Black Monday II

[A Black Falcon]

Nine years, six months, and three days after the first one...

http://www.edge-online.com/news/activisi...ell-sierra

[Dark Jaguar]

It's "better alligned" companies? Blizzard. Fortunatly Blizzard was wise enough to maintain their independance in terms of what they produce and how they produce it. Last thing we need is some idiot in marketting who "has kids to feed" (like that's an excuse, no really I no longer can accept that excuse) noting that kids seem to like these guitar's heroes and demanding that they stick guitars and sweet riffs into the next Starcraft.

This really isn't anything to compare to Sierra's first "black monday" though. There's really not nearly as much to lose this time around.

[A Black Falcon]

Hey, killing off Double Fine(Tim Schaefer)'s Brutal Legend, Terminal Reality's Ghostbusters (this may be okay), Massive Entertainment (developers of World in Conflict, last year's amazing RTS, currently working on a now-in-limbo addon), Swordfish Studios, and, it seems, Sierra Online (the XBLA/etc downloadable games side) and Sierra/Vivendi itself most certainly is big.

I mean sure, Sierra/Vivendi never has been anywhere nearly as well run or profitable as Blizzard, that's for sure. So if something was going to go, it was the Sierra side, which has just never quite gotten it together, not since Sierra's fading in the late '90s. I wouldn't blame Activision if they wanted to ditch most of the Vivendi side apart from Blizzard, which is what they're clearly looking into doing... but who would want it? In pieces, maybe?

Also, it seems that it isn't all determined yet, so the worst case may not be true. But we'll see...