NTSC-RePlay 013: The Scarred Heart

[Neon Ignition]

Videogame development can be a turbulent industry to work in and as the years have rolled by we've seen a long list of companies collapse and be consigned to the scrapheap of history both through simple closure and through larger companies buying them out and then pretty much wiping them out.


This isn't NTSC-UK... It's NTSC-RePlay


On the 07 July 2007, MartyG created a thread relating to an article featuring games companies that had endured rises and falls. For this entry we're going to revisit that subject from a more personally focused standpoint.

Which now gone games company do you most miss and why?

[Asura]

Which now gone games company do you most miss and why?

This is difficult, as I don't usually find myself lamenting this sort of thing. But the one which sprung to mind was Lucasarts.

As a PC owner through most of the 90s, I played most of their greats. X-Wing, Sam & Max, Dark Forces, Indy Atlantis, countless others. At one point they had such a consistent output; like up until a point I wasn't sure they'd ever made an objectively bad game.

I know they were killed by their own success, which is a shame. From what I heard, it was all about Star Wars Battlefront 1&2 - not only were those games successful, but they were a hit on a level that killed all their other projects because they made revenue that dwarfed all of their prior games, summed together, times five - or some other similarly ridiculous comparative. They just made so much cash that their publisher's expectations for The Force Unleashed series were never going to be surpassed, and even though those games were a success in their pre-Battlefront terms, they were seen as a failure and it led to the studio's closure in the climate of the Disney buyout.

Real shame, if I'm honest. I loved those games.

[Neon Ignition]

It's definitely a difficult one. In some ways the first to come to mind is Criterion who are technically still running but it's only in name.
I felt that Paradise saw them on the cusp of delivering something great within the genre but instead EA just wasted them on the naff NFS franchise

Rare is the same in that way. Either they were immensely bolstered by Nintendo or something went very wrong.

[Deuteros]

Sierra On-Line.

Sure, people like to make fun at the 'moon logic' of some of the puzzles in their games, not to mention the now inexcusable 'dead man walking' scenarios that should have been avoided, but they were trailblazing and writing the rules as they went along.

[Colin]

Easy one for me, Hudson Soft. As a life long PC-Engine fan they were responsible for so much of my gaming playtime for decades. <Shakes fist angrily at non present Konami representative>

[phillv85]

There's definitely a few.

LucasArts played a huge part in my gaming as a kid. I played loads of their point and click adventure games.

Then you have the Japanese developers who put out some great stuff....

Compile with Puyo Puyo and their great shooters.
Hudson Soft who made some of the greatest PC Engine titles
Nazca Corp who did 4 of the Metal Slug games and the epic Neo Turf Masters

I think the one I'll go with are Psikyo. They made some epic games in the 90's, the shooting game scene wouldn't have been the same without them.

[wheelaa]

Technos Japan.

[Hirst]

Maxis - they're not technically dead, but EA has ground them so much into the dirt that they're basically a shovelware supplier who only exist to put out underwhelming collections of furniture for Sims 4. Once EA bought them in 1997 it was the beginning of the end, it was surprising they managed to get Sim City 3000 and Sim City 4 out without much clear interference. But once EA figured out how much of a cash cow The Sims could be, that was it.

[kellog7]

Maybe Treasure. They haven't released anything in almost a decade. So many great gaming memories.

[briareos_kerensky]

Every time I hear this question, my mind immediately goes to one small studio that never really had a particularly prolific or outstanding game output, but despite that I really wanted to see what they'd come up if they were still around today making games: Cing.
Little King's Adventure, Hotel Dusk, Another Code...all good games made with a ton of passion.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Silicone Knights

They always made dark adult type games.
Legacy of Kain would do really well these days. Microsoft ate them.

[Asura]

Silicone Knights

They always made dark adult type games.
Legacy of Kain would do really well these days. Microsoft ate them.

The first one?

I always preferred the follow ups, but those were made by Crystal Dynamics.

[briareos_kerensky]

Silicone Knights

They always made dark adult type games.
Legacy of Kain would do really well these days. Microsoft ate them.

The Legacy Of Kain series is owned by Square Enix, Silicon Knights were never purchased by anyone and closed due to bankruptcy after X-Men Destiny. Maybe being purchased by someone would have staved off the embarassing lawsuit they started against Epic. Or maybe it's better they died off.

[Cassius_Smoke]

I thought MS bought them. Come to think of it, maybe I'm not even thinking of the right company.

[Neon Ignition]

I think Legacy of Kain was amongst the properties Square just sold off so we might finally see some movement on that IP