The Rise And Fall of Ion Storm 377
fakeamerican writes: "Here's a lengthy article in Salon about Ion Storm's rise and fall, written by a former employee and lifelong friend of John Romero." Shows what goofing off in class can getcha.
"If I do not want others to quote me, I do not speak." -- Phil Wayne
To summarize (Score:4, Funny)
Let me summarize the story for you... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Let me summarize the story for you... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Let me summarize the story for you... (Score:3, Interesting)
He's not saying they were right; he freely admits to the mistaks they made. However, that's not the point. He's saying they were a bunch of people who genuinely had their hearts in the right place who were trying to create something special, a really great game that pushed the boundaries.
They failed of course, and he readily admits that too, but the point is that the public beating they took was way out of line with what they are. I mean, the public tore into them with a wrath usually reserved for child molesters and genocidal dictators. He makes some interesting points about how the public and media like to build people up only to destroy them, and notes the ways in which Ion Storm fueled the media frenzy (the "make you his bitch" ads, marketing outpacing development, etc).
Think about it, lots of companies make shitty games, outlandish advertising promises ("this game will kick your ass", etc) and have lots of petty infighting. The question is: why was this such a big deal with Ion Storm? The difference lies mostly in the public's opinions, expectations and attitudes, rather than any actual fault of Romero or Ion Storm's own.
I met John Romero at E3 '98. He was very friendly and was eager to show us the cool new robot-infested levels they'd made for Daikatana... and they did look pretty cool, I admit (for the time). He was a nice guy and although Daikatana wound up sucking (although it probably would have been cool if it wasn't late), he didn't really deserve the public beating he took.
Also, note that during all the public sniping, John never took the oppurtunity to trash anyone or fire back (to my knowledge). You have to give him credit for that. Most people, probably myself included, would have been hard-pressed to take the high road in that situation like he did.
Re:Let me summarize the story for you... (Score:3, Funny)
but the point is that the public beating they took was way out of line with what they are. I mean, the public tore into them with a wrath usually reserved for child molesters and genocidal dictators
Dude, have you played Daikatana?
Re:Let me summarize the story for you... (Score:2)
IMHO, they deserved everything they got for their part in the demise of Looking Glass Studios. Thief was genuinely innovative, and Dire-Katana was always a disaster waiting to happen... only question was when, and how much it would cost. Looking Glass' only fault was that they thought that actually creating stuff was more important than buying ego-psycho advertising (the "Romero's Bitch" stuff).
Re:Let me summarize the story for you... (Score:2)
Here's the way I understood the situation, correct me if I'm wrong. Eidos was the publisher of both Looking Glass and Ion Storm. Due to the fact that LGS games were critically-acclaimed but were never huge sellers, and the fact that Eidos thought Ion Storm was going to make a bunch of big sellers, they decided to give their money to Ion Storm instead.
I wish LGS was still around instead of Ion, but it's kind of silly to blame Ion. Blame Eidos instead-- for throwing money at Ion Storm instead of Looking Glass. Or blame the public for not buying enough LGS games. I don't think it makes sense to blame Ion Storm. What were they supposed to do, fund LGS themselves? It's not their job to look out for other developers.
Re:Let me summarize the story for you... (Score:4, Interesting)
And by the way, I'm not even a level designer, I'm a "writer", so none of the shit that came out of there is my fault, it was all those other bitches, because while they were obviously slacking by playing other people's games, I was slacking more subtly by working on my Great American Novel, or bidding on Call of Cthulhu rulebooks on eBay.
It's been said before and I'll say it again. Shit never, ever sticks to the "creative" guys. By the way, when a games person says they worked on a title "briefly" (Deus Ex in this case), it means they walked past a room when the producers were being lied to about it a couple of times. Believe me, I know.
Let me recall an anecdote about Daikatana. A games magazine was invited to view it a couple of months before release (I don't know which "release" that referred to). The mag flack played for a bit then asked "Where's the sniper rifle?"
"Sniper rifle?" asked the Ion Storm "creatives".
The mag flack explained it, pointing out that every FPS had one. It was a genre convention. The answer from the Ion Storm guys:
"Wow, that sounds cool. We'd better put one in."
Jesus H Breakdancing Christ. Ill informed, incompetent, and unprincipled. They could at least have stuck to their guns (literally) rather than throwing yet another new challenge at the programming team with a deadline looming. It really is astonishing that it turned out as good (ahem) as it did.
Crappy Bot AI killed Ion Storm... (Score:4, Insightful)
More than anything else, reviews of the crappy team system killed Daikatana's sales, and with Daikatana, Ion Storm failed as well.
Re:Crappy Bot AI killed Ion Storm... (Score:1)
No I'd say the game failed to be worthwhile far before that point. I remember running to grab the demo only to be awestruck at how uber crappy the graphics were compared to the competitors at the time, and was then being attacked by the killer fly and I believe a frog. The game just yelled "Cheap $4.99 bargain bin piece of crap".
Re:Crappy Bot AI killed Ion Storm... (Score:2)
There was not one thing that killed it - it did just as badly with the whole product without having to specify one thing that led to its demise.
Overambition killed Ion Storm Dallas... (Score:2)
Re:Overambition killed Ion Storm Dallas... (Score:2)
No, we haven't. Care to elaborate?
Personally, I think what killed Ion Storm was that Valve was able to pull off Half-Life on the Quake II engine while Ion Storm was unable to pull off Daikatana. They both tried to do similar things (plot-driven first-person shooter), but Half-Life pulled it off without annoying AI bugs.
Re:Overambition killed Ion Storm Dallas... (Score:2, Informative)
Let's make that statement both more impressive and true, all at the same time. How about "Valve was able to pull off Half-Life by starting with the original Quake I engine"? Half-Life was not based on Quake 2. There's no way it could've been (the two were released too close together for Valve to have had time to modify the Q2 engine). Valve did have a license to some of the Q2 code, and thus brought some of that into their engine, but the majority of the code began life as Quake 1. Just to prove my point, here is a quote from id's Technology Licensing Program [idsoftware.com]:
Re:Overambition killed Ion Storm Dallas... (Score:2, Informative)
- Stopped doors killing your sidekicks
- Stopped sidekicks shooting you
- Removed the stupid tiny robo-bugs at the start
- Removed the overkill "top slot" weapons (which 90% of the time killed you too) or make you invulnerable to your own shots
- Muted the stupid friggin' sidekicks, or at least re-record them with decent voice actors.
- Removed the stupid and out of place save gem system
That would only have gone half way to making the side kicks useful though - every reviewer I know, including me, just told them to stay put at the start of the level, completed the level, then dragged them to the exit. They were just such a stupidly ill-conceived idea from the start. If you're doing sidekicks, make them invulnerable or expendable, not a liability.
The hugely ambitious and overstretched development cycle didn't help either, people were sick of hearing about it by the time it finally came out, but the core of the problem was the above fundamental flaws in the game. I'm just stunned that they failed to spot and fix these hair tearingly annoying features. Romero was just given free rein to throw in a stupid amount of content (pointlessly - it would have been no better or worse with half the number of guns, levels or monsters). I'm sure in his pride he wilfully ignored the criticisms of the game too (as outlined above). It was a disaster waiting to happen. Even the excellent Deus Ex and Anachronox couldn't save ION Dallas (though Warren Spector and ION Austin still exist, thank goodness - eagerly anticipating Deus Ex 2 and Thief 3). Still, at least the games industry got this wake up call early, we shouldn't be seeing such blindly big spends again any time soon.
In response to your question about Third Law, they are a games company formed largely from Ex-ION people who walked. Their first game was KISS: Psycho Circus (yes, as in the band, not as corny as it sounds though) which was a competent, decent enough shooter with some nice ideas, certainly a lot better than Daikatana. I think one of the guys who left said to Romero "you can't polish a turd" in response to a comment from Romero. Love that quote.
-icemind
Re:Overambition killed Ion Storm Dallas... (Score:3, Informative)
And here's [gamespot.com] more about the Third Law drama (Third Law Interactive was the company they went off to start).
Romero left after Quake2? (Score:2)
Re:Romero left after Quake2? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Romero left after Quake2? (Score:2, Informative)
Nope...from id's own page:
id unofficially started in September of 1990 when John Carmack, Adrian Carmack, John Romero, and Tom Hall created the first game in the Commander Keen series, Invasion of the Vorticons. One month after Commander Keen was released into shareware, John Carmack, Adrian Carmack, and John Romero left their jobs at Softdisk Publishing and officially began id Software, on February 1, 1991.
stupid ads.. (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/01/02/ion_
Re:stupid ads.. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:stupid ads.. (Score:2, Insightful)
For those junkbuster users out there, like me, that get nothing but a blank page when clicking on that link, this link willget you past the ad:
Yeah! If it weren't for those damned ads, we could be absolutely positive that they make no money off of their efforts! How dare they try and stop us from viewing their work without making the slight effort of reading their ads! They are infringing on my rights as a consumer to not only receive completely free news, but to take active measures to make sure that the publisher gets paid precisely dick for their efforts! Those bastards!
I read through the article. (Score:3, Interesting)
The article took five pages without going into much relevant detail.
At the end, he tells us that Daikatana flopped and Deus Ex was awesome, but fails to say why.
Deus Ex was an awesome game. I think that the first person shooter has a tremendous amount of potential to surpass its origins, and Deus Ex is a glimpse into the beginnings of that future.
Re:I read through the article. (Score:2, Insightful)
One thing that I really question from the article is this statement: Daikatana and Deus Ex were finally released in 2000. Predictably, Daikatana was slammed while Deus Ex received many awards. Both made money for Eidos, but the walk-outs, firings, lawsuits and general bad blood doomed Ion Storm..
To say that I highly doubt that Diakatana "made money" is an understatement (note that "made money" means returned more money than it cost to produce. Eidos isn't sitting pretty if they dumped millions in and "made money" selling 20 copies).
They should have called it "meiken." (Score:4, Informative)
Basically, the designers erroneously believed that the characters for "big" (dai) and "sword" (katana), when slapped together, are pronounced "Daikatana." That's lunacy: this combination would be pronounced "Ogatana," (with an elongated "o.")
It gets worse. Daikatana, or Ogatana, don't exist as accepted descriptions of famous swords in Japanese. The best translation would be Tachi (using the characters for "fat' and 'sword,') but a preferred way of referring to a famous sword is just that: "Meiken," or famous sword.
If the Daikatana team had looked in the history books, or consulted a Japanese expert, they could have avoided this travesty, and dumped the tongue-twisting word "Daikatana" in the rubbish heap. A small investment for quality. But I suppose that hubris had already instilled itself in their minds.
Hubris. That's a Greek word, by the way. As in "classical Greek." Its roots are . . . (continue ad infinitum).
Re:They should have called it "meiken." (Score:2)
Re:They should have called it "meiken." (Score:1)
Clearly you've never seen Zero Wing. THAT was "*egregious* mistranslation".
"Daikatana" was simply taking a word most Americans were familiar with ("katana") and putting a cool-sounding modifier on it. Do you really think Americans CARE if it's a poor translation??
Why not call it "Daikatana"?? (Score:2, Interesting)
"meiken" sounds like a shitty name for a videogame. "Daikatana" at least implies to the casual listener that a sword is involved.
Re:Why not call it "Daikatana"?? (Score:3, Funny)
A rose by any other name... (Score:2)
Never mind the booring gameplay, sub-standard graphics, pointless AI, the fact that it was such a resource hog that it could bring a top-notch PC to it's knees, and it was 2+ years late coming to market, it was the title that was the most obnoxious error!
If the Daikatana team had looked in the history books, or consulted a Japanese expert, they could have avoided this travesty, and dumped the tongue-twisting word "Daikatana" in the rubbish heap. A small investment for quality.
Naturally, a better title would have made all the difference in the world.
Not!
The Daikatana team could have avoided this travesty and dumped the whole project in the rubbish heap! It would have been a small investment for quality!
I don't think that Daikatana has any positive lessons for the software or gaming industry. Just lots of bad ones...
Re:They should have called it "meiken." (Score:2)
I looked the kanji up. The reading edict gives is "taitou", meaning just a longsword. The name "Daikatana" comes from an RPG session the id guys had one time: Romero's character had a sword called "Daikatana" equipped. It is pretty silly and asinine, but it stuck.
Re:They should have called it "meiken." (Score:4, Informative)
The meanings of characters when slapped together, is largely dependent on context, though, so I'd say you've got a bit of hubris yourself declaring the word invalid, at least by the somewhat fractured arguements you present. I won't argue pronunciation since I don't speak Japanese, but my wife's boss is Japanese and she's frequently approached by people who want Kanji Tattoos. She says it's tricky business weighing all the possible alternate meanings against the intended one and picking the combination that is best overall.
Re:They should have called it "meiken." (Score:2)
Deus Ex kicked ass. And was the product of Ion Storm Austin, a mostly independent studio run by Warren Spector. ISA was an entirely different animal from the Dallas office, although still drawing from Romero's vision of design above all (and doing a much better job of it).
ISA, incidentally, still exists, and will probably be renamed if it hasn't already. (My vote for the new name is "Looking Glass," since they have many of the old LG staff and seem to be drawing from that heritage)
Re:They should have called it "meiken." (Score:2)
Getting beat up in school for being smart. Harharhardyharhar. Man I laughed so hard it came out like a disgusted groan.
Maybe slashdot should post a warning. Sounding intelligent will get you flamed. w3 st00pid d00dz r00l th3 w0r1d w3rd up t0 D4 N 2 D4 4 2 D4 T 2 D4 4 2 D4 1 2 D4 I 2 D4 3 b4yb33!! (and I bet y'all l33t d00dz can't decode that, haha)
(I wonder if the moderator rating this post is thinking, 'oh school violence is funny, get over it d00d.')
Ion Storm IS alive... (Score:3, Insightful)
Deus Ex, of course, is the reason Ion Storm Austin is in business. I'm sure you know why the other branch is closed.
To summarise (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is, well, debatable. I mean, Daikatana didn't get bad reviews because people wanted to slam Ion Storm; it got bad reviews because it bit. If it had been good, it would've gotten good reviews, regardless of people's like or dislike of Ion Storm. They overreached and failed, end of story.
Of course, my personal dislike of Ion Storm comes from the (admittedly irrational) belief that the money Eidos gave for Daikatana would've been much better spent on Looking Glass Studios.
Re:To summarise (Score:2)
Preach it brother, preach it! It's kind of interesting that Salon has published articles lamenting Looking Glass's demise at Ion Storm's hands despite great games, and then publishes a lament about the demise of Ion Storm despite a really, really bad game. I guess someone has to give everyone their voice...
But you really have to be amazed by John Romero's hubris, when you see
in Salon's eulogy to Looking Glass. `Daikatana riding high'?Oh well. LG Studios, and Ion Storm as it was first envisioned, are both gone. More of the older gaming scene is gone, and it is a new year. Maybe there will be a really new game, or even a really creative and skilled studio, this year.
Off topic but related - Prey (Score:1)
Anyone remember Prey?
ben
Re:Off topic but related - Prey (Score:2)
Yeah, I remember waiting for it along with Unreal. (same timeframe I think).
Now, here's a challenge - how about:
LifeBane
Anyone remember that? It wasn't even a game, I don't think - a guy just started posting screenshots and messages about how the game was coming along or something - it had a number of the "waiting for Quake" crowd interested :-)
Or how about:
Into The Shadows
Had that impressive skeleton demo footage. Also came to nothing (they were writing it in assembler - is that the best choice for a game??)
Re:Off topic but related - Prey (Score:2)
Probably too busy entirely flashifying their site. Christ, tell them to offer a non-flash alternative.
State of the Art (Score:2, Interesting)
As I post this the majority of replies are below my (1) threshold. Guess angry feelings over ION storm still exist.
Re:State of the Art (Score:2)
Try telling that to Max Payne. By the end of that game, even if he hadn't been shot several hundred times, he shouldn't have even been able to stand up due to all of the painkillers that he had taken.
Hmmm. (Score:3, Funny)
I was disturbed by the hate and bitterness on the message boards.
Doesn't read Slashdot, does he?
A Word of Support for John (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing the article alludes to that I can definitely corroborate is that John Romero has always been tremendously approachable and friendly to fellow gamers. He has never failed to respond to an e-mail I've sent him and will cc: just about anyone in the game industry to answer a question if he doesn't have one. He's sent me copies of his old Apple games on request and provided all kinds of info on old games, history, trivia. When he says "I'll check my old diskettes and send you an e-mail when I get home from work" he does, no exceptions. I'm not even in the media -- I just like games!
In some ways the Ion Storm / John Romero situation reminds me a bit of the Microsoft / Bill Gates situation. While many people hate Microsoft and make Bill Gates the butt of every joke, very few people who know him ever call his character into question. While the very mention of Ion Storm and John Romero make some people hopping mad, very few people who have met John hold him in such disregard. Maybe people need to make a better distinction between a "company" and a "person." They aren't the same thing.
Re:A Word of Support for John (Score:5, Funny)
Uhhh yeah dude, maybe because they are scared of his power? Why burn a bridge with BG if you want to do well in the industry?
As for Romero, I agree. When they were working on Quake, and all the hype going with it, I decided one night to try a 'talk jromero@idsoftware.com' (or whatever his address was at the time). A few seconds later I was chatting with him at work. I think the conversation went something like this:
JR: Hello
Me: Whoa! Are you the real John Romero?
JR: Yes
Me: What are you doing at the office this late?
JR: Dude, I just got in to work.
Me: Cool.
Ahh yes, those were the days.
Re:A Word of Support for John (Score:2)
I think you're right. This reminds me of the whole Wil Wheaton thing -- where people bash on him for years only to find out here that he's actually pretty cool. Personal attacks suck, and they're especially ignorant when you don't know anything about the person.
In addition, it seems like most people are attacking the Daikatana hype, and trying to say that the programers have 'hubris' -- when really, all the hype was just a function of the marketing department.
Re:A Word of Support for John (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A Word of Support for John (Score:2)
One thing the article alludes to that I can definitely corroborate is that John Romero has always been tremendously approachable and friendly to fellow gamers. He has never failed to respond to an e-mail I've sent him and will cc: just about anyone in the game industry to answer a question if he doesn't have one. He's sent me copies of his old Apple games on request and provided all kinds of info on old games, history, trivia. When he says "I'll check my old diskettes and send you an e-mail when I get home from work" he does, no exceptions. I'm not even in the media -- I just like games!
Well, first of all, I think it's great that he does stuff like this, but think about it this way. A lot of people are talking about how approachable he is...maybe this is in a way, a bad thing. I mean, if you're trying to get some work done, and you have to go through 500 e-mails a day or people are sending you chat requests non-stop, it'll affect your productivity. I guess the lesson is to be able to try to balance these things (well, not the only lesson...).
Re:A Word of Support for John (Score:2)
Re:A Word of Support for John (Score:2)
Well, on this topic I see Carmack as the "Anti-Romero". While johnc is always polite in e-mail, he won't respond unless you ask a really well-thought-out question. Johnc's love is for programming and I really admire the fact that he will amputate any part of his life that takes time away from his true passion.
Romero's love is for gaming and that's why he responds to e-mails, runs his web site, and is a walking encyclopedia of dates, releases, and trivia. But to compare him to Carmack is probably to do justice to neither. Slagging Romero because he doesn't have the single-mindedness of Carmack is counter-productive, as is complaining that Carmack has poor social skills. Take those qualities away and you'd have... well... an ordinary schmuck like me. :)
Re:A Word of Support for John (Score:3, Funny)
Re:A Word of Support for John (Score:2)
No Sympathy (Score:3, Interesting)
But that's a nice long torrid soap opera in itself. And yes, they got the money because one team had a 'superstar', and the other dev team didn't.
I perfer the one that actually shipped some incredible games which pushed the FPS genre to its limits, thanks.
Re:No Sympathy (Score:2)
Then again, Looking Glass should have been able to get funding elsewhere....
Re:No Sympathy (Score:2)
What ignorance!
Let's see, Eidos could support a company with a PROVEN track record (System Shock, Ultima Underworld, Thief) or a bunch of upstarts.
Sound business decision my @$$.
Re:No Sympathy (Score:2)
Whenever anyone thinks of casting aspersions at ION Storm, they should think of Deus Ex. Few games have had the critical acclaim it had. I can only hope its succesor is as impressive.
Nothing out Looking Glass - even the masterful Thief 2 - came close.
Remember that. The $30m+ wasted on Daikatana and Dominion:etc. did produce one of the greatest games of all time.
"Romero" gets a bad rap? (Score:2)
And here I thought it was just goofy Doom'ers on IRC that thought I was related..
Rick Romero
Hmmm... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:2)
There were
Yet more self-serving revisionism (Score:3, Funny)
No.
I suggest that anybody who is actually interested in the reasons why Ion Storm became an industry synonym for mismanagement and failure dig up the original articles by BitchX [gaminginsider.com] and Flamethrower [evilavatar.com] that started off the whole public meltdown. Ion Storm did not fail because people were jealous of how well John Romero treated his friends. Ion Storm failed because Romero, Porter and Hall were incompetant managers who treated their talented employees like dirt, and focussed on creating a cult of personality rather than actually completing a game.
Unfortunatly, as revisionist screeds like Divine's article prove, that cult of personality is Ion Storm Dallas' most lasting legacy, long out-living their forgettable games.
Cult of Personality (Score:2)
This is actually sort of half-way serious. I can't really imagine the play, but it's certainly a popular theme in history and politics.
I want my 10 minutes back (Score:5, Funny)
Let me summarize all 5 useless pages.
I knew Romero. He gave me a job. Everything you read was true but it was fun. Despite our best websurfing Ion Storm went under. I love John. I need a job.
I want my ten minuutes back.
Some good lessons learned (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe it was Carmack that made the observation that, "I can write software on a computer set on a cheap desk just as well as one set on an expensive desk." (I'm sure its not an exact quote, but the this is the gist of what he said.) As I have been going through negotiations to spin off a product from my current employer into another company run by a few of us employees, this type of wisdom was really needed. All the engineers are for renting a hole-in-the-wall and putting banquet tables in the cubicles, and the marketing person wants to rent a posh execuive office suite. Nevermind that our clients would never come to visit us or that we can't afford to employee anyone at a market wage. I'm sure she didn't read the story, even though I sent the URL.
I think the bottom line is that software's largest cost is labor, and it should remain the largest cost. Making the company support the lifestyle of the employees or the partners is a mistake.
My favorite quotes (Score:2, Insightful)
Misleading at best! Daikatana 'made money' in the sense that some copies were, in fact, sold, but you also need to consider how much was SPENT in the making...
I envisioned the apocalyptic San Francisco as a psychedelic wasteland. But I learned how valuable my ideas were when I excitedly approached a designer about making a psychedelic level in Haight/Ashbury. "Yeah, man, sure, that's gay," was his arctic response.
So, is the designer just the typical moronic FPS-playing homophobe, or is he positively affirming San Francisco demographics? The mind reels...
Killcreek? (Score:2, Offtopic)
Killcreek's dual roles at Ion (Score:2, Interesting)
There was a rise? (Score:2, Funny)
Snoooze (Score:4, Interesting)
As a programmer in the game industry, I've had many friends work at Ion Austin over the years and all of them think very, very highly of Warren Spector. I'm really glad they have proven to be capable under his leadership.
What I really disliked about Ion Dallas and John Romero's public image was the inherent cheapness. I liken it to a trailer trash lottery winner, embarassing everyone else in the industry with his grand standing. Sadly, Mr. Romero may be a fantastic designer, but all Ion Storm proved was his inability to run a company. There are some people who can do both, and he's not one of them.
Romero deserves what he's received. (Score:3, Interesting)
In short, the existence of Ion Storm exemplifies the core philosophical flaws that led to the bursting of the "internet bubble." Companies like Eidos appropriated funds on the basis of hype rather than sound business ideas. By any objective standards, Eidos, John Romero and Ion Storm deserved to fail at every level.
Re:Romero deserves what he's received. (Score:2)
But in making the workplace fun, you CAN'T lose your perspective. I think that's what happened. And from my personal experience, while I'm a good tech, I'm passive, and generally non-confrontational. Maybe John is similar..
(Why is MY brother Romero a druggie, while other Romero's are doing cool things? *sigh* )
Comments (Score:5, Informative)
>But with great success came great antipathy, not just for John, but also for many of his
>employees.
The employees did sort of get a raw deal by association, but to ascribe all of the antipathy towards Romero to jealousy is really missing the point.
>Daikatana and Deus Ex were finally released in 2000. Predictably, Daikatana was slammed while
>Deus Ex received many awards. Both made money for Eidos
Deus Ex made money. Daikatana lost an immense amount of money. We followed the PC-Data sales numbers for a little while, and it was really, really grim. It might have made a comback when it went to the bargain bin, but even if it had turned into the best selling game of the year, it wouldn't have covered the sunk costs at Ion.
My view:
Ion storm failued due to lack of focus, which came from the top. They had some great employees (we hired some of them!), but games don't get done without someone in a position of authority forcing everything together. Romero's primary mistake was believing that abstract creative design was a primary, or even significant, part of a successful game. The "strategic creativity" in a game is less than 1% of the effort, and if you put that on a pedestal, you will deephasise where all the real work needs to be done.
I think Romero has a chance at a comeback with his current foray into handheld games. I don't think he ever lost the enthusiasm for games, but if he can recapture the personal work ethic that he had early on, he can probably still do some pretty cool things.
John Carmack
But dude... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Comments (Score:3, Interesting)
I have to admit, lack of top-down leadership seems plausible. How else can you explain Half-Life being so good, and Daikatana being so bad? Same basic engine, but one lacked the ability to pull off the added extras.
Still, there's a great book to be written on game design theory, from concept to box. I'd love to see some insight into id, which seems to have done well from shareware like Commander Keen all the way into the present, vs. the other teams that didn't quite make it. I'd love to hear what happened at Origin after Ultima 7. Anyone else have favorite untold game design stories?
In my line of work, the boss has a saying - There's a time to shoot the engineer and ship the thing. Maybe in game design, there's a time to shoot the designers and let the programmers get it right.
Re:Comments (Score:2)
I think your analysis may be a little simplistic. Half-Life originally started out as a Quake total conversion project. The designers began to get the sense that the end product wasn't going to be all that good.
Ordinary business sense would say to simply focus the team, get the game out the door ASAP, and try to recover sunk costs. But that's not what they did. Instead, they admitted to themselves that the game they had so far wasn't that good, and either needed serious re-design, or to be abandoned completely.
As part of this soul-searching, someone in the company made a new map that incorporated all the really cool elements they'd developed for all the other maps they'd made so far. It played exceptionally well, and everyone loved it. Someone said, "Great! Now all we need to do is make thirty or forty more of these." Half-Life was the result.
The point I'm trying to make is that the team recognized that the direction in which they were headed wasn't leading anywhere. So they took stock of what they had, kept the best pieces, threw out the rest, and started over. Not an easy thing for anyone to do.
Schwab
Re:Comments (Score:2)
< Interesting stuff removed >
The point I'm trying to make is that the team recognized that the direction in which they were headed wasn't leading anywhere. So they took stock of what they had, kept the best pieces, threw out the rest, and started over. Not an easy thing for anyone to do.
Thanks for that insight - again, we could learn a lot if a good journalist asked the folks on successful projects what went right, what went worng, and what lessons were learned.
I also wonder how many times Daikatana "started over" - wasn't it originally on the Quake engine, then they decided to start over on the Quake II engine? That would have been an excellent moment to do what the Half-Life team did...
Re:Comments (Score:2)
Well, an excellent account of the history of Daikatana is on the "news" site The Smoking Gun.
Hey, it's on the internet, it must be true, huh?
The Article [planetquake.com]
Day of Defeat (Score:2, Interesting)
I suppose some might find this interesting, and it does demonstrate some of what John is saying. First a bit of background: Day of Defeat is a Half-Life mod, I was part of the original team with Lil Squirel and Das Juden. Today, the mod has been released and is mildly popular. Lil Squirel and Das Juden came up with the concept somewhere around October 99. Lil knew I was a programmer, so asked me to join, I gave him some ideas, but refrained from joining until December because I was busy with school. I left the team in late April 2000.
DoD's initial design was killer. It had character classes, realistic damage, radar (yes, DoD had radar before CS), vehicles (jeeps, tanks), flame-thowers, grenades that you could dive on or throw back at your enemies, deployable tripod mounted machine-guns, and maps reminiscent of Saving Private Ryan, just to list a few; and this was just for version 1. We had all these incredibly cool concepts for effects and so forth but the team was so disorganised that nobody knew who was doing what; as John put it, there was no "someone in a position of authority forcing everything together". I was told to code the Thompson, I did and a short time later found out that it's code had already been written. I eventually got fed up with the whole thing and left the team. Apparently some time afterward the team underwent an overhaul and, to my surprize, eventually released Day of Defeat, I believe, over a year after its conception and with a different design altogether.
Re:Day of Defeat (Score:2)
Re: Design (Score:2)
Goes a long way toward explaining why so many games are loser copies of old shit, doesn't it? Coding is easy; coming up with a worthwhile, original idea -- that's harder.
Re:Comments (Score:4, Interesting)
As someone who knows firsthand, I just have to say that John couldn't be more correct on that point.
After devoting nearly every waking hour of my life to Daikatana for a year and a half I found that in the end it's goes nowhere if the effort was not applied toward a consistent goal.
Imagine a single point with hundreds of random vectors originating from it. Add them together and they essentially cancel one another out.
That point is Daikatana and those vectors represent the effort myself and others put into it over several years.
Direction is important.
And to maintain direction, you need focus. And that, truly, is what Ion lacked.
Jonathan E. Wright
Re:Definitions of terms (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably everyone reading this has done some "game design" while talking with friends. In an evening, you can lay out the basic character of a game -- what the player does, what the environments are like, what the obstacles are, what the tools in the game are like, what the plot is, what the style of the game is, and a few unique hooks for the game.
There is not a hell of a lot of difference between what the best designer in the world produces, and what a quite a few reasonably clued in players would produce at this point. This is the "abstract creativity" aspect. This part just isn't all that valuable. Not worthless, but it isn't the thing to wrap a company around.
The real value in design is the give and take during implementation and testing. It isn't the couple dozen decisions made at the start, it is the thousands of little decisions made as the product is being brought to life, and constantly modified as things evolve around it. If you took two game designs, one good and one bad, and gave them to two development teams, one good and one bad, the good dev team could make a good, fun product out of a bad design, but the bad dev team could ruin the most clever design. The focus should be on the development process, not the (initial) design.
The games with 500 page design documents before any implementation are also kidding themselves, because you can't make all the detail decisions without actually experiencing a lot of the interactions.
Putting creativity on a pedestal can also be an excuse for laziness. There is a lot of cultural belief that creativity comes from inspiration, and can't be rushed. Not true. Inspiration is just your subconscious putting things together, and that can be made into an active process with a little introspection.
Focused, hard work is the real key to success. Keep your eyes on the goal, and just keep taking the next step towards completing it. If you aren't sure which way to do something, do it both ways and see which works better.
John Carmack
Re:Definitions of terms (Score:2, Interesting)
First let me say that I agree with your position for the most part. However, when we were developing Millennium Four: The Right back in 95-96, we ran into a problem that we were an unknown house with some commercial game dev experience, a killer idea, and no game engine. The only way we were able to get a publishing contract was by developing that 500 page design document; it was faster to do that than it was to put an engine together that showed our vision. It cost us 4 months, but allowed us to work for the next 14 months on the game.
Unfortunately, our project got cancelled just as the game got interesting. Our publisher started going through hard times and cancelled a number of projects (I believe ours was one of about 15 that were cancelled), and we couldn't find alternative funding in time to keep going.
"Focused hard work is the real key to success. Keep your eyes on the goal, and just keep taking the next step towards completing it. If you aren't sure which way to do something, do it both ways and see which works better." Wise words, but only doable with the resources to back you up. In today's AAA-class game development business environment, only the well-funded can survive.
Rick
Re:Definitions of terms (Score:2)
It could be argued that what Carmack is preaching is a generalization of the elimination rule for the disjunctive logical connective ("or") in intuitionistic logic. You know "A or B" are options for constructing "C", and therefore you construct "C" assuming "A" as your choice AND you construct "C" assuming "B" as your choice. Either way, you are covered as far as constructing "C" is concerned.
I realize Carmack isn't going by formalized logic or anything, but he is a very logical guy... so you can extract such things from his decision making. After all, formalized intuitionistic logic is supposed to reflect the thinking of the "creative subject". Of course, in the USA, students are usually only exposed to classical logic, which isn't "constructive" in the mathematical sense... so I am probably just pissing in the wind here.
Also, who said that doing math excludes testing assumptions? When you are writing a computer program, it can be argued that you are writing a constructive proof (search for "constructive mathematics and computer science" on google). Several famous proofs have shown that constructive proof and program are the same thing (search for "curry howard isomorphism and computer science"). Surely you don't think that mathematicians sit in a meditation position, and then all of a sudden start writing a perfect proof proving what they were after. Just like writing programs, writing proofs requires many many many failed or partially successful attempts before a satisfactory proof is created.
I mean, I doubt Carmack sits in his office and "divines" perfect code the first time. Though, I could be wrong
Writing formal constructive proofs and writing computer programs are very much similar in how you go about doing the actual work. A computer scientist is another name for a mathematician. If you can't see the marriage between the two, then you have more learning to do.
Re:Definitions of terms (Score:4, Interesting)
That is a really good example. I might quibble that that was market creativity, rather than game design creativity, but it is still a good point.
John Carmack
Re:Definitions of terms (Score:3, Insightful)
I've always been amazed by people's reaction to fame. Why was it so important for Carmack to waste his time signing your box? Why isn't it enough for you to just go up, say how much you enjoy his games, maybe shake his hand, and leave it at that? What is up with this autograph thing? Are you disappointed that you couldn't sell it or something?
I recall a quote by a famous author, I don't remember who it was or the quote, but it was something like, "Why must they pursue the author? Why aren't my works enough?"
Cut the guy some slack, and remember the celebrities are human.
Re:Definitions of terms (Score:3, Insightful)
JC makes himself VERY accessible to the community. Not only in his
Celebrities give up a good measure of anominity and privacy, the same is true for the people that develop the games we play and lovel. I'd bet dimes on the dollar that JC (or any of the Id staff for that reason) probably can't go out to dinner without at least one person wanting to stop them to talk. It's alot of pressure to be under, so I wouldn't at all be surprised if he gets a little aggrivated now and then. Romero is known to be a very good natured, and accessible person, but do you think he doesn't get aggrivated at times and just wishes that people would leave him the heck alone? Of course he does, but him and JC are different people. They will react to different circumstances in different ways. Neither you, nor I have any qualification to say which is right or wrong until you walk the miles in their shoes
I've never met the man myself, but you've only met him once. Don't presume that can really sum him up by one short meeting in a crowded convention hall, where there is serious pressure to give attention to as many people as possible, which could be hundreds during events like that.
"I don't want to get locked into signing these all day"
Perhaps you failed to consider that maybe he simply didn't feel it would be fair to sign yours for you, and then ignore other people due to simple lack of time. It was very gracious of him to sign it for you, he would probably feel a bit guilty if he didn't sign something for everyone after that as a result.
TROLL MODE ON - in summary: Stop being a selfish and judgemental prick. You don't know anything about the guy.TROLL MODE OFF
"raping" Halo (Score:3, Informative)
For some reason this idea that Microsoft imposed by fiat radical gameplay changes on Halo keeps coming up here. At the risk of repeating myself [slashdot.org]... there's really just not a lot of evidence for the theory. Rumors of a change from 3rd-person to 1st-person perspective in Halo predated the Microsoft buyout by at least three months, and the basic storyline and gameplay mechanics of Halo appear to be largely unchanged since the E3 2000 demos. (Inasmuch as we knew what they were even then -- Bungie was smart enough to play it very close to the hip to give themselves room to work out playability issues as development progressed.)
Obviously, internet multiplayer went out the window when Halo moved to the XBox, but Bungie apparently felt that was a reasonable sacrifice to make in return for being given several metric tons of cash and a guaranteed audience of millions for their flagship game. Can't say I blame em for that choice.
The real reason Ion Storm failed... (Score:4, Funny)
John Romero Releases Details on Next Project: "John Romero Presents John Romero's 'John Romero'" [somethingawful.com]
My Office is Better than Yours (Score:2)
Another point of view regarding the Ion Storm office space was written up in 1998 here [fastcompany.com].
Coincidentally, the lawyer I worked for had a thing for style and appearance. He spent too much time worrying about that and not enough about his cases. As a result he ended up losing a HUGE case, filed for bankruptcy, lost his house and his wife and Mercedes, and had to move to a low-rent district in Dallas. Lawyers seem to always land on their feet, much like cats, however, so now, 3 years later, he's doing quite well again. I wish the Ion guys the same good fortune.
Ion Storm coverage (Score:2)
Let's not forget... (Score:2)
Bob
Rise and fall? (Score:3, Funny)
Hmmm, interesting article (Score:2)
No, Design is NOT law -- Design *along with* Technology should dictate the game. Too much of either one, and you get a bad game.
It's interesting to see it told "from the inside." I guess John is a nice guy after all, but it's hard to know that, when the media loved to put him on a pedestal, and then tear him down again.
Unfortunately the damage has been done, and John has lost credability in the public. It will be interesting to see what he does next.
My favorite memory of ION Storm (Score:2)
These were heady days. Daikatana was about to be finally released. The PSX was at its peak. PC gaming was growing, growing, growing.
And I was standing next to Warren Specter in the queue.
He told me who he was, and I asked why he was standing with the plebs, rather than going through the VIP route he was no doubt entitled to.
Warren laughed and said he was with his team, and no way was he leaving them.
It is a rare thing to see someone with such a reputation prefer his team to his convenience, and whatever happened to ION Storm I wish him well.
Re:Wait a minute.... (Score:3, Funny)
The gaming mags jumped all over them and said they were the second coming... goes to show what they know about things.
Re:My Opinion (Score:2)
IT WAS A JOKE! I in fact am very white. But 1/4 is not.
It's like a pun, you know.
"Come to Cincinnati - You'll have a riot!" [google.com]
Joke [enquirer.com]
Joke [enquirer.com]
Joke [enquirer.com]
Joke [enquirer.com]
Re:Deus Ex and Anachronox (Score:2, Interesting)
Interesting to note, Anachronox has also won "Best Story Award" from Gamespot (http://gamespot.com/gamespot/features/pc/bestof_
Anyways, Anachronox was created using a heavily modified Quake2 engine. And, sadly enough, it seems that games tend to sell on pretty graphics, rather than gameplay.
Also, practically everybody I know that has played through Anachronox has agreed that it definatly ranks wayyy up there on their list of all time favorites. It definatly does mine. (and yes, I know quite a bit of people that have played it through)
Do yourself a favor -- go pick this game up. You'll be very glad you did.
--Xanlexian
Re:Salon's really outdone themselves this time. (Score:2)
You are free to view these advertisements as a travesty against all that you love, but I think you are overreacting just a bit. Have you noticed how many advertisements there are in an average magazine? Advertisement is the way that magazines make money. Salon may be published online but it is still a magazine. You implied that you had been a Salon reader in the past. If you like their articles, why don't you calm down a bit and just not let the ads bother you?
Use Opera (Score:2)
Re:Jump off the bandwagon (Score:2)
Agreed. Google likes to provide nice facilities for their employees, and it doesn't look like it has hurt their product.