Weekend News Spin — February 17-18, 2001

Not-for-profit, just-for-fun

The Washington Post has a story about how players have saved a computer game from extinction. Sanctum, an excellent cross between a collectible card game like Magic: the Gathering and a turn-based strategy game, was about to be discontinued when the parent company, Digital Addiction, was going out of business.

Krister Fardig stared open-mouthed at the computer screen in his Brown University dorm room, reeling at the news. Before him was e-mail from the chief executive of Digital Addiction, saying the online gaming company in Laurel was shutting down and that the game -- his game -- would soon disappear.

Since Sanctum is an online-only game, this was dire news indeed. Fardig and other players who loved the game began exchanging email, though, and a plan was hatched.

Eventually, seven rabid fans, including Fardig, agreed to pool their money, form a nonprofit company and buy the rights to the game.

In a bit of unusual synchronicity, Mark downloaded Sanctum and reactivated his account last night before we spotted this story. So we can testify that the game is in good hands, still playable, and still loads of fun, even if Mark did go 2-3 in games last night and see his ranking slip. Oh, and if the group who purchased the game and run it now end up making a profit, they plan on donating it to charity.

Retro Studios lays off workers

Daily Radar has a story indicating that Retro Studios in Austin has laid off workers and put a couple of NIntendo Gamecube games on hold. One of the titles they're making (and which we assume is not on hold) is a new Metroid game.

According to a source inside Nintendo, Retro is laying off a number of staff today. A second source indicated the company is putting a hold on two Gamecube titles in development while it redistributes staff to higher priority titles.

Of interest to computer game fans is that Retro is where former Simtex developer Steve Barcia now works. We had hopes that Barcia might work some of that Master of Orion magic into a console title, but it looks like Retro is having problems. Simtex was notorious for being late with games, and in the case of Agents of Justice, never delivered.

Xbox a $400 system?

There's a New York Times story about Flextronics, the company that will manufacture the Xbox for Microsoft, and the story indicates that the Xbox will cost $400.

Although the powerful home computers will come with a Microsoft label, they will be built by Flextronics. Mr. Marks is now putting the finishing touches on two new factories, one in Guadalajara, Mexico, and the other in Tab, Hungary, where 16 assembly lines could churn out as many as two million of the $400 systems this year.

We'll caution that this may be Microsoft's cost. They may decide to sell it for a loss, as Sega and Sony do with their consoles. It's hard to imagine that they'll sell it for more than the PS2's $299 price point.

Bill Roper interview part two

Part two of our interview with Blizzard's Bill Roper is now up. Bill talks about the Diablo 2 expansion, the new Warcraft novel, and a few other things. Here's the link.

And if you didn't read part one, here's the link to that. Hey, if episodic content worked for Dickens, it can work for us!

3am

Just a few odds and ends. Gamecenter is even deader than it was a few days ago now. The URL now redirects to a Gamespot page. They have archived the Gamecenter content, though Mark is dismayed to be unable to find any of his Game Spin columns. Where are they? Update: Oops. They're still there. We didn't search deeply enough.

Just look at all the PC game magazines that have died in the last two years: Voodoo, PC Games, PC Accelerator, and Incite PC Games. Meanwhile the survivors have taken a hit on the advertising front and their page counts have been reduced.

Gamestock is a little less than a month away, so we should see a flood of Xbox news when that Microsoft press event happens.

So take advantage of this slow time for games. Play something from that stack of games you always wanted to get back to, unless it happens to Space Bunnies Must Die. If that's in your stack, your stack needs an overhaul.

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