JoWooD - Materially Insolvent!

Maylander said:

The whole Gothic 3 incident is not as one sided as many people think: The blame lies with both PB and JoWood. Keep in mind that JoWood willingly pushed the deadline several times, but PB kept failing to meet the new deadlines. At some point, a publisher has to draw the line or a game will need to sell millions to break even…

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Totally agree with that, PB got too much sells ambition with Gothic 3 and for me it's G3 that killed the series. And Risen I couldn't played (yet) more than 8/10h didn't show me a team that could resurrect anything. Too much a clone, and beside the graphics all elements evolutions was negative, failure to build area that make you feel a world, humor almost disappeared, ability to build sense of danger disappeared, story elements that look like a clone as if they can't create anymore new stories and background.

That said I never played Forsaken Gods nor Arcania but it seems JoWood achieved an even worse evolution to the franchise, I can't say by myself as I didn't played them.

Corwin said:

You know the Island from Risen could actually be a part of the Gothic universe!!

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It was going to be. If you've played Gothic 3's "Xardas" ending this will seem rather familiar…

Arkose said:

It was going to be. If you've played Gothic 3's "Xardas" ending this will seem rather familiar…

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thanks for this... makes sense...

JDR13 said:

I think Richard Garriott is just as much to blame for the death of Ultima.

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You could be right.

But before EA was ever in the picture, each ultima iteration was better (imo) than the last. Then came U8 and U9 which both were developed with EA involved.

JoWood going belly up is hardly much of a surprise. It is (I assume since I've read it over the years on this site particularly) kinda of common knowledge that they've put all their eggs in the Gothic basket for years. We've seen the same story almost every couple of years, they declare some form of debt sth to the authrories and they rise up again to publish another abomination - again mostly in the Gothic series, since I am not really following any of their titles. Hopefully, this time when this "boy" cried wolf, noone hears him and the wolf gets a meal.

As far as the Gothic series goes, I am pretty sure that ship has sailed. Only way for PB or anyone else wanting to breath life into the franchise would be to ditch everything, start a new and hope for the best. Sure, JW and Spellbound failed miserably at their attempt, but someone might succeed. PB are better off not touching a potential Gothic 5 title with a ten foot pole, whether Risen proves to be a success or not with the sequel.

Personally, I don't care about names but games

TheMadGamer said:

You could be right.

But before EA was ever in the picture, each ultima iteration was better (imo) than the last. Then came U8 and U9 which both were developed with EA involved.

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I wonder why EA dropped Ultima Online development. It was the biggest "money-making-machine" for years to EA. And there are still quite a few features, like crafting, in UO that's better than in any other MMORPG.


Back to topic, I think JoWood got what it deserves. It has always been a poor publisher; forces games to release too early (Gothic 3), no marketing whatsoever and couldn't care less about developers afaik.