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Has Civ 4 been abandoned by Firaxis?

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  • #76
    Because of the consolidation in the industry already, there might be some legal issues of an EA/Take-Two merger. With so few publishers out there right now, EA buying Take-Two might end up killing the industry.

    Who is left out there right now? Atari is pretty much gone, you have Vivendi which hasn't released anything good in ages(Blizzard has it's followers, but I am not impressed by their releases over the past 8 years), and you have Take-Two. Any merger between two of these big players would put the industry in a really bad situation. The fact that EA scooped up Bioware may hurt a lot too.

    Originally posted by Locutus
    Atari is either going out of business of will be bought up by someone else in 2008, so everything's wide open there

    However, Colonization was bought back by Firaxis already (see our news archive), along with most of Sid Meier's other older titles (including Pirates, which is why that's now published by 2K and not Atari anymore). So far Firaxis has shown little interest in doing anything with most of those titles, but of course that could always change

    Edit: As a side note, it's far from inconceivable that EA will buy up Take-Two in the not too distant future (though I see that more as a 2009 or 2010 thing, not so much anything that's imminent), many analysts are predicting this. So I guess everything's possible there for you SMAC fans. But if EA believed a SMAC sequel has commercial potential they would've made one years ago, it's not like the fact that it wouldn't be by the original team would stop them So even if Firaxis does end up being a subsidiary of EA I wouldn't get your hopes up too high, anything that sells under a million probably doesn't interest that company (and the original SMAC fell well short of that mark).

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    • #77
      Originally posted by Locutus
      However, Colonization was bought back by Firaxis already (see our news archive)...
      What's a back-list game title go for these days? I wonder what would happen if (will happen when?) a solid fan community like Poly bought up an old title (*cough* Colonization, please *cough*) and then turned folks like Bhruic and Solver on it.
      For some the fairest thing on this dark earth is Thermopylae, and Spartan phalaxes low'ring lances to die -- Sappho

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      • #78
        Originally posted by Targonis
        Because of the consolidation in the industry already, there might be some legal issues of an EA/Take-Two merger. With so few publishers out there right now, EA buying Take-Two might end up killing the industry.

        Who is left out there right now? Atari is pretty much gone, you have Vivendi which hasn't released anything good in ages(Blizzard has it's followers, but I am not impressed by their releases over the past 8 years), and you have Take-Two. Any merger between two of these big players would put the industry in a really bad situation. The fact that EA scooped up Bioware may hurt a lot too.
        I guesss you missed the news of the Activision-Vivendi merger?

        Considering that almost all media in the US are owned by about 5 or 6 companies I seriously doubt this would be even the slightest bit of an issue. EA is actually independent of those and often competing directly against the likes of Disney, Sony and Time Warner and it in fact wouldn't surprise me one bit if they eventually get bought out by one of them. Not to mention that there are still plenty of major game publishers left in the world: Nintendo, Sega, Capcom, Konami, Namco, Square-Enix, Sony, Microsoft, Activision-Blizzard, THQ, Midway, Interplay, Bethesda, Epic, Gamecock, Ubisoft, Atari, Eidos (some of these are obviously doing better than others but there's no lack of competition, and this is just the A-list). In fact, the general agreement among market analysts is that there will be a LOT more market consolidation taking place over the next few years, Activision-Blizzard is only the beginning. Is that good for gamers? I don't know, there's a lot of factors involved (these big guys are inadvertently also creating a lot of space for independent developers), but anyone who's been watching this industry for a while will realise it's probably inevitable.
        Administrator of WePlayCiv -- Civ5 Info Centre | Forum | Gallery

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        • #79
          Originally posted by Yaga
          What's a back-list game title go for these days? I wonder what would happen if (will happen when?) a solid fan community like Poly bought up an old title (*cough* Colonization, please *cough*) and then turned folks like Bhruic and Solver on it.
          Varies greatly but way more than we could afford. Think hi-range 5 zeros, bare minimum.

          Game licenses changing ownership is pretty rare (short of companies being bought out and the like): if a license is valuable enough to build new games with, why would you sell it and let someone else make a profit off of it? Not only are you denying yourself money, you're giving it away to a rival! Publishers tend to be fairly paranoid and ridiculously overprice even worthless licenses to eliminate the risk that the competition (no matter how insignificant) might actually benefit from the acquisition, thus making these kinds of transactions nearly impossible (see Stardock trying to buy the MoO license, or the CtP community here the license for that game).

          It almost certainly didn't make business sense for Firaxis to get those licenses from Atari -- I'm not exactly holding my breath for CPU Bach 2 to come out anytime soon -- but they obviously had sentimental value (and it was probably part of some larger contract so they likely didn't pay 'full price').
          Administrator of WePlayCiv -- Civ5 Info Centre | Forum | Gallery

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          • #80
            If you want to make your own games, the best thing to do is go the way of Valve. Start your own company and develop with near-absolute freedom. As a downside, you'd be hard pressed to get that done with less than 20 million bucks in your pocket
            Solver, WePlayCiv Co-Administrator
            Contact: solver-at-weplayciv-dot-com
            I can kill you whenever I please... but not today. - The Cigarette Smoking Man

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            • #81
              Originally posted by Solver
              As a downside, you'd be hard pressed to get that done with less than 20 million bucks in your pocket
              Not reallyit merely requires talent and perseverence (and a LOT of free time).
              Administrator of WePlayCiv -- Civ5 Info Centre | Forum | Gallery

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              • #82
                I said "hard pressed", not impossible. I'm well aware of examples like above, but they are fairly few and far between.
                Solver, WePlayCiv Co-Administrator
                Contact: solver-at-weplayciv-dot-com
                I can kill you whenever I please... but not today. - The Cigarette Smoking Man

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                • #83
                  really?!

                  Originally posted by Solver
                  It's not abandoned. There will be another patch for BtS, in fact.
                  Is this something that you know for sure (e.g. through contacts with Firaxis), or just your personal opinion/ guess?

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                  • #84
                    A patch has been officially announced, yes. The specific timeline has not been, however.
                    <Reverend> IRC is just multiplayer notepad.
                    I like your SNOOPY POSTER! - While you Wait quote.

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