Daily News Spin — August 15, 2001 (Wednesday)

NY Times on Sierra

From the Times:

A spokesman for the company, a subsidiary of French media conglomerate Vivendi Universal (news/quote), said the decision was not based on financial concerns.

``In general the game industry for Vivendi is going very well; revenue-wise, it has been a very good year,'' spokesman Craig Sinel said.

Sinel said the job cuts, announced this week, were mostly in marketing, legal services and other administrative areas. Those functions will now be handled out of Vivendi's Los Angeles office, he said.

Redundant? Blue Shift seemed a little redundant. How many tram rides are they going to squeeze out of Half-Life?

Time to suck up to an editor

Gotta pay the mortgage. Yeah, we get some freelance work from Jeff Green at Computer Gaming World, so let's link to one of his Greenspeak columns online at the new CGW site. This is his column where he discusses his ascension to the editor-in-chief position, which is a lot like being the Commander-in-Chief except Jeff doesn't get to take a month-long vacation after only six months on the job and the red phone on Jeff's desk is hotwired to Dominos instead of Moscow. As always, funny stuff from Jeff.

In any event, the coup d'etat is complete and the Jeff Green Era is about to begin. All hail me. Although my plans for this magazine are still sketchy at best - other than to give myself a big fat raise and maybe a new car - look for things to start shaping up around here real soon. Computer Gaming World 2.0 is on the way, and, with me solidly at the helm, you can expect nothing less than 12 issues a year of something or other, I guess.

It's a bittersweet and somewhat surprising turn of events for me. I was hired in the "old days" of CGW, back when all the editors had facial hair (including the women), and the game companies used to actually make computer games instead of just cancel them. If you told me back then that someday I'd be running this magazine, I would have laughed in disbelief and wet myself. In fact, just thinking about it now has made me wet myself all over again. Be right back.

Now for the love of god, Jeff, please don't make us review Beatdown 2 or Battlecruiser 3030AD! And Bauman, what can we do for you?

Trespasser undressed

Trespasser City interviewed Rich Wyckoff, one of the designers of the game. We didn't know there were fan sites for this disaster of a game, even though one reviewer characterized it as "a game that's hard to criticize and even harder to stop playing."

Nevertheless, Wyckoff shares some candid thoughts about the game's development, including how Speilberg and his son designed one tiny part of the game:

How much did Speilberg actually do with it?

During the time I was at the company, he came to look at the game a few times. He was definitely very aware of the game and what we were trying to do with it. We wanted him to take a more active role in the design, and he also wanted to, so about four or five months before we shipped when we finally had enough of the engine together for it to make sense, he came over to the office with his son Max. The two of them sat with the lead designer and myself and we worked out a puzzle where you would be chased by raptors and evade them by knocking down a jeep that was balanced precariously above the valley floor you were running down. This was originally planned for the Pine Valley level that was cut, but ended up appearing in Industrial Jungle, but it doesn't really work quite right. There's a place near the beginning of that level, anyway, where there's a jeep up on a large boulder, and a raptor off to the side. If you look around in that area, there's a rock that you can pick up, and on the bottom side you'll find the signatures of Stephen and Max Spielberg...

The interview also mentions that Michael Crichton had nothing to do with the game. In fact, Wyckof said that Crichton might not even know the game exists. Guess he was too busy making that smash hit Timeline.

Thanks Erik!

More Ziff Davis fallout

After yesterday's news about the CEO getting the boot, the NY Post has some commentary about the situation. Given ZD's recent moves towards getting back into Internet properties, we found this interesting:

Sources say Dunning [the fired CEO] remained focused on building the Internet business - which, he thought, given more time, would pay off. His backers felt differently.

What does this mean about Ziff and the Internet? We don't know, but it looks like the chief champion of the Internet at Ziff is now gone. You do the math. Don't cry for Dunning, though. He made $40 million in an earlier sale of publishing properties. That's almost as much as the Quarter to Three publishing empire is worth.

It's official: Sierra drops the axe

Here's yesterday's press release about the layoffs.

Non-Developmental Functions. A number of key functional areas within Sierra's Bellevue, WA headquarters will be consolidated and managed as corporate functions within VU Interactive Publishing. These moves will improve efficiency and allow VU Interactive Publishing to maximize operating synergies across studios.

Product Development. There will be several key changes within Sierra's internal and external studios. Dynamix, based in Eugene, OR, will be closed and the development of key franchises including Tribes will move to Sierra's Bellevue studio. The Bellevue studio will remain central to the new organization, and will, in addition to Tribes, be responsible for the best-selling SWAT and Hoyle franchises. Concord, MA-based Papyrus, which has a strong heritage in the development of racing games, will continue as a key studio, maintaining responsibility for the NASCAR franchise. Cambridge, MA-based Impressions, will remain a key development studio, responsible for a number of pre-eminent titles including the Ancient City Building series and Lords of the Realm.

Sierra Home. The Sierra Home division, which produces a range of cooking, gardening, genealogy, and publishing titles, will concentrate on the development of its print business. All other product categories will be divested. VU Interactive Publishing will retain Sierra's best-selling Print Artist franchises, which will continue as an important part of the Sierra portfolio and be managed out of the Los Angeles office.

So, to sum it up the parts that matter to gamers, Papyrus (NASCAR) and Impressions (Caesar) will continue making games, the Tribes 2 brand will be continued, though we don't know if development will be done in-house, and the SWAT series will continue. That looks to be the bulk of the in-house development that Sierra will continue. Of course we're on the outside looking in and the curtains are closed, so what do we know? Doesn't stop us from mouthing off though!

As theglobe.com turns

Theglobe.com, parent company to Computer Games magazine, Happy Puppy, Games Domain, and Computer Games Online, has reported its second quarter financial results. They ain't good, which is no surprise.

For the quarter, net revenues were $4.5 million, compared to $8.4 million a year earlier. Pro forma net loss, which excludes $2.8 million in amortization of goodwill and intangible assets and $5.1 million in restructuring and impairment charges related to the Company's restructuring initiatives, was $4.6 million, or $0.15 per share.

As far as cash and cash equivalents for assets, it looks like they have about $9.3 million. As we reported previously, they're looking to sell just about everything, so it's all up in the air as to what will happen.

3am

Double CEO no more. Jason Hall is removing himself as the CEO of LithTech. He's still CEO of Monolith, but Jeffery Hutt, formerly of Nintendo of America, is the new CEO of the engine company. Thanks Blues.

CGW gets warezed. Sort of. The new Computer Gaming World website had the exclusive demo for Alien vs. Predator 2. They were going to post it sometime after midnight tonight or tomorrow night -- not sure -- but some East European sites jumped the gun and posted it today and within minutes it was mirrored all over the 'net. Hit CGW's site to download it now if you want it. They went ahead and posted it.

Speaking of demos, a "multiplayer test" demo of Red Faction is now out.

There are rumors now of problems with Xbox production that could cause delays. Microsoft is denying there's a problem, but the rumor is coming from the business wires and not from some kid eating Cheeto's who's bored. Thanks John!

A look at how the dot com crash is affecting traditional publishing.

Before there were secret areas in games, there were secrets in the world. One great discover of secrets was archeologist Howard Carter. This is from his diary as he describes first peering into the tomb of King Tutankhamun.

It was sometime before one could see, the hot air escaping caused the candle to flicker, but as soon as one's eyes became accustomed to the glimmer of light the interior of the chamber gradually loomed before one, with its strange and wonderful medley of extraordinary and beautiful objects heaped upon one another.

There was naturally short suspense for those present who could not see, when Lord Carnarvon said to me `Can you see anything'. I replied to him Yes, it is wonderful. I then with precaution made the hole sufficiently large for both of us to see. With the light of an electric torch as well as an additional candle we looked in. Our sensations and astonishment are difficult to describe as the better light revealed to us the marvellous collection of treasures: two strange ebony-black effigies of a King, gold sandalled, bearing staff and mace, loomed out from the cloak of darkness; gilded couches in strange forms, lion-headed, Hathor-headed, and beast infernal; exquisitely painted, inlaid, and ornamental caskets; flowers; alabaster vases, some beautifully executed of lotus and papyrus device; strange black shrines with a gilded monster snake appearing from within; quite ordinary looking white chests; finely carved chairs; a golden inlaid throne; a heap of large curious white oviform boxes; beneath our very eyes, on the threshold, a lovely lotiform wishing-cup in translucent alabaster; stools of all shapes and design, of both common and rare materials; and, lastly a confusion of overturned parts of chariots glinting with gold, peering from amongst which was a mannikin. The first impression of which suggested the property-room of an opera of a vanished civilization. Our sensations were bewildering and full of strange emotion. We questioned one another as to the meaning of it all. Was it a tomb or merely a cache? A sealed doorway between the two sentinel statues proved there was more beyond, and with the numerous cartouches bearing the name of Tut.ankh.Amen on most of the objects before us, there was little doubt that there behind was the grave of that Pharaoh.

Lord Carnarvon, Carter's patron, would be dead two months later from an insect bite, giving rise to the legends of the curse of King Tut. Most of the diggers lived long lives, though, so the curse, if any, was selective.

Click here to read yesterday's news