LucasArts Shuts DownThis isn’t like the closures of 38 Studios or Troika. This is akin to Pontiac or Oldsmobile going away. For years, LucasArts was the premier game development studio. Despite being started by George Lucas and kept as an adjunct of Lucasfilm, LucasArts made a lot of original games that had nothing to do with Star Wars, even after Lucas’ decade long moratorium expired. But with the acquisition of Lucasfilm by Disney, LucasArts became expendable and was quickly shut down despite having two new Star Wars games in the pipe. In related news, Disney inked an agreement with EA to produce new Star Wars games for the next decade. The shadow of the Dark Side has fallen over us.
SimCity Built On Shaky Foundations, Collapses
It’d been a while since EA had released a new SimCity game, given how much money they’d been making on The Sims series. When it was announced, fans of the series rejoiced. When it was released, that joy quickly turned to rage, and all of it completely justified. The first major problem was the “always on” requirement for the game, which EA swore up and down wasn’t DRM but was absolutely necessary to play the game. Naturally, the servers were crushed, which prevented people from logging in and playing the game. As time passed, virtually every feature of the game was discovered to be at best wildly exaggerated and at worst outright lies. Enterprising hackers found that the persistent connection wasn’t actually necessary to play the game, while an anonymous source inside EA Maxis admitted that the Glass Box engine which was supposed to be performing all sorts of arcane calculations on the server side didn’t do anything of the sort. At the present time, the game is still considered to be badly broken.
Blizzard Finally Admits Reality About Real Money Auction House
For the better part of a year, the Real Money Auction House (RMAH) which was part of Diablo III has been the source of considerable frustration among players. Part of it was the fact that drops were skewed such that the only way to gear up your character was to hit the Auction House. Blizzard continually proclaimed that the RMAH was a good thing, that it would cut down on gold farmers and make the game better for everybody. They recently gave up that pretense and admitted that it wasn’t working as they had intended, stating it would be phased out shortly. Now if they could just get rid of the always on connection . . .
Hipster Microsoft Exec Opens Mouth, Loses Job
For a few moments, as the Internet measures time, Adam Orth became the most hated man in gaming. Orth was a VP at Microsoft who thought he was having a private Twitter conversation with a friend and commented that we lived in a world where everything was already always connected to the Internet and anybody who thought otherwise should “#dealwithit.” On Memebase, that might be funny. From a Microsoft exec, fueling speculations that the next gen Xbox (at that time unannounced officially) might require an always on connection, it came across as contemptuous and divorced from reality. The Internet blew up and Orth’s career with Microsoft was wiped out in the shockwave. A recent piece in Wired featured an interview with him. He doesn’t sound overly apologetic, but at the same time, he does seem to realize he screwed up.
Speaking of that, when Microsoft did make the official announcement for the Xbox One, it began one of the most protracted and probably excruciating experiences that any consumer or corporation has undergone in recent memory. The initial announcement played up Xbox One as a media center rather than a game console, which naturally landed with a thud with gamers. As the announcement was dissected and new information released, gamers completely lost even the threadbare pretense of calm as the “features” Microsoft seemed proud of served to infuriate them. E3 was Microsoft’s worst nightmare as Sony “won” the show before even starting their presentation. The always on connection, the stance against used games, the draconian policies for indies, all of it led to Microsoft making a bigger crater than Chixulub. Despite finally getting turned around and backpedalling on virtually everything they planned, Microsoft’s already shaky reputation had taken critical damage.
This year had some decidedly high profile job vacancies opening up. Don Mattrick, the man who’d been running the Xbox Division at Microsoft, left the company shortly after E3 to become CEO of Zynga. Mark Kern of Red 5 Studios recently got fired by the company’s board. Todd Hollenshead left id Software this summer, with John Carmack only recently deciding to leave for Oculus VR, thus becoming the last founding member of the company to leave. John Riccitiello stepped down as CEO of EA. Phil Fish basically said, “screw you guys, I’m going home” and announced his departure from gaming entirely. To me, though, probably the biggest departure would have to be Steve Ballmer. For good or ill, Ballmer was the face of Microsoft, overshadowing Bill Gates in many respects even when Gates was CEO. It’s like Lee Iaccoca leaving Chrysler. The fallout from this departure is going to have tremendous impact for years to come.
Still No Last Guardian
Yes, I’m a little bitter about this. Fumito Ueda revealed in an interview with Edge that he’s completed all the major creative work on the game, but he can’t say anything more. Sony, for their part, won’t announce either a release date or a cancellation. Come on, guys, you’re riding high on PS4 love fumes. Fish or cut bait.
Valve Gets Into The OS and Console Game
It hasn’t been doom and gloom throughout the year. One of the surprising stories that happened was Valve dipping their toes into already chummed waters with their new “Steam Machine” console. Running a Linux variant dubbed ValveOS, the company looks to blur the lines between consoles and PCs by licensing out the basic specs for other companies to manufacture. Their new Steam Controller is a radical departure from the gamepads we’re used to, and yet it appears to be a perfectly logical progression in terms of melding the console and the PC control schemes together. Linux has long been an also-ran when it comes to gaming. With Gabe Newell’s public disgust over Windows 8 and Valve’s clout behind the project, 2014 might be the year that Linux finally becomes as viable as Windows in terms of being able to run the latest titles without additional effort on the part of the user.
In case you haven’t been paying attention, Chris Roberts’ in-development title Star Citizen has been drawing in funds with the sort of inescapable pull normally ascribed to black holes. At present, they’re holding at just over $35 million. Although the original announcement for the game was made back in 2010 and projected to have a 2 year development cycle, the massive influx of cash has understandably caused Roberts and his team to re-evaluate their timeframe and their output. New ships have been made available, more content is planned, and the game appears to be getting released in small and easily testable chunks. Recently, the Dogfighting Module which would have allowed a rudimentary sim experience was delayed to give it more polish, and the fans seem to be cool with it. We’ll see how it all turns out.
Rhode Island Doesn’t Make A Dime
The saga of 38 Studios and the State of Rhode Island has exceeded Greek tragedy levels of pathos and acrimony. Recently, the assets of the bankrupt game developer were put up for auction, including the rights to the Rise of Nations franchise that was part of Big Huge Games. All told, Rhode Island garnered $320,000 for Rise of Nations, and not a single penny for the Kingdoms of Amalur franchise or its associated MMO. Rhode Island is attempting to recoup its losses from a $75 million dollar loan it granted to 38 Studios, and realistically, somebody better be calling Chris Roberts if they expect to see even 1% of that amount.
- Axel Cushing
