Gothic 3 PiranhaBytes and Jowood are no more partners

A few minutes ago this pressstatement was released:

Essen, 22.05.2007
Nach dem endgültigen Scheitern der Verhandlungen über eine Fortsetzung der GOTHIC ® Serie sind Piranha Bytes gezwungen, sich anderweitig zu orientieren. Welche Titel in näherer Zukunft unter dem Namen GOTHIC veröffentlicht werden, ist derzeit völlig unklar. Die seit November 2006 geführten Verhandlungen haben am Ende nicht zu einem für beide Seiten akzeptablen Ergebnis geführt.
Piranha Bytes können den von der Community vielfach geäußerten Wünschen nach inhaltlichen Veränderungen im Rahmen eines Patches nicht mehr nachkommen. Es war angedacht, diesen Patch als Nebenprodukt während der Entwicklung eines AddOns oder eines weiteren Teiles (sowohl als Beigabe zu diesen Produkten als auch als free Download) zur Verfügung zu stellen.
Piranha Bytes:
Pluto 13 GmbH
Ruhrallee 63
45138 Essen
HR Essen B 17856
tel. 0201 80672-0
fax. 0201 80672-22
Ansprechpartner: Michael Rüve (Geschäftsführer)
Weitere Informationen unter www.pluto13.de

source: http://www.worldofgothic.de/index.php?go=showcomment&news_id=1055&_sid

In short form: developer PiranhaBytes and publisher Jowood will not work together anymore in the future. The negotiations since november 2006 about a new Gothic game or an AddOn for Gothic3 failed.

A news item about it is here.

Let's keep discussion in one place.

zyklop posted before the newsbit. Thanks for the info!
The discussion takes place in the news comments.

And there is a first response from an official JoWood member:

JoWooD Productions arbeitet an Gothic 4

Liezen, Österreich, 22. Mai 2007; JoWooD Productions befindet sich bereits seit mehreren Wochen in positiven Gesprächen mit potenziellen Entwicklerstudios für Gothic 4 auf PC und Konsole. Bei der Auswahl des Entwicklers wird insbesondere auf sehr hohen Qualitätsstandard sowie eine abschließend fehlerfreie Programmierung des Spieles fokussiert. Mit der Veröffentlichung des vierten Teils des erfolgreichen Rollenspiels auf Current Gen Konsolen verfolgt JoWooD zielstrebig die neue Unternehmensstrategie in Richtung Konsolenmarkt.

Die Gespräche mit dem bisherigen Entwickler Pluto 13 führten zu keinem akzeptablen Ergebnis, weshalb die Zusammenarbeit beendet wurde.

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Source: http://forum.jowood.de/showthread.php?t=142848

According to JoWood they are negotiating for several weeks now with different developer teams and they will definitely work on a fourth part of the Gothic series...

zyklop said:

According to JoWood they are negotiating for several weeks now with different developer teams and they will definitely work on a fourth part of the Gothic series...

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Isn't that part of the 'Gothic on consoles' thing, though?

The interesting part:

Jowood claims that they have the rights to make Gothic 4.

BUT PB has the rights to the Gothic series and name in general.

Maybe we can play a 'Gothic 4' (developer unknown) and a 'True Gothic' (developer PB) in the future ...

****

... and Jowood wants still a 'technical patch' for Gothic 3.
Johann Ertl says a patch is already finished by PB.


PB says that they can't deliver a G3-patch under these circumstances.

HiddenX said:

The interesting part:

Jowood claims that they have the rights to make Gothic 4.

BUT PB has the rights to the Gothic series and name in general.

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So this is like Far Cry - someone else owns the rights to make (crappy) multiplatform games while Crytek owns their destiny to make great games (Crysis).

Hx, do you have a link where Johann talked about the finished patch?

One of the Yerlis said in a video interview with the PC Games that they own the whole Far Cry brand (characters, setting, technology, mod tools, community) with the exception of the name, which belongs to Ubisoft. Since then they seem to have sold everything they don´t need for Crysis.

http://forum.jowood.de/showpost.php?p=2071747&postcount=3

Johann Ertl:

Und hier bitte noch eine private Anmerkung meinerseits hier:

Bitte keine Beleidigungen gegenüber einzelne Leute, den Entwickler oder den Publisher. Ich sehe keinen Grund für ein "Gegenüberstellen" wie auf Fronten, es war letztendlich eine geschäftlichen Trennung, und nix anderes. Also wildes Spekulieren und so weiter wird heut und in den nächsten Tagen sicher ebenso toleriert wie aufgebrachte Anfragen, aber bitte im Ton allgemein etwas zurückhalten, sonst haben wir hier Chaos. Ich will auch keine untergriffigen Botschaften in Richtung PB lesen, wir hegen ja keinen gegenseitigen Groll oder so.

Im Gegenteil, ich hoffe inständig auf eine weiterhin gute Gesprächsbasis mit dem Team von PB, auch in Zukunft, und dass z.B. der aktuelle Patchcode, der meines Wissens nach ja bereits existiert, bald seinen Weg in die Community findet, um den Spielern ein ideales Gothic-Erlebnis zu bieten.
__________________

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Thanks.

I doubt PB will deliver any patch code before the legal issues are solved. They cannot decide whether a patch will be good for them or only strengthen a competitor.


Here´s a scenario I didn´t see mentioned anywhere yet:
What if both JoWooD and PB can make Gothic games?

The solution to all PBs problems:
Talk to dtp and make a Gothic 1 remake with G3 technology. Fix the engine, make a great combat system, add 10 hours to Gothic´s lose ends. I doubt they would more than a year for this.
Advantage:
- It will win back their fan base. Everybody loves the first Gothic.
- It will earn them easy money. (Budget below 1 Mio EUR!)
- A perfectly polished has a great chance to earn big money.
- It´s a safe project. The design docs already exist and the concept is proven.
- They will be in the market a year earlier than JoWooD. A great chance to move the market in their direction and position themselves as "the original".

While a nice solution, I can't see it happening!! Maybe they should make a prequel instead!!

Gorath, I think you missed a significant downside to your plan. A lot of people don't like to play the same game twice, even if it is in new packaging (although certain EA sports games beg to differ).

I think what PB should do is make completly new project/game. They are verry good at doing rpg's, so they can just make new brand. We got 3 gothics so far, with possible 4th by jowood, and I think it would be simply the best for pb to start new brand, which I don't doubt would be even better.

I think they were probably thinking about doing so in any case sooner or later.

Gorath said:

The solution to all PBs problems:
Talk to dtp and make a Gothic 1 remake with G3 technology. Fix the engine, make a great combat system, add 10 hours to Gothic´s lose ends. I doubt they would more than a year for this.
Advantage:
- It will win back their fan base. Everybody loves the first Gothic.
- It will earn them easy money. (Budget below 1 Mio EUR!)
- A perfectly polished has a great chance to earn big money.
- It´s a safe project. The design docs already exist and the concept is proven.
- They will be in the market a year earlier than JoWooD. A great chance to move the market in their direction and position themselves as "the original".

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This sounds like a dream. It would be really great if they did it. Unfortunately, they are not likely to spend even a year on that They won't even agree on a prequel, I think. If a petition would help, I would gladly start one. However, those things never have effect.

By the way, about the patch thing, as far as I understood this, there will possibly be another patch, but not made by PB. I accidentally lost the source and can't find it again though.

Edit@bjon045: You are right, but Gothic is not simply a game I know many people who have played the game over and over again, and would certainly buy the new version. And besides, many people haven't played Gothic, because it was already too old when they started gaming. But it has a great concept and story and if the graphics was better and the game mechanics up-to-date, lots of people will buy it.

bjon045 said:

Gorath, I think you missed a significant downside to your plan. A lot of people don't like to play the same game twice, even if it is in new packaging (although certain EA sports games beg to differ).

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Ahem.
I finished Gothic I five times.
I finished Gothic II three times
I finished Gothic III once, so far.

txa1265 said:

So this is like Far Cry - someone else owns the rights to make (crappy) multiplatform games while Crytek owns their destiny to make great games (Crysis).

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Well said!!!

On that note:
Far Cry - Best FPS Ever.
Far Cry 2 - Probably will be a Halo.
Crysis - Is looking Amazing.

PB should concentrate on things, they know about: planning and realizing a rpg, including the scripts for innovative questlines. Also they should create the needed textures and graphics.
BUT they should not try further to fix there own game-engine - worst case try to develop a new one. They lack all needed experience and talented programers for such a big task. From the technical point of view all gothic-engines were crappy. There are enough much better engines on the market. Buy a licence, invest half a year learning to use all features of this engine and than start another try.
Gothic3 based on a professionel engine would have been very successfull - all the known problems were results of a faulty engine.

zyklop said:

PB should concentrate on things, they know about: planning and realizing a rpg, including the scripts for innovative questlines. Also they should create the needed textures and graphics.
BUT they should not try further to fix there own game-engine - worst case try to develop a new one. They lack all needed experience and talented programers for such a big task. From the technical point of view all gothic-engines were crappy. There are enough much better engines on the market. Buy a licence, invest half a year learning to use all features of this engine and than start another try.
Gothic3 based on a professionel engine would have been very successfull - all the known problems were results of a faulty engine.

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I don't agree. I think PB where rushed by the Publishers, which led to them to make an unfinished game. If they had more time, there would not be any problems. The engine probably would of been better if PB had more time to make it.

nameless hero said:

I don't agree. I think PB where rushed by the Publishers, which led to them to make an unfinished game. If they had more time, there would not be any problems. The engine probably would of been better if PB had more time to make it.

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But when is that ever *not* true?!? Look at the recent Peter Molyneux interview where basically says exactly that about Black & White 2, look at Dungeon Lords, and so on ...

@nameless hero
PB worked for over 3 years on G3. According to the original timeframe they already had to finish the game in fall 2005. But they were given another full year to deliver a finished product - and they failed to do so.
If you read the remarkebly honest posts from PB members at the wog board, they put together the complete game in the last 6 weeks before release, without even finishing all animations, wayfinding-ai and many other important things. Parts of the world are nearly empty - no time to stock it with creatures. An earlier needed exit through a valley was planned to block before release - they have FORGOTTEN it!!! You can add much more things to this nearly endless list of chaos.
The members of the original PB crew are nice, fine guys with a big heart for theyre fans. But they lack an organized and disciplined stile of working. The first thing they should have done back in 2003 was to hire a production manager, who´s only task is to supervise the whole development, checking in regular cycles the state of work, re-planning too ambitious parts according to the available time, and things like that.

Back in the 80´s it was possible to sit down with some friends in front of your C64 and "hack" in 2 weeks an astonishing game in the keyboard. But we´re living in the 21st century - with a lot of money in the background and millions of potential customers, who pay good money to get a well done product. Time for dreaming and waisting month over month with big plans without a real chance to realize is gone even in this "funny" game-biz long ago...