RIP Troika

[korn469]

Troika Closes
Rumors solidify: the RPG specialist is shutting its doors.
by David Adams
February 24, 2005 - After a swirl of rumors that the studio was in its final days, joint CEO Leonard Boyarsky confirmed to fan sites today that Troika has closed.



Fallout fan site No Mutants Allowed today posted a letter from Boyarsky explaining the closure. "As many of you may have already heard, Troika has laid off all of its employees and is closing its doors due to our inability to secure funding for future projects," he writes. "We want to thank all of our fans for their support these past seven years, it has really meant a lot to us that there were people out there who enjoyed our games enough to create fan-sites and follow our progress as a company."

Troika formed in 1998 when Boyarsky, Tim Cain, and Jason Anderson became literal fallout from Interplay, just as Fallout 2 was about to hit. The studio specialized in creating RPG titles based on pen-and-paper systems, including, recently, Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines and the Dungeons & Dragons-based Temple of Elemental Evil, as well as 2001's classic Arcanum.

Apparently, however, the studio's titles, designed for hard-core RPG enthusiasts, didn't move enough units to keep the company afloat.

It isn't clear yet just what the former Troika trio, or its team, will do next. "We have not yet made the decision as to whether Troika Games as an entity will regroup and pursue future projects or simply cease to exist," writes Boyarsky. He offers particular thanks to his employees: "[We] had the pleasure of working with the some of the most dedicated, hard working, creative people in the industry, and we really appreciate all that they did for Troika."

Bloodlines, Troika's final project, used Valve's advanced Source engine, and was released in November almost simultaneously with the titanic Half-Life 2.

as reported by ign

http://pc.ign.com/articles/590/590612p1.html

All I know is that this sucks! These are the guys who came up with fallout, and I really liked their approach to games, unfortunantly it seems like they never had the greatest QA though. I'm not sure about Vampire:Bloodlines, but all of their other games have seemed buggy, made that's what did them in. I hope they get a job at Bethesda working on Fallout 3, now wouldn't that be awesome?!

[Nostromo]

Beat you to it

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=3643506#post3643506

[Nostromo]

Vampire:Bloodlines is a bug fest. Fortunately, it doesn't kill the game. Btw, if your machine can handle it, you should get it.

[Jamski]

I was never impressed with the lack of quality control that Troika manifested in almost all their games. They reached for the stars, but always fell short. Ah well, they tried, bless them.

-Jam

[DrSpike]

Never good to see a company with even some promise die though.

[child of Thor]

especialy these days, with many in the games industry prediciting the death of PC gaming by and large

[LDiCesare]

The real problem is they seemed to have made well on each of their games, but lack the money to invest in a new project. Bethesda getting Fallout 3 was probably what killed them. Their QA was rough, but their games were very playable despite the bugs (I mean Arcanum, ToEE too though I didn't like that much, it being purely hack and slash storyless).

[Nikolai]

Been lots of such lately it seems... I've never played any of their games, but any close down is a loss IMO.

[Nostromo]

especialy these days, with many in the games industry prediciting the death of PC gaming by and large

That's a bit alarmist, no? At most, it's consolidating. There are too many developpers making too many games.

That said, my PC gaming days are probably over, for now at least. Since I plugged in my Radeon I had nothing but problems. My PC is crashing all the time. I don't have the time to deal with that ****. So I'll probably remove the card and sell it. I still have my Xbox. It works, at least.

[Jamski]

Moral : Don't buy Radeon cards. Get Nvidia.

-Jam

[LDiCesare]

That's a bit alarmist, no? At most, it's consolidating. There are too many developpers making too many games.

The real problem is they are all making the same games. Troika did some original stuff. Arcanum's setting was unique for instance. If indies disappear and the only ones that are left are EA, then I'll stop playing games.

[Nostromo]

First of all, PC gaming isn't dying. That's a myth. Like Brad Wardell pointed out:

The problem with the industry isn't that it's a small market or that it's dying, the problem is that there are just too many games released each year relative to the number of people who buy them.

You're right, of course, when you say they're all making the same games. But even if the game published were original, there would still be too many games released each year relative to the number of people who buy them. Btw, Brad Wardell wrote a series of articles on the gaming industry, demolishing in the process a lot of myths.

http://www.avault.com/developer/index.asp?index=main3

[LDiCesare]

Wardell in particular wrote about the expectations one can have for an indie game. Selling 30,000 copies of an indie game is a big hit. If you look around the web there are really many many indie games being developped. The big houses concentrate on titles they know will sell well, and it's hard to create a game that will get published.
Let's consider the differences between Troika and Wardell's Stardock games:
Troika published several games, which were all rushed a bit, with things cut off and technical problems (bugs). These were all distributed by big houses.
Stardock funded their projects themselves, thansk to resources which are external to the gaming industry (and that investment paid back, bith for Galciv and The Political Machine). They didn't rush Galciv, and in fact added stuff during the beta instead of cutting things off like ToEE where a whole set of quests got cut by the publisher. This resulted in higher quality products. The Political Machine was more bugged because it had a tighter deadline. And it got published by a big house instead of Strategy First.
Troika could have continued developping games had they had a contract from a publisher. They haven't, so they're toast, and that's a pity. But then again, a publisher wouldn't have asked them something original, so would they have been able to add value to that game (and what will Fallout3 look like in the hands of Bethesda)?

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Jamski
Moral : Don't buy Radeon cards. Get Nvidia.

-Jam

Moral: don't lsiten to Jam!

[Nostromo]

Troika could have continued developping games had they had a contract from a publisher. They haven't, so they're toast, and that's a pity. But then again, a publisher wouldn't have asked them something original, so would they have been able to add value to that game (and what will Fallout3 look like in the hands of Bethesda)?

Yet Activision published Vampire: bloodlines, which was a fairly original product. The setting itself is refreshingly original, at least compared to the other products on the market. And Troika pushed the limits of the RPG genre in a number of ways, particularly with the game's dialogues. Yet people didn't buy the game. Why? Is it Activision's fault? Or Troika's? But probably the main reason for Troika's early demise is bad management. At least, Wardell seems to have an understanding of the market.