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Eurogamer History Flashback 2000
MMOGamer71
Member UncommonPosts: 1,988
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/article_29857
By Gestalt Published 06/12/2000
Chris Roberts "a bit too ambitious" Wing Commander designer talks about his departure from Digital Anvil as the company is bought out by Microsoft.
Source - GameSpot and IGN
"In the wake of the collapse of Digital Anvil, co-founder and soon-to-be-former CEO Chris Roberts has spoken about his decision to leave the company he founded just four years ago. As we suspected, the company's troubles were down to "wanting to develop not only hugely ambitious games, but too many hugely ambitious games", leaving the company's finances stretched after four years without a single game being released - the sole title to emerge with the Digital Anvil name on it was actually mostly developed by a small British company.
Having left the monolithic corporate world that is Electronic Arts almost five years ago to found Digital Anvil in the first place, it is somewhat ironic that his dream development studio is now being taken over by the monolithic corporate world that is Microsoft, and Roberts has confirmed that his decision to leave the company is simply because he has no desire to find himself in the same situation again.
We also have confirmation on the status of Digital Anvil's various games, with Chris Roberts apparently "spending a fair amount of time talking to other publishers" at the moment, trying to find a home for real-time strategy game "Conquest", which was dropped by Microsoft a few weeks ago, triggering the crisis that has lead to the company's demise. "Loose Cannon" will also be looking for a new publisher, with project lead Tony Zurovec leaving the company to complete the game elsewhere. Erin Roberts will be staying on at Digital Anvil though, continuing his work on an as-yet unannounced Xbox title.
But what next for Chris Roberts, the man who brought us the groundbreaking Wing Commander series? "I just want to see Freelancer out the door, and then I want to take some time to reassess everything. Taking three and a half to four years to build a massive title just seems like a huge amount of effort. There needs to be a better way to do it."
Rather worryingly though, according to GameSpot "he has expressed his interest to work in film and exploit broadband technology to us recently". Oh please god, no! Anybody who has had the misfortune to see the truly appalling Wing Commander movie will be praying that Chris has a sudden change of heart. Although he has produced some impressive games in his time, his debut movie was something of an unmitigated disaster, flopping at the box office and featuring some hilariously bad acting and dialogue which would be perfectly at home in a computer game cutscene, but just looks plain ridiculous on the big screen. We can but hope..."
Same concerns by some 15 years later with his new project and outside of Wing Commander series funded by Origins Systems, literally has no successes on his resume.
Comments
So, you don't consider Privateer and Freelancer successes?
That's funny, as they represent my favorite and second-favorite space games of all time.
Read 1st paragraph.
Reading won't change that you clearly stated he has no successes outside of Wing Commander.
Meaning you don't know what you're talking about.
Here:
Same concerns by some 15 years later with his new project and outside of Wing Commander series funded by Origins Systems, literally has no successes on his resume.
That is correct and that claim is sourced via the article who state the same thing, thanks for playing stump a chump.
Didn't even get past the 1st poster crying over a sourced 2000 article.
Edit:
Forgot to mention Privateer is Wing Commander series, Freelancer was only released via Microsoft dollars.
I'm afraid the source being based on ignorance changes nothing about your own ignorance.
You're ignorant about the topic at hand, and you've just demonstrated it clearly to everyone here.
End of story.
Yes, these "concerns" about Mr. Roberts' skills were so damaging that he only managed to raise $85 million for his new game venture.
That alone should be sufficient proof that the project is doomed...
/S
IMHO "Lord of War" is a great movie and very much a success that looks good on Roberts resume.
Anyone who is able to drag a GOOD movie performance out of Nicolas Cage deserves my respect.
That Roberts has some great successes in the video gaming industry part of his resume is a given.
Have fun
I read the OP when the thread was still completely empty > intended to make a joke about seeing the positive aspect of Roberts not making anymore movies > 1 round of Heroes of the Storm later > see people praising his movies
NVM
Company shuts down=/= the games themselves weren't success...
You have to keep in mind:
A: Install bases were a lot smaller especially where gaming rigs were concerned... so ambitious products often suffered
B: Space sims have always been a Niche Genre, so Freelancer being a success doesn't really mean they made a whole heap load of cash, secondly if the company was already defunct, how would this help it? Sounds like a false correlation to me.
C : Freelancer is one of the most often held titles in top 10 space sim lists, along with the likes of homeworld, the original X titles, Wing Commander, X-wing, Etc...
D Many of the companies putting these types of games out struggle, especially between the late 90's and now. It almost all but died off.
BTW, Weren't you foaming at the mouth about people doing this to Derek Smart a couple threads a go?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
"In the wake of the collapse of Digital Anvil, co-founder and soon-to-be-former CEO Chris Roberts has spoken about his decision to leave the company he founded just four years ago. As we suspected, the company's troubles were down to "wanting to develop not only hugely ambitious games, but too many hugely ambitious games", leaving the company's finances stretched after four years without a single game being released - the sole title to emerge with the Digital Anvil name on it was actually mostly developed by a small British company."
I'm being completely honest. You're drawing upon ignorance here. It's really easy to understand if you'll listen to why. All developers can find themselves in a project that is too ambitious. Ambitious projects doesn't always mean out of a person's skill level or even ability to produce such a project. It could be due to funding (say, for example his 'ambitious' project then required $10 mil, but he only had $3 million). It'd have been too ambitious. Tackling and failing to produce an ambitious project doesn't equal incompetence.
In fact, looking back at an ambitious project to find the mistakes and ways to correct those as a learning experience is what all professionals do in the field. Is his current project ambitious? Yes. Too ambitious is another matter that an industry vet will truly understand.
Btw, some other 'too ambitious projects in the past' include projects like the original LoTR trilogy; going to the Moon; etc.
These projects succeeded because they were tackled by industry veterans that know far more questions and issues than someone not in the industry does.
This is why I can firmly point to Derek Smart and say he's being dishonest. I know he's an industry vet, but I am too.