http://kotaku.com/5955223/what-went-wron...en-destiny
http://kotaku.com/denis-dyack-finally-so...-508948428
It appears that, briefly, Silicon Knights were being held by much higher standards when Nintendo and Konami were involved in the creative process. After they went 3rd party, Dennis Dyack proceeded to run the company into the ground, with employees focused on appeasing odd whims instead of developing amazing games. Too Human was "okay", but their last game was the death of a company.
Rare's story is a bit different, being bought out from Nintendo (seemingly against Nintendo's wishes but they couldn't do anything about it as they couldn't match that amount at the time) but also having lost a number of their own developers to various startup groups. One did the well received Time Crisis series, but otherwise the splinter groups have all more or less floundered in obscurity.
It makes me wonder if Retro would do as well without Nintendo mentoring them. I recall them mentioning just how hands on Miyamoto was with Metroid Prime's design and also how with Donkey Kong Country Returns they were getting daily commentary on level design from Nintendo.
Retro are skilled, but I think it's time to acknowledge just how important Nintendo's input was in the design of their best games. To that end, I really don't want to see Retro go third party. I doubt they'd do as well afterwards.
Back to Silicon Knights though, I have no intention to fund their spinoff company's "spiritual successor" to Eternal Darkness. Dennis Dyack's ability to lead is under serious question, and I have seen no indication that key people behind the greatness of the first will be working on the new one. Also, it is becoming increasingly clear that Nintendo was heavily involved in the original game, so their absence also creates serious doubts in how well the game could do. Nintendo ought to buy the license from now defunct Silicon Knights and have Retro make the next game in the series. I trust them more than Dennis Dyack at this point. The fact we gave him so much credit when these whistle blowers are revealing just how little he contributed suggests he just HAD to have his name on everything.
So this screed is basically me saying, no Dennis, we aren't going to fund your game in advance. The Torment guys already proved themselves. The old Sierra employees already proved themselves. I'm not paying a cent until I see the finished product. Yes, that's a catch 22, but that's how it is.
Retro can't go third-party [like Silicon Knights] and can't be bought out [like Rare], they are a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nintendo [like Nintendo EAD].
Sure, but Nintendo could sell them off or something. Rare was majority owned by Nintendo, after all.
And yeah, the story of this Shadow of the Eternals crowdfunding effort is pretty sad... I mean, the game looks great! And of course, the original Eternal Darkness is my favorite game of the 6th generation (and yes, I still have that Eternal Darkness t-shirt that I won in that (was it Tendo or Rumble?) City random drawing thing. :)
I did back the game, but there's no way it's funding. I can only hope that they manage to find the money somehow, this game deserves to be made darnit!
Remove Dennis Dyack from the project and maybe I'll consider it. The man's poison.
From what I understand, Rare was not majority owned by Nintendo. Nintendo owned less than 50%, so Microsoft just bought more than 50% and GOT that majority ownership. A bit different than this case. Nintendo didn't "sell Rare to Microsoft", Microsoft just bought them out.
I think Nintendo owned about 49% of Rare, with the other 51% being owned by the Stamper brothers. The Stamper brothers decided they wanted to sell their shares, which they then sold to Microsoft. Nintendo didn't want to own 49% of a company they had no control over and which would be making games for a rival console, so they sold their stake, too.
The most likely thing to happen is that Nintendo would shut down Retro and fold the employees/assets into another of their American subsidiaries.
Denis Dyack is purely on the creative side in Precursor. He has no control over the business side of the company. And given how key he was to Eternal Darkness (and SK's other good games), he clearly has skill at creative design. So I wouldn't want him removed, it'd probably hurt the game...
As for Rare, I believe the Stampers did at one point offer to sell their share to Nintendo, but I don't think Nintendo wanted it...
All those guys are ex-SK and buddy-buddy with Dyack, I wouldn't trust any of them with a dime.
Oh come on, just because SK's last two games weren't that great doesn't mean that they can't make a good game anymore. That's ridiculous.
Eternal Darkness came out ELEVEN years ago, ABF. In that stretch, Silicon Knights put out two games. One wasn't very good, the other was an absolute disaster. By all accounts, Dyack ran the company into the ground because he wanted to use other people's money to work on pet projects and was a pretty terrible manager [out from under the strict oversight of Nintendo].
Never mind that their entire crowdfunding effort has been one big mess from start to present. It was sloppy all around, parts of it felt kinda sleazy, and there's hardly any coherent vision for how the thing is supposed to be run or completed. And it's also not going to raise anywhere NEAR what they say they need anyway.
Great Rumbler Wrote:Eternal Darkness came out ELEVEN years ago, ABF. In that stretch, Silicon Knights put out two games. One wasn't very good, the other was an absolute disaster.
MGS: Twin Snakes was good. You forgot it. Beyond that though, I haven't played those other two, but they're nothing at all like Shadow of the Eternals, so it doesn't really matter. What matters is the game that this one is like, Eternal Darkness, not the completely different kinds of games they've made since then.
What you're saying is like people refusing to donate to Wasteland 2 or Torment: Tides of Numenera because all InXile had made was stuff like The Bard's Tale (remake), Hunted: The Demon's Forge, Line Rider 2, and Choplifter HD. InXile hasn't made a truly great game yet, but got millions based mostly just on the names of the games and staff. I hope it works out, and backed the games, but InXile's record is average at best.
Or look at Hero Academy, which funded (at $400,000) despite its creators not having worked on a game since 1999 (Quest for Glory V). It barely funded, sure, but it did make it. That they've been away for a while, and that the game's somewhat different from QFG, probably hurt them, but it made it anyway. The Two Guys from Andromeda SpaceVenture funded too, even though one of the two of them has been out of gaming since 1999, and the other, though still a developer, hadn't made an adventure game since the '90s. Etc.
Of course, on the other hand Tom Hall's kickstarters both failed, perhaps in part because he too has been away for about that long, but that hasn't taken everyone down who's been away from game development for a while.
Quote: By all accounts, Dyack ran the company into the ground because he wanted to use other people's money to work on pet projects and was a pretty terrible manager [out from under the strict oversight of Nintendo].
By the accounts of some people who left the company and then bashed him after leaving, you mean? Did you notice the interview he gave where he responded to the claims?
I mean, yes, obviously he made mistakes at Silicon Knights. I'm pretty sure that's one reason why he's given that up and now is creative only. But the worst allegations aren't proven, they're just unsourced claims. He actually said that SK spent MORE on X-Men Destiny than Activision gave them. So yeah, he specifically denied that claim, and said that in fact they did the opposite. And then he said that he wishes that the game had been better, but that unfortunately it wasn't.
Quote:Never mind that their entire crowdfunding effort has been one big mess from start to present. It was sloppy all around, parts of it felt kinda sleazy, and there's hardly any coherent vision for how the thing is supposed to be run or completed.
They've been pretty clear about what they're doing, so I don't know what you are talking about.
Quote:And it's also not going to raise anywhere NEAR what they say they need anyway.
That's certainly a pretty big issue, but that lots of people refuse to give to a company with Dyack at it because they hate him for Too Human is an unfortunately large part of the problem. Sure he made Too Human, but every game developer has some games that aren't as good as their best ones. That doesn't mean that they can't make great games anymore. It could mean that, of course we don't know for sure, but it certainly doesn't mean it inevitably.
If inXile had done in the past decade what Silicon Knights did, I wouldn't have given then a bit of my money either. They were a small company that did contract work and mobile games to get by on because big publishers weren't interested in the kinds of games they wanted to make. And none of their games are terrible, just not great.
Quote:By the accounts of some people who left the company and then bashed him after leaving, you mean? Did you notice the interview he gave where he responded to the claims?
The interview that came out SEVEN months later, in the middle of a crowdsourcing campaign that's ground to a halt far from its goal. The video was also way overlong and said nothing that should lead anybody to believe that Dyack is just a poor put upon soul that nasty anonymous sources are trying to tear down.
I mean, are you honestly believing Dyack over multiple SK employees, meticulously interviewed and cross-referenced over the course of months? You're believing the guy with his hand out, begging for your money, saying "Come on, ABF,
trust me! Everything's going to go right this time!" Geez, man, I know you want Eternal Darkness 2 really bad, but use a little bit of common sense here.
Quote:They've been pretty clear about what they're doing, so I don't know what you are talking about.
Like how originally they said that the money you gave them was a donation and they were under no obligation at all to give you anything in return? Or how they really, totally need $1.5 million, but they'll take whatever you give them and make something with it anyway? Or how they get your money instantly and get to keep it even if the goal isn't reached? Yes, they changed the wording, AFTER people pointed out how bad it all looked [and AFTER their campaign flopped right out the gate].
Quote:but that lots of people refuse to give to a company with Dyack at it because they hate him for Too Human
And for that X-Men game. And for running Silicon Knights right into the ground.
But hey, if you wanna hand over your hard-earned money to Dennis Dyack and his buddies in the hopes that maybe you'll eventually get an Eternal Darkness sequels that's as good as you remember the original being, then you just go right ahead. I'm highly skeptical of the entire affair, however, and won't give them any of mine.
Great Rumbler Wrote:If inXile had done in the past decade what Silicon Knights did, I wouldn't have given then a bit of my money either. They were a small company that did contract work and mobile games to get by on because big publishers weren't interested in the kinds of games they wanted to make. And none of their games are terrible, just not great.
Sounds a lot like what Dyack was doing with X-Men Destiny, just on a smaller scale. Choplifter HD's kind of fun (I do have it, since the original is a good game), but it got poor reviews, if you check...
Quote:The interview that came out SEVEN months later, in the middle of a crowdsourcing campaign that's ground to a halt far from its goal. The video was also way overlong and said nothing that should lead anybody to believe that Dyack is just a poor put upon soul that nasty anonymous sources are trying to tear down.
I mean, are you honestly believing Dyack over multiple SK employees, meticulously interviewed and cross-referenced over the course of months? You're believing the guy with his hand out, begging for your money, saying "Come on, ABF, trust me! Everything's going to go right this time!" Geez, man, I know you want Eternal Darkness 2 really bad, but use a little bit of common sense here.
Multiple employees who refused to give their names, in an article by an author who had it turned down by several sites before it was published, and which reads like a hit piece? Come on. Why would you believe everything in it? There's absolutely no reason to!
Dyack said that he hadn't initially responded because he didn't thinkg people wouild believe unsourced, unproven allegations like that, but after the campaign got off to such a bad start, he realized that they had. I don't know if that is true or not, because lots of people online were saying that they believed it, but given that they didn't address the issues beforehand gives his statement credence, I think... if they'd known how strong the reaction would be, would they have launched the campaign without addressing the critiques all, just on the hope that some "silent majority" or something were going to back the game? Questionable case there.
Quote:Like how originally they said that the money you gave them was a donation and they were under no obligation at all to give you anything in return? Or how they really, totally need $1.5 million, but they'll take whatever you give them and make something with it anyway? Or how they get your money instantly and get to keep it even if the goal isn't reached? Yes, they changed the wording, AFTER people pointed out how bad it all looked [and AFTER their campaign flopped right out the gate].
They said from the beginning that if the campaign failed, they would refund the money. They were quite clear on that point. Now, lots of conspiracy theorists who want to despise Dyack said that they were lying, but they were quite clear on that point: if they didn't get enough money to make the game, they'd return it all. They clarified that as soon as someone asked, which was day one. And the "we take the money now" system is, as they said, similar to how it worked for other non-Kickstarter crowdfunded games like Star Citizen.
Quote:And for that X-Men game. And for running Silicon Knights right into the ground.
But hey, if you wanna hand over your hard-earned money to Dennis Dyack and his buddies in the hopes that maybe you'll eventually get an Eternal Darkness sequels that's as good as you remember the original being, then you just go right ahead. I'm highly skeptical of the entire affair, however, and won't give them any of mine.
I hope they manage to find financing from somewhere, but it's looking bad. That's really sad, because yeah, ED's one of my favorite console games ever...
-Dyack was given a chance to be interviewed for the article before it was published.
-Stephen Totilo of Kotaku personally contacted each source used in the article
-The article was written by Andrew McMillen and edited by Totilo over the course of several weeks.
-The version of the article that was published is not the same as the version that was rejected by Wired and other outlets
-Anonymous sources are the bread and butter of reporting, these guys didn't want to be named because it would probably end their career in game development
And Dyack wouldn't be nearly so hated if he hadn't made a complete fool of himself with his idiotic ranting on GAF about Too Human.
Oh come on, Kotaku is far from some paragon of journalism. Most game journalists aren't great journalists, but Kotaku certainly isn't part of the solution. I see absolutely no reason to believe that article over Dyack, none. It's an anonymously sourced hit piece. Dyack refuted all of the important points quite effectively. (Oh, and the idea that he didn't comment in the article because he didn't want to give an unsourced attack article more credence does, to me, sound like a reasonable explanation...)
Instead you're perfectly willing to believe the guy that just released an absolute mess of a game, ran his company completely into the ground, is trying to convince YOU to give HIM money, and is currently losing the campaign to convince people to give him money?
Eight sources, ABF. Eight. Sources. This isn't ONE anonymous whistle-blower dishing the dirt on somebody. They got EIGHT former Silicon Knights employees to comment. All of them said pretty much the same exact thing. But keep on living in your fantasy land where Dyack was just unlucky, just a great guy that people hate for no reason, just thiiiiiis close to grabbing back his former glory.
ABF, usually you stand up for the little guy here, but you really need to take a step back and listen to yourself. You are bending over backwards to give Dennis every last shred of credit you can muster, and frankly, he doesn't deserve that credit.
Everything I've been reading has shown that Dennis Dyack simply isn't fit to run a business and that he treated his employees like garbage. Silikon Knights is a ghost town now. Ask yourself. Why exactly is Dennis making a startup company? He could have stayed with SK and made the game there.
Further, I watched those trailers. Interesting, but shady. It fits with what everyone was saying happened during the X-Men game development. I highly suspect this is the exact "pitch trailer" that Dennis put all his developers on during XMen's development. It's just an asset, naked in the dark, at this point. The vast majority of people responsible for Eternal Darkness are GONE ABF. You're trusting that a small handful that stuck with Dennis, along with Dennis himself, can somehow pull a miracle and deliver something on par with the first Eternal Darkness.
Listen, I'm with you. I have wanted SK to deliver a sequel to the first game for YEARS, but I think it's about time we all just gave up on that dream. Heck, this wouldn't even be a true sequel, just a "spiritual successor". Silicon Knights' best games were during the Nintendo years (Eternal Darkness and Twin Snakes), and those games were HEAVILY shepherded by Nintendo (and Konami in the latter's case). Fact is, while both games were really good, they did still have their flaws. Eternal Darkness' combat was "revolutionary" at the time, but the industry has moved on, and frankly their dismembering combat doesn't hold a candle to Dead Space's dismembering combat. I want to see some sign that the game uses a MODERN combat engine instead of the awkward tank controls we were all forced to accept during the early days of survival horror games. Twin Snakes was all around amazing, but I still can't get over the unrealistic way soldiers just "popped in" to rooms instead of coming in through the doors (it made using room layout in your strategy much less feasible, and frankly Metal Gear Solid 2, which came before this remake, already had mastered how to get soldiers properly and realistically entering a room before this game came out), and how they didn't bother sticking any of the VR missions in that version. Were they both good games? Yes, I loved the hell out of them when they came out, but they weren't perfect and seams showed around the edges. (Granted, both were far more "complete" than Star Fox Adventures, the game that feels like everyone sort of left the building midway through.)
Kotaku isn't the best source of journalism, but when they have sources, you can rely on them. You really think they'd want to name themselves? You of all people should understand why someone spilling the dirt on a former employee might not want to reveal their name. Heck, were pro little guy LONG before we all made the switch.
I hate having to put down Dennis like this. His name was huge and prominently displayed across both those Gamecube games, and it made us all fall in love with the guy. Now, it seems that was part of an ego trip and an attempt to make sure HE alone got the credit. In the end, I really don't know how much of the main scenario Dennis was actually responsible for in Eternal Darkness. I know for a fact he wasn't responsible for ANY part of Twin Snake's narrative, aside from getting his painting stuck in Psycho Mantis' room.
I will say this though, Eternal Darkness' story could have used improvement. (This is an aside not related to the quality of the man in question here.) The biggest problem with the game's scare tactics was the lack of subtlety. You should remember me explaining my point of view years ago, long before Dennis was exposed. Having read a large number of Lovecraft's stories since then, I can safely say that their homage to those stories is a cliff notes interpretation. To this day, my favorite Lovecraft story is "The Rats in the Walls". Narry an elder god in sight in that story, but it perfectly captured what I think the TRUE Lovecraft horror was all about. You never knew if the person narrating that story was telling the truth or had gone mad, and frankly, if the latter, you didn't know which parts of that tale were confused maddened interpretation or actual fact. Eternal Darkness is a great game, and the story is certainly engaging, but it lacks that angle entirely. For all its use of "sanity effects", you never really question the main narrative at all. You may question if your character actually exploded or your system "froze" or your memory card got deleted, but if they want the story to really capture Lovecraft, you need to wonder just how much of the main story itself is a complete fabrication or delusion. I want to question if I actually stopped a cosmic horror, or if I just broke down and lashed out at people on the street or had a fever dream and woke up and it was all in my head. The tome of eternal darkness could have been perfect for this, if used right. Since every single era is actually a story the main character is reading, they COULD have set it up so you question if anything in those tales is actually true or not. Maybe it was all just fanciful fiction put together by your crazed uncle, and it turns out, as they say up at Miscatonic University, that certain mental maladies are genetic. You've just inherited a family predisposition towards delusional thought. Or maybe not, you found another note saying your uncle isn't a perfect fit for his perhaps hasty diagnoses of delusion, but how well can you trust this other doctor's note? Maybe you actually inherited a vision of the truth most mortals can't even glimpse, and shouldn't! Little hints could be dropped through the stories read in the book. Little plot holes that, while not outright contradictions, leave unanswered questions that leave the overall narrative in a confused state, a confused state that makes sense if all those stories were just written by your uncle as mad ravings, or perhaps just because those elder things are outside of mortal comprehension. In some ways, Too Human was also too simplistic and sophomoric an interpretation of Norse mythology. I mean, the nords believed, HAD UTTER FAITH, in the notion that their gods and all the world were going to end horribly in ice, that the gods KNEW when this was going to happen, knew HOW it was going to happen, and still played their roles perfectly making all the foolish and stupid mistakes that allowed the world to come to that end, an end that the gods didn't seem to actually WANT at all. The nordic gods are a story of hubris and pettiness on a universal scale, and frankly, while Too Human gets the encyclopedic details of all the characters more or less "right" in their interpretation, the theme is completely different. I wanted Too Human to end with my character and the ultimate baddy locked in a struggle both of them knew would destroy everything they had worked to build, but they both did it anyway because they couldn't fight their monstrous natures and their hatred of each other. God of War did a better job, until the 4th game where the developers forgot that Kratos is supposed to be WRONG.
Quote: Everything I've been reading has shown that Dennis Dyack simply isn't fit to run a business and that he treated his employees like garbage. Silikon Knights is a ghost town now. Ask yourself. Why exactly is Dennis making a startup company? He could have stayed with SK and made the game there.
No he couldn't. SK is essentially bankrupt. He admits he made mistakes, and that's why he's not dealing with anything financial anymore. Good decision, I think.
Great Rumbler Wrote:Instead you're perfectly willing to believe the guy that just released an absolute mess of a game, ran his company completely into the ground, is trying to convince YOU to give HIM money, and is currently losing the campaign to convince people to give him money?
Eight sources, ABF. Eight. Sources. This isn't ONE anonymous whistle-blower dishing the dirt on somebody. They got EIGHT former Silicon Knights employees to comment. All of them said pretty much the same exact thing. But keep on living in your fantasy land where Dyack was just unlucky, just a great guy that people hate for no reason, just thiiiiiis close to grabbing back his former glory.
Dyack definitely doesn't deserve the amount of hatred people aim at him, that much is for sure. And plenty of companies have people leave and then bash the place after they go. SK was apparently no different. It certainly doesn't mean that what they said is all true.
Let me put it this way. Did you ever give EA's leadership that sort of good faith trust after hearing the stories about how they treat their employees?
If they all really hated him so much, why would a good number of them have gone over to Precursor, as they did?
A Black Falcon Wrote:If they all really hated him so much, why would a good number of them have gone over to Precursor, as they did?
Because they were his buddies, who ratted out fellow employees that were bad-mouthing Dyack?
I'm not saying it's black and white. Not "all" the developers at SK hated Dennis after all, but it's only a small handful of the original team that made it to this new group. Don't make it out to be anything close to the amount of developers Eternal Darkness originally had. There's also the none too small matter of just how influential Nintendo actually was on development. They're out of the picture here too.
More to the point, I really don't think that the money they're asking for, or the number of team members they have, would actually be ENOUGH to do this game. If I'm right, and that video they had on their project page is actually just the tech demo they were putting together back at SK to show off to publishers, then they basically have nothing. That tech demo seems to have been made with the Unreal engine, and guess what? There's no way Epic is granting a license to that engine to Dennis ever again. They won't be able to use that at all, and will need to build their own engine from scratch or license some other tech, which is going to cost a huge amount of their initial request.
Listen, GR and I could be way off on this. Dennis could turn out fully exonerated, they could turn out to have everyone they need to make an awesome game, and all worries about development issues and price could be moot because it'll turn out they are just so awesome they can do all that on their own without Unreal. If that's the case, I'll gladly buy their new game. However, it is a fool's bet to donate money to them now. Due to my fears about that video coming from where I think it came from, nothing short of a PLAYABLE demo that takes place OUTSIDE that cathedral is going to convince me they've done much since SK collapsed.
Quote: More to the point, I really don't think that the money they're asking for, or the number of team members they have, would actually be ENOUGH to do this game. If I'm right, and that video they had on their project page is actually just the tech demo they were putting together back at SK to show off to publishers, then they basically have nothing. That tech demo seems to have been made with the Unreal engine, and guess what? There's no way Epic is granting a license to that engine to Dennis ever again. They won't be able to use that at all, and will need to build their own engine from scratch or license some other tech, which is going to cost a huge amount of their initial request.
So you didn't even read enough about the pitch to know that they're making this game on CryEngine 3, and the license cost of that is a factor in why they're asking for so much money?
You mean, so little money? Seriously, compare what they claim they're attempting to do with the other kickstarter games. The graphics of most kickstarter games are "spartan" for a reason, they simply can't afford the manpower to do anything on the scale these guys claim to be able to deliver.
The videos "look like" unreal, that distinctive sheen over everything that screams "this was done in Unreal" that also makes so very many of this gen's games look identical. In other words, I don't think those videos were done in Cryengine, I think they were done back in SK. If the final product looks anything like those videos, I'd be surprised.
ABF, look at those videos. They exactly match the description given by those employees working at SK. This corroborates their story, wouldn't you say?
You really need to be careful and seriously consider not donating any money to this project. This really looks like a scam in the making. It has the scent of one. You need to look down at your bracelet and ask "What would James Randi do?" I believe this is going to go down as a scam on the scale of the Cheetamen II kickstarter done a few months back. The Angry Video Game Nerd should never have attached himself to those guys (who still haven't delivered nearly the number of carts that were ordered), and you shouldn't give these people a single thin dime until they deliver a product.
There's absolutely no way that this is a scam. Seriously, even if it WAS Unreal footage, which I don't think it is, they have said their plans, which is to make the game on CryEngine, and have a pretty clear plan for the story, gameplay, etc. There's no deception going on there. Your case makes no sense.
Quote: (who still haven't delivered nearly the number of carts that were ordered)
I haven't followed the project, but I presume they're still working on it or something? I don't know.
I'll buy it if it actually comes out and is actually good.
But it won't, because it's not getting funded.
"Scam" was a strong word. I didn't mean to suggest they don't actually want to make a game, or that they won't be making one. Rather, I am suggesting that we won't be getting a game near the quality of the original, that the game won't actually be a sequel even though by all rights you'd think Dennis Dyack could secure that if he wanted to, and that it won't have nearly the talent the original game pulled together.
In the end, if the game actually turns out to be amazing, I'll get it. However, as GR said, it looks like the kickstarter will fail at this rate and we'll never know either way. I'm willing to accept that too.
Nintendo owns the rights to the first game. Dyack could only make an official sequel if Nintendo let him, and so far, at least, they have not.
That's a new piece of info, so Nintendo actually owns the rights to Eternal Darkness after all?
This makes SK's decision to leave Nintendo (or Dennis's, from what I've been reading) all the more idiotic.
Before you consider that ALL these ex-employees saying bad things about Dennis are just "hearsay", remember this. A known fact is that Dennis sued Epic Megagames because their own games sucked. Dennis sued Epic because he felt that Epic gave SK inferior tools which didn't allow them to make the games they wanted to make. Never mind that no one else seemed to have this issue and plenty of Unreal based games seem to have done just fine, such as Bioshock. This at least establishes that Dennis CAN make bad decisions.
And before ABF defends SK on the lawsuit:
Quote:“Silicon Knights deliberately and repeatedly copied thousands of lines of Epic Games’ copyrighted code, and then attempted to conceal its wrongdoing by removing Epic Games’ copyright notices and by disguising Epic Games’ copyrighted code as Silicon Knights’ own,” Judge Dever wrote.
Evidence shown in the court documents proved to the judge that Denis Dyack’s firm “willfully” and “maliciously” tried to hide its theft by changing the variable names in engine’s code. Lines of engine code can number in the millions, and Epic’s attorneys went to “significant efforts” in order to reveal the “breadth and scope” of Silicon’s “prolonged coverup.”
Judge Dever said the evidence against Silicon Knights was “overwhelming,” as its “copying” included not only the functional code contained within Unreal Engine 3, but also “non-functional, internal comments Epic Games’ programmers had left for themselves.”
http://www.vg247.com/2012/11/09/epic-jud...9-million/
Dark Jaguar Wrote:That's a new piece of info, so Nintendo actually owns the rights to Eternal Darkness after all?
This makes SK's decision to leave Nintendo (or Dennis's, from what I've been reading) all the more idiotic.
Before you consider that ALL these ex-employees saying bad things about Dennis are just "hearsay", remember this. A known fact is that Dennis sued Epic Megagames because their own games sucked. Dennis sued Epic because he felt that Epic gave SK inferior tools which didn't allow them to make the games they wanted to make. Never mind that no one else seemed to have this issue and plenty of Unreal based games seem to have done just fine, such as Bioshock. This at least establishes that Dennis CAN make bad decisions.
He obviously did make some bad decisions, yes. I think that this game, and new company (that he is not the head of) are his attempt to correct his mistakes, though, by starting over, with some new people who clearly badly want to make this game (as you'd see if you watch the videos about it).
Quote: "Scam" was a strong word. I didn't mean to suggest they don't actually want to make a game, or that they won't be making one. Rather, I am suggesting that we won't be getting a game near the quality of the original, that the game won't actually be a sequel even though by all rights you'd think Dennis Dyack could secure that if he wanted to, and that it won't have nearly the talent the original game pulled together.
You said that you thought that the video was just of the stuff from several years ago in the UE3 engine, etc. That is proven false.
Would Dyack have admitted to mistakes if SK wasn't totally dead and he was trying to raise money for a new game from random people? I kinda doubt it. At this point, he basically has no choice and I'm skeptical of apologies from people who've been backed into a corner.
Well, they're taking down both their crowd-sourcing campaigns, so...
I hope that they either find funding somewhere, or try again and succeed. This game needs to get made.