May Retro never go third party (A tale of Silicon Knights)

[A Black Falcon]

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.

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.

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.

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.