A state-owned games company

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Just to clarify (it isn't really instrumental in my argument): the first GTA game was located in a fake NY, a fake San Fransisco, and a fake Miami. The expansion was located in London.

London doesn't make as much sense as a setting, though, IMO.

[Jamski]

I wonder if you have to pay the congestion charge in GTA London?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
I know about the above publishers, I was interested in French DEVELOPERS. Never heard of Cryo and Kalisto - what have they done? any others?

Ubi Soft has a developing team, which is responsible for Rayman among other things. The boundary between developers and publishers in France is not as clear as in other places (Cryo was self-published IIRC), so a part of what comes out of Atari and Ubi Soft is made domestically, a part is made by daughter companies (such as Ubi Soft Canada, which worked on Prince of Persia Sands of Time), part is made by external developers.

It's fairly easy to know what is made by external developers, but it's harder to know which internal team worked on what.

Edit: Re Cryo, they made Captain Blood and Purple Saturn Day in the 80ies (among others). They also made Dune in the early 90ies. Toward the late 90ies/early 2000's, they concentrated on a niche market of "interactive films" or something, graphic adventures set in historical settings such as Egypt or Versailles.

Kalisto's most famous title is Dark Earth. Unlike Cryo, they were a short lived company.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Jamski
I wonder if you have to pay the congestion charge in GTA London?

If you don't pay it a giant Ken Livingstone chases you.

[Jamski]

Originally posted by DrSpike


If you don't pay it a giant Ken Livingstone chases you.

At the normal traffic speed in London he'll catch you too, even if he's in a giant wheelchair with no wheels.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DrSpike


If you don't pay it a giant Ken Livingstone chases you.

Damn, that IS scary Couldn't I just play Doom instead?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by General Ludd
The developers of planeshift have apparently made a Non Profit Organization that's purpose is to foster the development of "public" games.

Ack! Dreadful Flash crap

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
London doesn't make as much sense as a setting, though, IMO.

Rio does.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Planescape Torment is one of the few fantasy games where you won't find magically-gifted haughty elves, stout dwarves, or inventive and omnipresent humans (at least, for what little I've seen in it). Even the other D&D games follow these clichés.

That's because D&D IS based on the Tolkien world. Though Rolemaster is probably even worse.

[Grumbold]

Most small French developers disappeared along with the other small fry when games got more and more expensive and any decent developer got bought up and merged into the growing multinationals.

In the 1990's I can remember a lot of quirky French games. The Ishar triology of RPGs by Silmarils sticks in my mind. I've no doubt there are still plenty of French people out there developing games but these days the triple-A titles have to appeal to the US or the far east to reap big profits. A company of any nationality which gets a publishers advance for a big game is goign to have to conform to their expectations.

[lord of the mark]

bumped, cause France apparently IS subsidizing its games

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/gaming/2007-12-12-france-video-games-tax_N.htm?csp=34

[Kuciwalker]

But Spiffor is gone

[Kassiopeia]

So is Jamski

Reading this thread was kind of depressing.

[DrSpike]

It really is bump week.

[LDiCesare]

About French developped games, most French gaming studios disappeared and people fled to Canada or changed jobs to worlk in another field because France didn't subsidize video games the way Canada does (here's what some canadians think of Quebec subsidies).
There are still games developped in France (I worked on exalight and Empire of Sports for instance, which are developped in Paris and should be available next year if the plans are still what they used to tell us. But there is little or no incentive to do games in France.
The tax break is 20% (compare with Quebec's figures about 50%) and limited to games with "cultural content", which doesn't mean much, who knows who'll benefit from it?