Piranhabytes and Jowood separate, Gothic goes Console

[Vault Dweller]

VD, I am guessing that the contract that you hypothesized above would be given to some newb studio, but why would PB, who have 2 fairly successful titles under their belts, contract out such a large sum? Surely they would have a small-medium war chest to fund part of the game?

I doubt it. There is no way a developer can put money aside making games that sell less than 500k copies. As for the contracts and the status ("not a newb studio"), there are two kinds of studios: the ones whose games sell millions of copies and anyone else. Same happened with Troika's Bloodlines. The game sold ok, but Activision didn't pay for the patch and didn't pay royalties until Troika was forced to close the door.

Anyway, I talked to PB, they would like to thank everyone who liked and played the Gothic games. I really hope they can stay in business.

 

[JarlFrank]

VD, I am guessing that the contract that you hypothesized above would be given to some newb studio, but why would PB, who have 2 fairly successful titles under their belts, contract out such a large sum? Surely they would have a small-medium war chest to fund part of the game?

I doubt it. There is no way a developer can put money aside making games that sell less than 500k copies. As for the contracts and the status ("not a newb studio"), there are two kinds of studios: the ones whose games sell millions of copies and anyone else. Same happened with Troika's Bloodlines. The game sold ok, but Activision didn't pay for the patch and didn't pay royalties until Troika was forced to close the door.

Anyway, I talked to PB, they would like to thank everyone who liked and played the Gothic games. I really hope they can stay in business.

You talked to them? What did they say? Make a newspost!

 

[Shannow]

Here's hoping that PB land themselves a publisher who isn't going to push an unfinished piece of shit like Gothic 3 onto the market when it clearly could have been so much better.

And here's hoping that PB have learned from their mistakes and get their act together, so that they finish their games in time.

OT:
Great, I finally got my new computer two days ago. The G3 CE has been lying on my desk for nearly two months and I expected the "über" patch in the next few weeks. Seems I'll have to play it as it is.
I just hope Pluto 13 stay in business and keep on developing games.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Anyway, I talked to PB, they would like to thank everyone who liked and played the Gothic games. I really hope they can stay in business.

I hope that too, but alas, the times for small, integrated teams with vision are over. I certainly hope they get another chance to develop a game, though. Hopfully a little more focused and character driven than G3 was. That and the horrible Genome engine almost broke their neck.

 

[Vault Dweller]

You talked to them? What did they say? Make a newspost!

I'm trying to get an interview. I won't post anything until then.

And here's hoping that PB have learned from their mistakes and get their act together, so that they finish their games in time.

Because it's *that* easy. I'm sure that only their laziness had prevented them from delivering a polished product.

 

[stargelman]

Yep, that is how capitalism works. The people who have the capital get all the profits, while the people who actually do the work barely get anything. The best parasite system since feudalism! You voted for it, you got it.

The people that have money also take the risk through, people that work for PB got salary no matter haw game will sold.

...and lose their job when their compnny goes bankrupt. It's entirely fair!

 

[Hazelnut]

That and the horrible Genome engine almost broke their neck.

Why do so many people go on and on about the Genome engine being rubbish? It's a great engine from what I've seen of it. It needs more effort spent to optimise for the huge amount of hardware variations out there, but the engine is pretty impressive IMO.

I really hope they can develop the engine and make another game with it.

At the end of the day PB were shafted by JoWood and the overreaction of reviewers everywhere who hardly even batted an eyelid for equally serious issues with other, more mainstream, games.

 

[Kingston]

It didn't help that all the reviewers raved about how shit it was, even though it was a game above the standards set by Oblivion.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

That and the horrible Genome engine almost broke their neck.

Why do so many people go on and on about the Genome engine being rubbish? It's a great engine from what I've seen of it. It needs more effort spent to optimise for the huge amount of hardware variations out there, but the engine is pretty impressive IMO.

I really hope they can develop the engine and make another game with it.

At the end of the day PB were shafted by JoWood and the overreaction of reviewers everywhere who hardly even batted an eyelid for equally serious issues with other, more mainstream, games.

Yes, but it was rubbish in it's release state. There're alot of features that weren't included in G3, that's why the Engine is still an ongoing project at PB right now. If they sort out most issues though, then I agree it will be a viable basis for future games.

 

[Hazelnut]

Yes, but it was rubbish in it's release state. There're alot of features that weren't included in G3, that's why the Engine is still an ongoing project at PB right now. If they sort out most issues though, then I agree it will be a viable basis for future games.

Well, I see a large continuum between 'perfect' and 'rubbish' I suppose. Considering that i could play it fine on an Athlon XP2200+ and GeForce 6600GT even given it's high end requirements, it's pretty scalable.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Yes, but it was rubbish in it's release state. There're alot of features that weren't included in G3, that's why the Engine is still an ongoing project at PB right now. If they sort out most issues though, then I agree it will be a viable basis for future games.

Well, I see a large continuum between 'perfect' and 'rubbish' I suppose. Considering that i could play it fine on an Athlon XP2200+ and GeForce 6600GT even given it's high end requirements, it's pretty scalable.

Performance issues aside, it was still a stubborn engine. If PB won't get their Tech base (that also means adaptability for future upgrades, like new Shader pipelines etc.) and some decent tools, I don't see them continue focusing on content, but on tech issues. That's one thing a publisher has to consider before signing a contract with a developer, that they have a rocket solid tech base. If PB don't get the shit together with Genome, we won't see a game at all from them.

 

[cutterjohn]

Wow....

Anyone have figures on Gothic 3 sales? I find it hard to believe that it made no money. Surely the German audience alone would have made up the development costs?

Last I heard a while ago was 300k copies in Europe... Hard to believe that they didn't make money selling 300k+ copies. THey must've wasted alot of money on something or other... dunno what though, as SpeedTree isn't that expensive, plus the few other toolkits that they used weren't that expensive either.

Console. Guess I'll be passing on that one even if they manage to pull it off, and it's good.

 

[Elwro]

Well, we don't know if JoWood plans to release G4 on PCs at all.

 

[Baphomet]

Who knows, maybe PB will stick around albeit in some new incarnation. Half a million copies is not a lot when you're trying to be a big time developer. But when you're an indie studio who is servicing a niche community it's a different story. If those Iron Tower folks sold half a million copies of AoD those guys could use hundred dollar bills as toilet paper.

 

[cutterjohn]

Well, we don't know if JoWood plans to release G4 on PCs at all.

Dunno, but what little info there is sounds like console only, and I'd bet that it's going to be an action-adventure at best.

BTW The 300k figure that I had heard earlier was just European sales from before or right around the time of G3 release in the U.S. I find the 500k total recent number to be kind of low, if the first one was accurate.

Still selling 500k copies, they should've made some money from it, unless they had a particularly shitty contract.

Genome: Reading between the lines in some of the interviews, and comments on forums it really sounded to me like PB was trying to get Genome together as something they could potentially license to other developers ala Gamebryo. If they can manage to do that(and own the engine in the first place), AND they can actually license it to someone, we may yet see more games from PB. (Although they could turn into a pure toolkit company too, esp if they make more money off of that...)

IP: Erm, Gothic IP isn't exactly earthshattering, so it shouldn't be too hard for them to come up with another generic fantasy setting, or even better a mixed fantasy/technology setting ala Arcanum.

[EDIT]
500k copies IS alot for most games. Hell, most games usually are lucky to get to 100k copies, which used to be the typical cash generating point.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

I just derived from an interview (in German) that Jowood wants to continue to make a G3 patch, and possibly an Addon, but with a new developer. Also, G4 is in discussion with some potential developers, and planned for PC and Consoles. Not sure how they want to pull that off.... Gothic without PB is now just a "Brand" anyway, so it's dead.

 

[Shannow]

And here's hoping that PB have learned from their mistakes and get their act together, so that they finish their games in time.

Because it's *that* easy. I'm sure that only their laziness had prevented them from delivering a polished product.

Now you're being unfair. They worked their asses off. That doesn't change the fact, that they made mistakes, took on too much and not only failed their first deadline but also delivered a buggy not fully ballanced game after been given what? Six extra months?

If they don't accept their mistakes they are doomed to make them again. Luckily they accept them and seem to be willing to learn from them. Maybe you should follow their lead and not try too put words in my mouth.

 

[sheek]

Good riddance.

 

[Kraszu]

Yep, that is how capitalism works. The people who have the capital get all the profits, while the people who actually do the work barely get anything. The best parasite system since feudalism! You voted for it, you got it.

The people that have money also take the risk through, people that work for PB got salary no matter haw game will sold.

...and lose their job when their compnny goes bankrupt. It's entirely fair!

I don't argue if it is fair of not just look like you forget one part of it. You loose job that is hardly comparable to loosing money and time, you made money in all the time you worked.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

It's not just the engine, it's also the art assets as alot of the higher poly stuff just went unused, that's just a waste of time and effort. Anyway, there's no reason the gothic games couln't work on consoles actually, i'd probably welcome it as i'm getting sick and tired of PC games running like shit these days. But a console gothic needs to be developed by PB, another studio making it is just bullshit.

 

[cutterjohn]

I found this on world of gothic forums:

JoWooD Productions works on Gothic 4 Liezen, Austria, 22 May 2007; JoWooD Productions is already for several weeks in positive discussions with potenziellen Entwicklerstudios for Gothic 4 on PC and console. With the selection of the developer on very high quality standard as well as a finally error free programming of the play one focuses in particular. With the publication of the fourth part of the successful game of roles on Current gene consoles JoWooD pursues the new enterprise strategy purposefully toward console market. The discussions with the past developer Pluto 13 led to no acceptable result, why co-operation was terminated

Sounds like they already have a new developer, but I've never heard of them...

 

[cutterjohn]

There is no way that PB could fix Genome enough such that any console mfg would allow a game using it on their console, let alone being able to shoehorn the engine into the comparatively microscopic resources available to a console...

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Microscopic? if titles like Gears, crackdown, Oblivion and gta 4 are working on consoles, it's doubtfull system power is a reason why gothic 3 couldn't be done on the 360 or PS3. Gothic 3 is one rough looking game.

 

[Volourn]

"Only, we're meant to think the Interplay/Black Isle relationship ended cordially"

Relationship? BIO and Interplay had a relationship. Interplay and BIS didn't. BIS was simply a division of Interplay. It wasn't even really its own entity.



"Same happened with Troika's Bloodlines. The game sold ok,"

Define 'ok'. This idea that Troika's game sold well or 'ok' is just plain bogus with nof acts to back it up. They obviously did not sell well enough.

Period.

 

[Texas Red]

This is a classic textbook example how marketing fucks up a game developing company and a popular name.

They forced G3 to be released at Christmas even though the were aware of the alpha state build. No money comes in because of their fuckery of Christmas sales greed, they break the contract with PB which makes a lot of talent leave and forces the company to find new publishers which will dictate them their console rules. The result is that the company, because it is inadequete to deliver a mainstream shit game and is in the state of constant change, dies. The former publisher give the Gothic name to some consolifed developers who, because of ludicrous dumbing dow due to the now huge fears of JoWood, producuse such pile of crap that even the ADD kiddies desire it not.

In the end PB dies and the Gothic series dies. All because the publishers wanted to cash in on the Christmas sales.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

This is a classic textbook example how marketing fucks up a game developing company and a popular name.

They forced G3 to be released at Christmas even though the were aware of the alpha state build. No money comes in because of their fuckery of Christmas sales greed, they break the contract with PB which makes a lot of talent leave and forces the company to find new publishers which will dictate them their console rules. The result is that the company, because it is inadequete to deliver a mainstream shit game and is in the state of constant change, dies. The former publisher give the Gothic name to some consolifed developers who, because of ludicrous dumbing dow due to the now huge fears of JoWood, producuse such pile of crap that even the ADD kiddies desire it not.

In the end PB dies and the Gothic series dies. All because the publishers wanted to cash in on the Christmas sales.

I have already declared my sympathy for PB in this thread, but this is wrong.

There was a deadline agreed upon by PB and Jowood.
As far as I know, Jowood extended the deadline twice, giving Piranha in total one year longer than planed to work on the game.

Surely Jowood is not without blame, the fact that all games they release are bug-ridden messes strongly speaks against them.
However, lets not just play twisting facts and blame teh evil publisher here.

 

[cutterjohn]

Microscopic? if titles like Gears, crackdown, Oblivion and gta 4 are working on consoles, it's doubtfull system power is a reason why gothic 3 couldn't be done on the 360 or PS3. Gothic 3 is one rough looking game.

Oblivious doesn't really require LARGE amounts of memory like G3 does to run well... Gamebryo apparently knows their business when it comes to engines.

[EDIT]
Deadline: Yes, several other people here have told me that PB had to have their deadline extended twice, when I mentioned that the Christmas interview sounded like Jowood forced them to rush it out for Christmas early.