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txa1265

January 25th, 2007 16:02

Ritual gobbled by casual game maker, Episodic SiN is dead

As reported here:

Quote:

The idea of acquiring Ritual was to have them strengthen our development in the casual genre and not to have them involved at all in the action style games," Cottam explained. "If there's an opportunity to have them do something on the SiN episodes, we would look at that, but that will not be the focus of the company. The combined companies will focus exclusively on casual, unless opportunities present themselves that we think are strategic from a business standpoint… Again, I wouldn't close the door on [traditional games] but that's not the primary focus.

As I mentioned in the Bioware thread …

Alrik Fassbauer

January 26th, 2007 01:12

Further info :

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3156717

http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=15054

Quote:

Alas, what this means for Ritual and its fans is a new era. In fact, it would appear that new games in the SiN series and others won't be happening anytime soon now that Ritual is owned by MumboJumbo. "The idea of acquiring Ritual was to have them strengthen our development in the casual genre and not to have them involved at all in the action style games," Cottam explained. "If there's an opportunity to have them do something on the SiN episodes, we would look at that, but that will not be the focus of the company. The combined companies will focus exclusively on casual, unless opportunities present themselves that we think are strategic from a business standpoint… Again, I wouldn't close the door on [traditional games] but that's not the primary focus."

JDR13

January 26th, 2007 01:34

This is a strange coincidence. I just installed SiN: Emergence the other day. I was so impressed with the original SiN game that was included with it, that I ordered an original copy of SiN and the expansion pack off of Amazon today.

Don't know how I missed this game back when it first came out, guess I was too caught up in the hype surrounding Half-Life.

txa1265

January 26th, 2007 04:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by JDR13 (Post 17127)

Don't know how I missed this game back when it first came out, guess I was too caught up in the hype surrounding Half-Life.

That was the core problem - *everyone* was caught up with HL …

Asbjoern

January 26th, 2007 20:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by JDR13 (Post 17127)

I'm so amazed. I bought the SiN package on Steam for a couple of weeks ago, and I've just finished playing SiN 1 today. It's a fantastis game and it really reminded me of HL. The game is this very peculiar mixture of traditional Doom FPS elements and then the new way of making FPS games with a narrative story and varying and original gameplay elements.
I'm looking forward to play SiN: Emergence but I'll complete Boiling Point: Road to hell before that.

I'm sad to hear of Ritual though.

Regards Asbjørn

JDR13

January 26th, 2007 22:22

SiN actually reminds me of Duke Nukem 3D. The way the environments are so interactive. I love how you can operate almost anything. Payphones, computers, security cameras, ATM's etc.

Asbjoern

January 27th, 2007 12:54

Well, the toilets aren't interactive like in many other games but that isn't of importance. But yes, you can drive a fork-lift and a loader tractor, which was really something special. The computer screens was also very professional made. Like the video screens in HL2.

Regards Asbjørn

Jaz	January 27th, 2007 13:43

SiN was very entertaining. Never made it into my favorites list, but still… very entertaining.

Asbjoern

January 27th, 2007 17:56

No, no. It's neither in my favourites.

txa1265

January 30th, 2007 19:18

Interesting follow-up here:

Quote:

The first episode did well, but not good enough to completely self-fund the second episode. It sold over 150,000 units, which is better than many shooters. It more than paid for itself, but not enough to entirely fund the next one.

This was caused by two reasons. The first episode was the most expensive because we needed to build the asset and code bases from the ground up. There were also tools and such that needed to be developed. Successive episodes would have benefited from that foundation, and therefore level this initial imbalance. We knew that when we started Episode 1, but the demand of the first episode was more than we anticipated. The first episode also ran longer than we expected (what game doesn't, even when you think you've planned for this) and it went over-budget.

We did continue with Episode 2, but we had to stop a few months ago due to a funding problem. Making games is fun, but it isn't easy, …especially for an independent developer!

Asbjoern

January 30th, 2007 20:19

Well, then it sounds as a poor business strategy by MumboJumbo to let go of the increased income created by future episodes. They could have just created two more episodes, which would have closed the franchise at least temporarily and still generate perhaps a lot of money.

This quote is noteworthy too:

Quote:

What we plan to do right now, both Ritual and MumboJumbo, is establish ourselves in the casual gaming market with strong new franchises and then return to SiN at a later date. We love SiN, make no mistake, and we definitely want to return to it.

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