Piranha Bytes - "No longer working with the [Gothic] brand"

World of Gothic has some revealing quotes from both sides of the Gothic split that appear to show Piranha Bytes has ceded the future of Gothic entirely to JoWood. Here's a snip from their latest newsbit:

For JoWooD's CEO Albert Seidl it is all perfectly clear. In an interview with Börse-Express.com last Friday, he claims the rights to Gothic 4 complete with all derivatives and possible sequels for his company. He also stated to be in close contact with a good and qualified developing studio. He just not mentioned its name.

Today in our forum, Piranha Bytes' art director Ralf Marczinczik referred all fans to direct their questions about the future of Gothic 4, any AddOn or patches straight at JoWooD. Piranha Bytes is "no longer working with the brand" and therefore not in a position to answer any of those questions.

Here's the full post from Ralf on WoG's English board:

Hello to everybody here in the english speaking community!

Sorry that we (from the studio) can´t regulary post here. (Big thanks to Christopher Weckwerth, who is constantly engaged here)

As some of you know, we answer questions quite regulary on the German side of the Forum- but for some reason we rarely post here (even though, most of us are quite fluent in English).
(Maybe I get Kai to check in more regulary too…?)

You propably know allready that the publisher of the Gothic Games, JoWood, and the Studio parted a while ago. Sad story- and I am sure you read the news in the trades.

Any questions you might have about the future of Gothic IV, any AddOn or patches, please contact the publisher via their homepage. It´s not that we don´t want to answer your questions, but all those answers can only be given by JoWood, since we are not longer working with the brand.

And yes- we are not too happy about it too, but the step was necessary to protect our studio.

I hope you understand…

Piranha Bytes itself is still very much alive and of course we are working- allthough, it might take a little while until you will get any official announcements about WHAT we are doing at the moment.

Thanks anyway for your encouragement and welcome criticism about the split.

Best regards

__________________

Ralf Marczinczik
Artdirector
Piranha Bytes

More information.

So it's official.

This saddens me greatly.

People around the world should boycott Jowood for stealing the rights to Gothic.

Even if I'm not aware of everything that happened I blame Jowood. They can't make a decent product so they affiliate themselves with a decent studio and after a short relation, screw you guys, what was yours is now ours.

I hope PB will survive financially and produce an even better series.
I'm sure they won't make another mistake like this again.

Long live PB!

Jowood has pissed me off a number of times but PB blew this one in my book. PB had the opportunity to make a new RPG franchise with Gothic 3 and instead of fine tuning the engine they shot for the moon and really missed the side of the barn. Don't get my wrong I like Gothic 3 but it is such a jumbled play experience. Addi tonally, even though Jowood is putting the screws to them, it would have been nice if they just hung together and put out a patch to straighten out THEIR mess. PB has some great RPG ideas but I would be leary of anything from their camp in the future.

Originally Posted by Dajjer
Jowood has pissed me off a number of times but PB blew this one in my book. PB had the opportunity to make a new RPG franchise with Gothic 3 and instead of fine tuning the engine they shot for the moon and really missed the side of the barn.

Indeed, Gothic 3 didn't have the magic the 1rst ones had.
I was also pissed about the situation but not as much as Moriendor.

They shouldn't have lied to us. What they did was wrong but I keep thinking about all the fun that I had playing the first 2 episodes.
That made me, hum, forgive them.

I don't understand why they lied to our faces.
Honesty is always the appropriate way to go.
What they did will probably hurt their future releases.

Something was probably already brewing between them and Jowood that made it impossible for them to work tangibly and they didn't want anybody to know about it.
Yes, it was a bad course of action.

They said that they had worked on something but only in their heads.
I think they did so in order to prevent Jowood from taking what they had 'worked' on. I hope that this is somewhat close to the why.

No matter what happens in the future for PB, they will always have a place in my heart.

So it is confirmed then, Gothic is truly dead. We'll just have to replay the old ones over and over, but this is nothing new - I still replay series like Baldur's Gate, even though we didn't get a new game in that series for many years.

Say it ain't so, Joe.

The party is over. I'm just curious about one thing. How the heck is JW going to patch the game now. Oh I know they aren't. Oh well, at least bioshock looks really good.

This is really heart-breaking

Well at least PB is still around and working on something. Let's hope what they offer will cheer us up.

Maybe JW just release the Modkit, it is a much better gesture than any patch. Can we make a petition?

Originally Posted by mudsling3
Maybe JW just release the Modkit, it is a much better gesture than any patch. Can we make a petition?

Hey, good point! I completely forgot about the modkit. PB mentioned that they would release it for the fans…This was during happier times, of course.

But now that Jowood has the Gothic assets, I doubt it will be released. I don't trust Jowood to be competent with post-release content. Remember how long the Gothic 2 Gold Edition took to be released?

Can somebody get me up to speed? I haven't been following this - what happened?!

Originally Posted by Animal
Can somebody get me up to speed? I haven't been following this - what happened?!

http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/news?ref=2&id=5#5069

A really sad day - what a mess. I wish PB well - they should have been honest about not working on the patch but we all make mistakes and strange things happen in the murky world of business. I am not expecting that Jowood will come up with a quality title and it stinks that the developer has lost the rights to the gothic series. Will just have to replay the first three ganes - I feel a replay of the first one coming on.
Hopefully PB will survive and come up with another inspirational title - you never know this may turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

I agree it's sad that PB lost their franchise, but like Parmenion said, strange things can happen in business. My guess is that the talented folks at PB will land on their feet and bounce back nicely.

Originally Posted by Sir Markus
I agree it's sad that PB lost their franchise, but like Parmenion said, strange things can happen in business. My guess is that the talented folks at PB will land on their feet and bounce back nicely.

Hear, hear!

I hope they find a decent, competent publisher this time. Yeah, that's right - I hate Jowood with a vengeance!

An excellent example of corporate anti-stranglehold chicanery from PB - they remain as always the masters of the situation however their moves 'may' appear. Many gothic players, sadly cease to understand the tactics of PB, while i however, remain deeply impressed!

I hope PB land on their feet

I'm dissapointed in both parties. Gothic3 will likely be left as a mess what it is now and neither side didn't even try to slip some unofficial patch to the internet. To hell with both Jowood and PB.

Let's really hope then, that PB can put out an unofficial patch to G3 without treading on any toes. To leave gothic in it's current state would really hurt PBs credibility, compared to a better working game.

Originally Posted by kalniel
Let's really hope then, that PB can put out an unofficial patch to G3 without treading on any toes. To leave gothic in it's current state would really hurt PBs credibility, compared to a better working game.

I agree. I think PB owes it to themselves to patch this game. It's a great game that is a patch away from being complete. Too much work went into Gothic 3 to leave it the way it is, IMO.