myk
The Disciple of Lüt
Posts: 10008
Registered: 04-02 |
Jonathan said:
did you just restate the exact point I made in my post, that id have shifted to exploiting their existing franchises as a matter of course, only postured as if it was some original, conflicting opinion? Why did you do that?
You can't see the different interpretation I made of the events? It looks like Enjay and kristus did, though.
The semantics of whether Doom 3 is a "sequel" or a "remake" are irrelevant,
The fact that it's a remake of their hit title is what characterizes this shift, as opposed to making a quick set of sequels like they did in their early days. How is an error that makes your sentence unclear irrelevant?
the point is that it was a creative decision of the core team that they wanted to make a new Doom game (something that caused a fair degree of friction within the company, as we know).
More concretely, Adrian Carmack was in the company, and now he isn't. Was DOOM 3 really a "creative decision"? I'd say it had to do more with the fact that they felt that their focus brand, Quake, was losing steam and character, and they noticed DOOM was approaching its decade of life, so they took advantage of this for business reasons, and John Carmack liked the idea because it would not interfere with engine design concepts he could develop.
Now the company are restructuring their entire development approach so that they are setup to continually leverage their existing franchises whilst developing new ones.
The point where it was most different from how it appears to be now is during a not so extensive period, the late 90s, when they were dedicated to the Quake line. But the change from that period isn't recent, and could be said to have started around the turn of the century (7 years ago). In the earlier period they had a different (startup company) scale, but with Romero they also had sideprojects and derivations.
I think one big difference is in the hierarchy and management of the company. John Carmack seems to now be the sole strong owner, but he's clearly allowed the other "departments", design and business, to grow (in magnitude) in the way a more standard company would: it's becoming somewhat more publishing and design focused, but a bit less development oriented.
A factor that likely contributes to the changes, and that kristus hinted at, is that if your main titles are far in between, you need to fill the gaps with something to keep the company going.
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08-12-07 11:04 
