
d'Spair on 1/9/2010 at 11:20
Quote:
Floodgate is focused on casual and social games. As such, we’re not looking to do the high-end, harder-core PC games that LookingGlass was known for.
This is a shame. I think, Tim Willits of mighty id answers this appropriately: (
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2010-08-25-ids-tim-willits-interview?page=1) "It's a very sad state of affairs when more people are playing FarmVille than Call of Duty, alright. It's hurtful... [If id decides to make casual games,] John [Carmack] would definitely put himself in a rocket and shoot himself into space. The last thing you'd see from John is this [rude gesture] as he goes into space".
Quote:
Thief is hardly mentioned, hardly known, and doesn't have any public markers of a hit like games that sold millions of units.
Well, it survived two sequels and currently is struggling through the third one. Games that are 'hardly known' don't become a 4-piece series with AAA-potential.
Slamelov on 1/9/2010 at 11:27
d'Spair, if iD were closed, like Looking Glass was, Tim Willit wouldn't say that
