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Community => Task Force Hail Mary => Topic started by: Taceus Jiwede on March 19, 2013, 11:00:38 PM
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Hey all, hopefully this is the right spot. If not feel free to move this Mods.
So I was reading the new Game Informer this month and they had a little section on Disney shutting down one of its development branches. This probably doesn't mean one thing or another for us but I figured I wold post the quote anyway. I will continue looking for a an actual link I can post. In case anyone else has a sub it is on Page 32 bottom corner.
"Disney has closed Epic Mickey series developer Junction Point Studios (featuring Warren Spector) Given that Disney has stated in the past that it wants to move away from big-budget titles towards mobile games, this isn't particularly surprising. Moreover, both Epic Mickey games garnered poor reviews, and the second title in particular didn't sell well
So this probably doesn't mean much of anything at all. Its more the first part that stands out to me. It makes sense why they would shut down a game that wasn't profitable, but I would like to hear thoughts on the "towards mobile games" And I am not trying to promote fear mongering just figured I would share it with the community and get your thoughts and ideas about it. How do you think this will or wont effect the CoH proposal if in anyway at all?
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Disney was always the first target of the Hail Mary Task Force. Team Wildcard already moving on to writing up proposal to Google Play now. Don't think anyone really thought our first try would work.
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Disney was always the first target of the Hail Mary Task Force. Team Wildcard already moving on to writing up proposal to Google Play now. Don't think anyone really thought our first try would work.
Remember, though, that any large corporation is going to move slowly, and we're not going to be privy to the decisions management is making. All we can tell is that Disney hasn't bought the CoH IP; we can't tell whether the pitch got tossed out immediately, got considered and rejected, got considered and handed off to a working group to investigate whether the statements in the pitch are accurate, or was considered and handed off to a group to attempt to negotiate with NCSoft to buy the IP. As Mercedes said some time back, it's going to be months before we hear anything, and the first we'd likely hear about it would be Disney's announcement that they were restarting the game (although, barring NDAs, we might hear earlier from ex-Paragon staff who'd gotten job offers from Disney if they were trying to get some of the old dev team for continuity).
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Hey all, hopefully this is the right spot. If not feel free to move this Mods.
So I was reading the new Game Informer this month and they had a little section on Disney shutting down one of its development branches. This probably doesn't mean one thing or another for us but I figured I wold post the quote anyway. I will continue looking for a an actual link I can post. In case anyone else has a sub it is on Page 32 bottom corner.
"Disney has closed Epic Mickey series developer Junction Point Studios (featuring Warren Spector) Given that Disney has stated in the past that it wants to move away from big-budget titles towards mobile games, this isn't particularly surprising. Moreover, both Epic Mickey games garnered poor reviews, and the second title in particular didn't sell well
So this probably doesn't mean much of anything at all. Its more the first part that stands out to me. It makes sense why they would shut down a game that wasn't profitable, but I would like to hear thoughts on the "towards mobile games" And I am not trying to promote fear mongering just figured I would share it with the community and get your thoughts and ideas about it. How do you think this will or wont effect the CoH proposal if in anyway at all?
Yeah, I saw articles about those topics a while ago as they happened (Gamasutra for the studio shut down and I think I linked here at Titan to the mobile/Korean games market push by Disney back in early January or so), but it's good that Game Informer is keeping abreast of things as well. I always liked that magazine.
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Remember, though, that any large corporation is going to move slowly, and we're not going to be privy to the decisions management is making. All we can tell is that Disney hasn't bought the CoH IP; we can't tell whether the pitch got tossed out immediately, got considered and rejected, got considered and handed off to a working group to investigate whether the statements in the pitch are accurate, or was considered and handed off to a group to attempt to negotiate with NCSoft to buy the IP. As Mercedes said some time back, it's going to be months before we hear anything, and the first we'd likely hear about it would be Disney's announcement that they were restarting the game (although, barring NDAs, we might hear earlier from ex-Paragon staff who'd gotten job offers from Disney if they were trying to get some of the old dev team for continuity).
Yep, I agree. I think even 1 year/12 months would be "fast track" for something like the return of City of Heroes; I mean, yes, I fully expect CoH to return--too many less good games have been brought back for me to think CoH is gonna get left behind in NCSoft's dustbin. However, I don't expect things to be lightning fast. I do however hope CoH Return goes faster than a moot of Ents in Fanghorn Forest....
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The initial idea to contact Disney was recognized as crazy to begin with. That being said, even if one of the longshot odds lands a hit, that's a better position than what exists currently.
To quote Gimli: 'Certainty of death, small chance of success......... what are we waiting for?'
Even if the odds are small, that doesn't mean it's not worth a shot.
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"Given that Disney has stated in the past that it wants to move away from big-budget titles towards mobile games, this isn't particularly surprising.
I think this sentance says it all right there. A lot of companies are trying to get their feet wet in the market that indie developers have taken by storm on Android and iOS devices, because they see how much cheaper it is to make such games, and how much wider of an audiance they can reach. Tack on how poorly recieved the Epic Mickey games were, and their decision is really not that odd.
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The initial idea to contact Disney was recognized as crazy to begin with. That being said, even if one of the longshot odds lands a hit, that's a better position than what exists currently.
To quote Gimli: 'Certainty of death, small chance of success......... what are we waiting for?'
Even if the odds are small, that doesn't mean it's not worth a shot.
I agree, I wasn't trying to spread the message that "they were crazy for doing this" or anything like that. Long shots are the best kind if you ask me. I just thought I would throw this out there and see what everyone thought about it. I personally think Disney was a good idea. They have more then enough resources to pull it off.
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Even if the odds are small, that doesn't mean it's not worth a shot.
"Certainly the game is rigged. But don't let that stop you. If you don't bet, you can't win."
-- Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love, from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long.
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(although, barring NDAs, we might hear earlier from ex-Paragon staff who'd gotten job offers from Disney if they were trying to get some of the old dev team for continuity).
This is a very good point. I don't really know a lot of the people here, but are there ex-devs on this site? I'm still hoping and believing that the game will get picked up by a company in the near future and am trying not to be impatient, but any information regarding the game is welcomed.
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Bolt of lightning from a blue sky: http://www.joystiq.com/2013/04/03/disney-closes-lucasarts/. I don't know why, since I haven't cared much for Lucasarts in recent years, but that news made the hairs on my neck stand up.
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YIKES!
Isn't that the only game development house they had left?!
Okay, well, it is what it is. I feel sorry for those who lost their jobs, especially for those on the still-uncompleted projects that got deep-sixed without ever seeing the light of day, and I hope all those affected find other work soon.
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Bolt of lightning from a blue sky: http://www.joystiq.com/2013/04/03/disney-closes-lucasarts/. I don't know why, since I haven't cared much for Lucasarts in recent years, but that news made the hairs on my neck stand up.
Actually the news simply depressed me. Is it simply indicative of a gradual depression of the MMO market or another industrial "restructuring" resulting in the loss of jobs, simply for apparently better returns for their shareholders? It just feels like another gloomy day for us faithful...
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Actually the news simply depressed me. Is it simply indicative of a gradual depression of the MMO market or another industrial "restructuring" resulting in the loss of jobs, simply for apparently better returns for their shareholders? It just feels like another gloomy day for us faithful...
I don't think Disney is the kind of company that currently needs to pull those kind of stunts. Lucasarts isn't just an MMO company. Technically they never were. Lucasarts licensed out Star Wars for the 2 MMO's. SWTOR and SWG were not made in-house.
What I really find weird about it all though is unless Disney Interactive plans to absorb all the Lucasarts talent, it's a bad move. Disney apparently has never figured out how to make successful video games. They could learn a thing or two from LA.
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I get the feeling that LucasArts, the game dev division, was merely part of the package that came along for the ride during the Star Wars deal. I think Disney wanted the SW franchise movie rights free and clear, without any outside control getting in the way. They've never been a hardcore game development company by far, and have never made the big bucks on their games anyway, so I doubt they cared about the games division much.
It's like when CCP bought out White Wolf: they immediately killed off the World of Darkness board game business, really only buying the franchise so they could launch the World of Darkness MMO that was based on it without dealing with outside licensing fees and controls. I can understand CCP's side of it, though, what with both SOE's former licensed properties of the Matrix MMO and of course SWG having been shut down. (Rumor has it that it was Lucas who refused to renew SWG's license to clear the way for Bioware's The Old Republic launch, or made it so insanely costly that SOE was left with no choice but to shutter SWG.) The last thing you want is your baby shut down by some outside source who changed its mind on a whim, or got too demanding.
Kinda like what happened to PS with CoH in fact!
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I get the feeling that LucasArts, the game dev division, was merely part of the package that came along for the ride during the Star Wars deal. I think Disney wanted the SW franchise movie rights free and clear, without any outside control getting in the way. They've never been a hardcore game development company by far, and have never made the big bucks on their games anyway, so I doubt they cared about the games division much.
It's like when CCP bought out White Wolf: they immediately killed off the World of Darkness board game business, really only buying the franchise so they could launch the World of Darkness MMO that was based on it without dealing with outside licensing fees and controls. I can understand CCP's side of it, though, what with both SOE's former licensed properties of the Matrix MMO and of course SWG having been shut down. (Rumor has it that it was Lucas who refused to renew SWG's license to clear the way for Bioware's The Old Republic launch, or made it so insanely costly that SOE was left with no choice but to shutter SWG.) The last thing you want is your baby shut down by some outside source who changed its mind on a whim, or got too demanding.
I'm actually convinced that EA was behind the cyber attack on Sony (which conveniently happened only one month before SWG's shutdown was announced).
This doesn't explain why Disney would need to scrap LA though. If Disney owns it, then that sort of kills any possibility of LA being the one calling the shots. If Disney didn't like something, LA would have to change it.
And the fact that Disney's in-house game developer was always struggling should just make it more logical to want an asset like Lucasarts. It seems Disney knows how to conquer any branch of the media they want to, except for video-games. Having Lucasarts as an asset SHOULD have been a good business move.
Disney didn't dissolve Marvel and require them to form a new company that would have to license characters back from them.
Did the Lucasarts brand actually look BAD to Disney?
I don't know what LA's ranking is at the current time, but I thought they were in the top 10 of most successful game companies. Maybe that was pre-Tortanic though.
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Actually this is more like Hasbro buying Wizards of the Coast in order to get the Pokemon Card Game francise (which is what actually happened in 1999). Hasbro was only interested in Pokemon and promptly began outsourcing, downsizing and closing things that were not related to Pokemon.
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Actually this is more like Hasbro buying Wizards of the Coast in order to get the Pokemon Card Game francise (which is what actually happened in 1999). Hasbro was only interested in Pokemon and promptly began outsourcing, downsizing and closing things that were not related to Pokemon.
Ahhh, so that must be why Magic morphed into a Pokemon look-alike a few years ago. What was it... Seventh Edition? Eighth? First time I saw the "new look", it actually took me a minute to realize I wasn't looking at YuGiOh cards. I actually felt less mature just holding them. My reaction... wasn't kind.
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Ahhh, so that must be why Magic morphed into a Pokemon look-alike a few years ago. What was it... Seventh Edition? Eighth? First time I saw the "new look", it actually took me a minute to realize I wasn't looking at YuGiOh cards. I actually felt less mature just holding them. My reaction... wasn't kind.
Eighth Edition.
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Larry has some interesting war stories about that time period. He was doing some work for the DandD books and his art directors sometimes literally changed within weeks (on the same book!) as Hasbro "downsized" again...and again...and again.
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Looks like Disney is in the middle of a realignment of company focus. They're gearing up for more layoffs now.
Even the Mouse is tightening his belt these days. Is it time to panic yet?
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Looks like Disney is in the middle of a realignment of company focus. They're gearing up for more layoffs now.
Even the Mouse is tightening his belt these days. Is it time to panic yet?
I already panicked in December when CoH ended.........what could be worse than that? :-X
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I already panicked in December when CoH ended.........what could be worse than that? :-X
Well... total economic collapse?
I don't want a disaster that throws humanity into hardcore survival mode. If that happens, nobody will be thinking about anything philosophical, or worrying about hobbies we love, or any other such matters. I have no interest in seeing that world unfold.
...well.... unless it involves a solar flare of unusual energy that merges us with our CoH counterparts so we can go out and save the world from its own foolishness.
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You know, I've always wanted to see a zombie apocalypse story where the twist is that the correct response is necromancy.