n-Space - Closing

Interplay did very well. Their RPG department (Black Isle) was only one that brought it real profit. Interplay fell because of other things.

As for Atari, NWN games were profitable for Atari, but Atari also dabbled in other less profitable things.

Ripper said:

The thing is, though, if they had delivered an updated NWN, with proper D&D rules and a real modkit, I bet they'd be making a decent living right now. It might be a somewhat niche market, but I reckon they they could've been selling modules and upgrades for years to come.

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Yup. Trying to sell a game that says D&D on the cover and doesn't contain any D&D isn't exactly the best idea. D&D fans are disappointed, casuals won't touch it because they expect it to have a complex ruleset, which leaves only a small audience.

I wouldn't say SCL doesn't contain D&D. It's got the lore, races, classes, monsters, etc.

They just majorly screwed up when it came to the mechanics.

Ripper said:

The thing is, though, if they had delivered an updated NWN, with proper D&D rules and a real modkit, I bet they'd be making a decent living right now. It might be a somewhat niche market, but I reckon they they could've been selling modules and upgrades for years to come.

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Well said.

This is all they had to do. If they did this, not only would they still be around, their product would be much better received, and dare I say they would go down in history with the big names in the RPG world because they created the "new NWN".

Ah well. I am just hoping one good thing comes out of all of this, and that is that future developers pay close attention to games like this to understand why they failed. Then maybe sometime soon we will get a real D&D worthy of legend.

AND they screwed up the lore, too. But that's not their fault, the blame for that lies with some idiot at WotC.

Looking at their games history, this isn't a major blow to the inhabitants of RPGWatch. Looks like SCL was their first venture into a decent RPG and they got practically everything wrong it was possible to get wrong.

Sword Coast legends was a dissapointment for me, but these kind of news are heart breaking. This is really unfortunate for the hard working people there. They clearly had a great idea and tried something new, so I'll raise my hat for the effort. I just wish they had been more in tune with the community and potential playerbase.

D&D is a magic word. it creates certain kind of expectations. And when you advertise your game as being part of that legendary tradition, it does not create good will if the game ends up being nothing like that… I expected them to stay faithfull to d&d rules while delivering a great singleplayer campaign similar to baldur's gate or nwn1 type multiplayer experience. Instead we got a casual lite rpg.

The abysmal failure of SCL drove me into the arms of PoE, which I enjoyed a lot until the ending. I held out for SCL over PoE just because it seemed like it would be better based off the fact that D&D OUGHT to rule fantasy based RPG's, since it was the father of sword and sorcery gaming with rule-sets. I think everyone having their expectations crushed may have damaged D&D as an IP, IMO, for a while anyway. Pathfinder should pounce on the CRPG market at this time says the opportunist in me...

Dez said:

Sword Coast legends was a dissapointment for me, but these kind of news are heart breaking.

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So if you were fed news of every business closure every day of the year you'd likely spend every single day weeping?

Dez said:

This is really unfortunate for the hard working people there.

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Aside from the people who actually made the game, as in inputting all the visuals, could you actually describe anything else as hard work? I thought the point was that they didn't do enough homework?

Dez said:

They clearly had a great idea and tried something new, so I'll raise my hat for the effort.

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What exactly did they do that was new? They produced a formulaic game based on well worn easy mechanics and an age-old IP with a diluted DM system that was poorer than a copy-paste job of something that had been achieved over a decade ago.

Dez said:

I just wish they had been more in tune with the community and potential playerbase.

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That would be the hard working bit wouldn't it?

lackblogger said:

So if you were fed news of every business closure every day of the year you'd likely spend every single day weeping?

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Well I'm not weeping tears here . I was just thinking this whole situation from an ordinary employee point of view. It sucks to lose a job and I get no joy from news like these. And maybe if the company had survived this, they could have delivered a better rpg next time. Though "heartbreaking" was a slightly overly dramatic term to use in this case.

Aside from the people who actually made the game, as in inputting all the visuals, could you actually describe anything else as hard work? I thought the point was that they didn't do enough homework?

What exactly did they do that was new? They produced a formulaic game based on well worn easy mechanics and an age-old IP with a diluted DM system that was poorer than a copy-paste job of something that had been achieved over a decade ago.

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I think the multiplayer component was the most promissing feature of SCL. They tried to create a fun casual dungeon master experience. Casual online action games can be fun if they're done right. I'm still occasionally playing team fortress 2 for example. When they're done right, they're easy to jump in and very addictive, but difficult to master. SCL tried to capture that formula, but it failed. I'd have prefered a real d&d rpg though.

JDR13 said:

I wouldn't say SCL doesn't contain D&D. It's got the lore, races, classes, monsters, etc.

They just majorly screwed up when it came to the mechanics.

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Sure. However, as someone who played tabletop D&D in different settings, the main aspect I think of when someone mentions D&D is the system. And in this regard, this game didn't deliver, as you mention, too.