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You should be asking the pirates this question.
Back then every penny counted...
OgreB
uhhhh....Black Isle was actually highly profitable. The problem was that their parent company, Interplay, fell into a mountain of debt that they could not climb their way out of. If you want to blame anyone, look at the people that were running Interplay at the time.
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/fallout3/news_6085243.html
However, it looks like the financial woes of BIS' parent Interplay finally did the developer in. Interplay has lost over $20 million so far this year. Its two main holiday releases, the console RPGs Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II (which was developed by BIS), were pushed back to next January as a result of another legal dispute, this time with distributor VU Games. Interplay's refocusing on console games may have also been a factor in the decision to shutter its more PC-centric subsidiary.
Thank you, Interplay. Thank you very much
Specifically, Herve Caen (the caen brothers controlled 'Titus' and eventually aquired contorlling stake of interplay , before their acquisition of interplay it was a decent enough company it was run by, Brian Fargo i think)
Anyway Herve Caen, not only do you managed to kill interplay with your ineptness but also Titus! (and had left employees unpaid!!)
You're Winner!
They probablly lost alot of money. Or they got bought out. Well i thought interplay and black isle did an ok job on Fallout 1 and 2.
They probablly lost alot of money. Or they got bought out. Well i thought interplay and black isle did an ok job on Fallout 1 and 2.
Gold_horde
What?!? An "ok" job?!? Man, it is incredible how tastes differ... this sounds like heresy to me.8) Fallout is simply-one-of-the-best-games-EVER, period! Together with Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 (to mention only Black Isle productions)...
I would say it is because they start making ACTION-games, more and more.
But, that is an OPINION. I have no facts. I am not rational here, I am right. :P I want good RPGs, they made action games instead, they died. :P See the patterns? :P
If you want some basics of arguments, here are some anyway. Black Isle was vastly successfull for making REAL TIME version of traditional RPGs system, with a PAUSE option and many gameplays tools to make sure, it was still offering the best from BOTH, real time and GBT.
Later on, they change. They start making ACTION games; and GBT wasn't an option anymore. I see all their info about the man-hours invested in these actions games, which never lift off. It was a belly crash, heavy, costy, not productive. Investors pull off the plugs before they lose money, they didn't like the poor selling the last titles made, they see a trend, and they protect themselves from it.
Saddly, that trend survives Black Isles and infest other RPGs titles, games like FFs, Mass Effects/Jade Empire and even...Chaos Leagues(sport-rpg) all suffered greatly from this influence. Real time option is good. Action is not what RPGs-lovers want however...and the trend has switch, with Black Isles, from Real Time to action...see, despite all the arguments of some peoples at BioWare, actions was never successfull in any RPG. Diablo is labelled "wrongly" as action, so is WoW. (it is almost offering GBT aspects... you just need fast speed of execution, which almost everyone can do, no matter your reflexes/coordination skills)
Real Time isn't action. Real Time isn't better if it remove and destroy GBT options. But that, it is something happening and something I, as a little fan, can only scream at. I have no doubt I couldn't argue in the long run behind the investigators of that change, they are good at fast talking, at making things their ways, even if it ruins everything. In Baldur's Gate, the easy fights I did in Real Time...my character destroy them anyway...the hard fights, I reload and then pause every round or so, until the fight was won. See, it remove the tediousness of all the easy fights, but it never remove, in anyway, the option to play GBT for the real challenges when they come (the challenges where not in the action in Baldur's Gate original games, unlike what they try to do in the latest, and fail miserably considering they merely get a confused interest from long-terms fans)
ACTION is what killed Black Isles, while Real Time options is what make them successfull (no matter how badly I am on the GBT side myself, I can recognize the value of Real Time options...especially in MMOs). When you make the challenges of the game into action instead of GBT, this is where they lose their customers interest...RPGs lovers are not specifically enjoying l33t reflexes games, they build a character with levels and everything, carefull thinking and planning...sure for the skellies at the entrance or whatever, action is kinda cool...but the boss fight? It should all depend on the character and how you play it, the action component should never remove, nor destroy, the original gameplay. Your success may be determined by a failed saving throw (either improve your character, or load until you are lucky), not because of your speed of reaction. Baldur's Gate was designed that way, their latest titles where not.
There's a studio called Obsidian Entertainment, whitch consists mostly of ex-Black Isle Studio's members. Arronaxxx
Bioware + Obsidian = remnents of Black Isle... That being said Obsidian imo has failed horribly in both KOTOR2 and NWN2 to provide anything remotely close to what they made in Baldur's Gate 2.. Case and point NWN2.. Not only was it rushed like all hell (not properly tested, where I found blantent huge bugs that could be found and repeated easily over and over agian.. Not to mention they were game breakers), has one of the worse engines to date when it comes to begin a huge resource hog while providing no where near the visuals a game that seems to demand something similar to Crysis should provide, on top of a immensely linear campaign.. I basically lost faith with Obsidian.. I let it slide with KOTOR 2 being bug ridden, unfinished, rushed, and having one of the worse endings of all time (correction it really didn't have a ending).. Because I thought to my self LucasArts made them rush the game immensely.. Unfortantely they rushed NWN2 as well...
I thought about giving their expansion a try but I honestly don't want to buy another game of theirs..
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