Hello all:
Everyone remember that Sierra was going to a Babylon 5 space combat simulator
with realistic physics models for movenment and fantastic graphics of nearly
every ship in the B5 pantheon?
Well in case you haven't heard, you can forget about it. Sierra has just
announce that they are splitting up their company into three subsidaries and
they are going to be scrapping B5 along with a few other projects. The company
said these games did not meet its "success criteria." (WHAT?!?!?) Sierra news
structure will allow them come out with a new bass fishing game and a
championchip bull riding program.
First Crusade get's screwed by TNT, then Sleeping in Light loses the Hugo to
The Truman Show (errrrr... I thought that the Hugo was an award for science
ficton, not vehicles for bad comedians), and now this. It has not been a good
year for Babylon 5.
Hello all:
Everyone remember that Sierra was going to a Babylon 5 space combat simulator
with realistic physics models for movenment and fantastic graphics of nearly
every ship in the B5 pantheon?
Well in case you haven't heard, you can forget about it. Sierra has just
announce that they are splitting up their company into three subsidaries and
they are going to be scrapping B5 along with a few other projects. The company
said these games did not meet its "success criteria." (WHAT?!?!?) Sierra news
structure will allow them come out with a new bass fishing game and a
championchip bull riding program.
First Crusade get's screwed by TNT, then Sleeping in Light loses the Hugo to
The Truman Show (errrrr... I thought that the Hugo was an award for science
ficton, not vehicles for bad comedians), and now this. It has not been a good
year for Babylon 5.
Oh man! I was eagerly waiting for this! Fooy! Cowards!
It would have been so cool.
Donald Hosford
> "Mark A. Siefert" wrote:
> Hello all:
Sierra has
> just announce that they are splitting up their company into three
> Donald Hosford wrote:
Well, Sierra's excuse is that the B5 game wouldn't have been profitable. They
claimed that they sunk so much money into the project that they never would
have gotten a return on the investment. B5 is, after all, a cult show with a
small following. There is a much larger market for fishing and hunting games
designed for morons who never picked up a real fishing pole or firearm in
their lives!
Well, as of now I am no longer going to purchase any of Sierra's products. If
that is how they treat their customers and the people who put the time and
effort into designing games that was 99% finished, then I am not going to give
them a red cent.
Pity, I was so looking forward to purchaing a copy of Homeworld.
> It would have been so cool.
As someone who played the demo at GenCons 97-98, I agree.
> As someone who played the demo at GenCons 97-98, I agree.
Mark
did Alan's other gencon pictures ever make it to the web?
One feeling I was getting on this game what that it had lost its focus and
then kept on getting delayed. First it was a Star Fury simulator, they all the
other fighters were added, then you got to also run Omegas and
Hyperions.....
> Tim Jones wrote:
I know Alan took pics and plans to get them up but Mark put up some of my
pictures and I should have the rest up sometime this weekend. I'll let
everybody know when.
> "Mark A. Siefert" wrote:
> Hello all:
Sierra has
> just announce that they are splitting up their company into three
I think what they mean by success criteria is that the game may actually have
been good and satisfied its' customers the first time out, unlike Cyberstorm
II, Starsiege, Earthsiege I& II, and so on, and so on.....
Mark
> First Crusade get's screwed by TNT, then Sleeping in Light
> First Crusade get's screwed by TNT, then Sleeping in Light
It
> has not been a good year for Babylon 5.
While SiL is a sentimental favourite (heck, it was mine!) I agree with the
Hugo presentation to The Truman Show. Science Fiction is supposed to be about
pushing boundaries and finding that certain "twist" that makes
something sci-fi. SiL was excellent, but it didn't introduce any great
concepts or push the boundaries - something very similar to it could
have been the final episode of almost any drama.
Meanwhile, TTS put a different angle on a lot of things, and made people
think about the media and the world we live in - though it's not
"straight" or "hard" science fiction.
I would have loved it if SiL won, and I thought it would based upon empathy
vote, but it didn't. I must admit to being surprised when they read out
Truman Show - but in hindsight, it makes sense to me.
> On Tue, 21 Sep 1999, Mark A. Siefert wrote:
> Donald Hosford wrote:
highly illogical. if they cancel it, they make 0 profit. if it was 99%
complete, they would maximise profit by finishing it and shipping it, unless
the sales revenue would have been less than 1% of development costs, which
strikes me as unlikely. i would guess that it was actually far from finished.
someone (mr Wikan?) mentioned problems with the engine and the team building
it, which sounds quite serious.
tom
[various people's responses]
> > Oh man! I was eagerly waiting for this! Fooy! Cowards!
For what it's worth, I got the below msg from the list jms posts to. JMS'
response follows the initial poster's note.
Mk
------
Subj: B5: Into the Fire Cancelled
From: WWS <wschmidt@tyler.net>
Date: 21 Sep 1999 15:01:27 -0600
Lines: 24
More bad news, as if any more was needed. Someone should get flagged for
piling on. This just showed up on rastb5, haven't seen it here yet.
This is really disappointing, as I was really looking foward to this one. I
guess the rumours about the game being in trouble last February were true.
(reposted from rastb5)
> James Ell wrote:
--
__________________________________________________WWS_____________
From: jmsatb5@aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: 21 Sep 1999 17:40:05 -0600
Lines: 29
Yeah, I got word of this today from one of the developers on the game;
apparently the problem is two-fold: 1) because Sierra has taken so long
to get the game out, it has become expensive, and the additional million bucks
used to relocate the facility north (and everyone involved) was charged
against the game, and 2) they made a deal with WB for X number of games in Y
years, and they've chewed up most of that time already, and WB is (I'm told,
haven't had a chance to verify this yet) loathe to renegotiate since it's now
taken
--what?--
three, four years to get this first game out.
There's rumors that another studio might be interested in picking it up and
finishing it off -- it was literally inches from being finished, and
it's a
spectacular game -- but again that's only rumor, I don't know anything
beyond that.
(The game would have allowed players to go through all of the major wars of
the
B5 universe -- the Dilgar War, the Earth/Minbari War, the Shadow War and
the
Earth Civil War -- with a chance of affecting the outcomes and dealing
with the temporal stresses caused by that.)
jms
> Tom Anderson wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Sep 1999, Mark A. Siefert wrote:
That ignores the horrendous costs of marketing the game. Most games I've
worked on have marketing budgets equal to or higher than the development
budgets.