Good Bye Interplay Boards

[Cantousent]

Hmm, I just can't see how I can delete this post. As it is, I'm going to edit out all of the information. Moderators, feel free to delete this thread. There just isn't any point worrying over Interplay or Interplay's boards anymore.

[howling1]

Are They Dead Yet?

Are They Dead Yet?

Are They Dead Yet?

Are They Dead Yet?

Are They Dead Yet?

Are They Dead Yet?

Are They Dead Yet?

Are They Dead Yet?

Are They Dead Yet?

[Cantousent]

I believe so.

 

For the Eulogy:

 

http://www.gamertalk.biz/viewtopic.php?t=1213

 

For what other folks are saying:

 

http://www.gamertalk.biz/viewtopic.php?t=1218

 

Read to the end. I've had several folks give me the news. They expect Interplay to file the papers this week. If I'm wrong... *shrug*

 

What a waste.

[Aegeri]

Burn ****, I expect the debt collectors to have a nice feast on your festering corpse.

[Petor23]

Yay, I get banned from Winterwind, and the Interplay forums close down in the same day!

[Atreides]

Burn ****, I expect the debt collectors to have a nice feast on your festering corpse.

 

^It seems likely that they won't fully get what they're owed though. Still, better something than nothing. Maybe someone can salvage the VB/J engine or the actual games themselves for some value.

 

Tough on the employees that are inocent, though.

[Cantousent]

Burn ****, I expect the debt collectors to have a nice feast on your festering corpse.

 

^It seems likely that they won't fully get what they're owed though. Still, better something than nothing. Maybe someone can salvage the VB/J engine or the actual games themselves for some value.

 

Tough on the employees that are inocent, though.

This is true, Atreides. I can't bring myself to gloat over folks losing their jobs. Still, I understand folks being embittered about the loss of Jefferson and Van Buren.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

This is true, Atreides. I can't bring myself to gloat over folks losing their jobs. Still, I understand folks being embittered about the loss of Jefferson and Van Buren.

It's quite sickening really and probably not very healthy to take things like that personally.

 

On the other hand all the non board websites are still active.

[Aegeri]

This is true, Atreides. I can't bring myself to gloat over folks losing their jobs. Still, I understand folks being embittered about the loss of Jefferson and Van Buren.

 

No, I just think it delightful that those who decided to fire a development studio right before Christmas are about to face their Karma.

 

You really do reap what you sow.

[Darque]

Sucks to be them.

[Calliope]

Damn, any idea how many employees got trashed? Most were probably looking to get out before the boat sunk, not quick enough I guess. Still, beats the ass (are we allowed to say that here?) off getting fired just before Christmas.

[mr insomniac]

Good luck and good fortune to the IPlay employees, wherever they may end up.

[Capelworth]

Damn, any idea how many employees got trashed?.

105.

[taks]

in spite of their problems, i did not expect this. i wonder if this means they sell off the franchises OR try to still have a skeleton company "publish" the titles still using external developers?

 

*sigh*...

 

taks

[taks]

i feel about the same way i felt a year and a half ago when my (then) company collapsed. sad, for sure.

 

on the bright side, one of my co-workers from the same time is in town and wants to have a few drinks... for the next couple weeks! it'll be good to see him. he got it two weeks before me... lucky bastard, i had another skill they needed for those two weeks. only those two weeks.

 

 

mark

[Cantousent]

You know, the reason I'm not glad that Interplay bit the dust, and that seems increasingly apparent, is that the folks who everyone blames for this isn't the one who will suffer. I don't know "Herve" and I really don't care about him one way or the other, but I seriously doubt he will end up losing everything even if his company falters. With the amount of money flowing between Titus, Avalon, and Interplay, there's little doubt he's protected himself very well. The only people who will suffer are the employees. ...And, to a lesser extent, the consumer. After all, we want more options, not less. Almost all of us here were following Jefferson and wanted to see it come to completion. That Interplay is going under provides absolutely no comfort to me, not even grim satisfaction.

[howling1]

I just hope that when the Courts dig into what happened at iply, that the Extradition Treaty with France is still in effect...

[taks]

given the glut of crappy developers out there, however, sometimes it is better if the talent moves on and lands at a better house. i'm not trying to say the devs at interplay were bad, just that interplay was obviously bad as a business (they wouldn't be in this pickle otherwise). more options at the cost of quality is not necessarily a good thing. i think the capitalist model relies on the fact that the cream rises (so to speak) and the crap gets flushed. in other words, maybe we'll end up with fewer, but better development houses in the near future (there's a few more i'm predicting won't make it...)

 

taks

[Cantousent]

No, I get you, taks. It's just that it's hard to blame the design team for having two successive projects yanked. I actually enjoyed IWD2, but I understand that it really was a hack and slash through and through. I know a lot of folks didn't like it. It still seems as if we would have had a better idea of what Sawyer and friends had to offer if we would have seen Jefferson. ...And when I say it was a disservice to the consumer, I'm really saying having Jefferson pulled so late in development wasn't good. Would it have been good? I dunno, but I'd sure as hell like a chance to have found out first hand.

[taks]

that is true... but unfortunately, it's a specific case in an otherwise general business model. perhaps it is our own fault for trusting that we may get to see a game who's demise was foretold well over a year ago? dunno... hindsight certainly makes you feel kinda stoopid for wishing, that's for sure. the writing was on the wall, and we knew it, just ignored it. however, the mere existence of "j" did provide us with a benchmark for evaluating what we all believed to be a true crpg... oddly, a benchmark driven from a game none of us ever played, nor ever will play???!!!

 

amazing the power of our own imaginations, isn't it?

 

taks

 

edit: PS: i don't blame the design teams. they're the true casualties in all this.

[Darque]

I blame one person and ONLY one person, Herve Caen.

[Iolo]

If true, the writing was on the wall for quite some time anyway. No great surprise to any of the employees remaining there even if it's unfortunate they lost their jobs. Sure makes Herve Caen look like an idiot for what he said on his conference call a few days ago though. He might be sued.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

given the glut of crappy developers out there, however, sometimes it is better if the talent moves on and lands at a better house. i'm not trying to say the devs at interplay were bad, just that interplay was obviously bad as a business (they wouldn't be in this pickle otherwise).

Thats partially true though this goes all the way back to the Fargo days anyway. Interplay never made what you would call blockbuster games. They just made a lot of games overall. Of course lots of games with lower turn over means higher overheads.

 

Brian Fargo put the initial problem down to missing the boat when it came to the popularity of console titles. Probably some truth in that.

[Tigranes]

Then making a blundered move to consoles when it was already too late, after having BIS waste a good few years on Torn and IWDII. Dark Alliance was the only gem out of Caen's prospects, really.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Then making a blundered move to consoles when it was already too late, after having BIS waste a good few years on Torn and IWDII. Dark Alliance was the only gem out of Caen's prospects, really.

Thats true as well. They should have consolidated a lot faster. TORN should have been the turning point.

 

Then again hindsight being 20/20 and all that

 

What did come as kind of a shock was finding out they had 75+ delepment staff left.. When people were talking about 9 developers on VB it seems remarkably unproductive (unless those numbers were wrong).