Black Isle's uncertain future.

[Moral Hazard]

As you may or may not be aware Interplay has been having a lot of financial trouble of late, ending in the 'takeover' by Titus. They converted a lot of bonds into stock and now control a majority position in the company.

I expected Black Isle to survive pretty well thru all of this; because they're a relatively profitable division. But now Interplay is being sued by none other than Bioware Corp over licensing (I believe of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance).

So the question is what does this mean? Will the partnership of Bioware and Black Isle end? And If so what will happen, to future titles. Basically how much interaction went on between Bioware and Black Isle on their various games?

[History049]

Anyone here an expert that would know? Probably not. As long as they make new games.

[Moral Hazard]

Bob. It doesn't take an expert just a fanatic, like myself BG seems very popular around here so I thought I'd ask. I've also asked on Planet BG.

Anyway it doesn't look good for Interplay. They made 87 Million in Revenue last year. BG2 sold over 500,000 copies. A conservative estimate would then place BG2revenues at over 10M. That's just from one game. They are also being sued by Parallax (makers of the descent series) Therefore I don't think Titus would scorn them unless
a) they want to kill the partnership (incrediably stupid)
b) Are short on cash (which will mean Interplay will release some unfinished titles)

Any thoughts?

[History049]

Thoughts: Even if it does die, there will be more games like BG. Maybe just not with the same engine. But even this engine is getting obsolete and they'd make a better one.

[Moral Hazard]

What about NWN? It's being developed by Bioware; new engine and everything. If it's purely a Bioware project, all well and good, I'm positive they can find a publisher.

But I'm pretty sure Black Isle has money in the game. Even worse they might have a very active role in development. Splitting a dev team during production is always harmful.

[Moral Hazard]

Before I go to bed I thought I'd post this.

From a PlanetBG moderator (Muller):
Bioware created BG1/TotSC and BG2/ToB completely in house. The only help they got from Black Isle and Interplay were on QA (Quality Assurance, game testing, since that requires a huge amount of man hours), and publishing (the physical logistics of getting a game to consumers. Burning the cd's, printing the manuals, making the boxes, etc.).

Black Isle is a Division of Interplay, so they have to answer directly to Interplay. Black Isle created Icewind Dale and Planescape:Torment, they licensed the Infinity Engine from Bioware.

Bioware is making Neverwinter Nights, as well as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic