@Gorath: Do you know who gets the money after the studio is not existing anymore ?
Know? No.
But it was mentioned a few months ago that Ascaron would live on as an empty shell to collect royalties with the intention to pay off the creditors. Their managing director was pretty sure the whole dept (ca. 10M EUR or so) could be paid back in full. This is not unrealistic. According to GameStar S2 has already sold 750k units. It's quite possible the console versions will push the number way above 1M. Then the add-on, a gold ed., maybe the add-on for consoles, budget re-releases until kingdom come, etc. The game can earn much more than 10M EUR in the long run.
Another important point is that Ascaron probably has to sell of the Sacred IP, at least unless they can't stretch the process until all debt is paid. BUT: There is no reason to give their rights to their share of the Sacred 1 & 2 royalties away too! Ascaron was (co-)publisher, so we're not talking about peanuts here.
Only after my last post I've een the well written article in the latest GameStar. If only half of that stuff is true, Ascaron had a lot of internal problems. A few juicy details according to GameStar - of course I can't verify if they are true:
- The S2 project lead was fired in the middle of the project. After having admitted S2 was way behind schedule he suggested to let go half the team and give the others 3 years more time.
- Around then the investors forced the company founder to hire a new MD and let him take command. With him came a straighter leadership style.
- S2 cost ca. 20M EUR!
- Ascaron's internal team under Daniel Dumont was appointed to make the console conversions. [This team made all the nearly bug-free games: Patrician, Port Royale, Dark Star One; G.] When they wanted to start they actually found chaos. They had to wait until the PC version was gold until they could really get to work. Of course this created some tension within the company.
- The delay broke Ascaron's neck. The console versions were too late.
My personal conclusions & predictions from all this chaos, of course totally subjective:
- It seems the changes were correct but they came too late.
- All creditors will probably get their money back in the long run.
- The investors will finally make a lot of cash by either selling the Sacred IP and collecting royalties for S1 & S2, or keeping the IP and licensing it out. It might become even more valuable when it's clear S2 also sold millions of units. Latest official status S1: 2.5M units.
- Most former employees are fucked. The majority don't deserve what they got.
- DD's team is extremely good. Converting a true 1080p console title in pretty good quality, within quite a short time and as their console debut is a very impressive performance.
- Kalypso got a lot of good IP for cheap. The whole back katalog.
- They also got a new development studio nearly for free, co-owned by DD and a partner. Including the best people from his former team. They are already working on Patrician 3. Together with Kalypso's Tropico 3 (latest previews: very good; a remake of Tr1) this means the business sim is on the rise.
- Somebody will buy - I suppose has already bought - the Sacred IP. My guess is Koch Media / Deep Silver because they already know how they can sell Sacred product. The ca. 20M EUR won't hurt them.
- Studio 2 was liquidated because they were seen as the main reason for the problems. HeWhoIsInChargeNow thinks another developer will do a better job on Sacred 3.