Steve Purcell On Sam & Max 2's Cancellation

An anonymous reader writes "Saw this newsbit on AdventureGamers.com - Steve Purcell, creator of Sam & Max, made the following statement in a letter to the LucasArts fansite Mixnmojo regarding LucasArts' cancellation of Sam & Max 2: 'LucasArts' sudden decision to stop production on Sam & Max is mystifying. Sam & Max was on schedule and coming together beautifully... It's a shame to think that the [dev team's] accomplishments, as well as the goodwill that has been growing in the gaming press toward this project, will all go to waste due to this shortsighted decision.' Check out the link for the full letter. There is also an interesting editorial posted on AdventureGamers.com as well." Is this cancellation a blow the commercially developed traditional graphic adventure can recover from?

Talk to LA

[McCarrum]

Send your emails direct to LucasArts people.

Fight the good fight, else we may not see a decent AND funny adventure for a very very long time.

There's a Reason

[ALeavitt]

LucasArts seems to only see to the end of the fiscal year. They want to go with the games they know will be profitable, and by that I mean the Star Wars game du jour. As far back as I can remember, they've been grafting Star Wars onto whatever genre is popular: flight sim (X-Wing/TIE Fighter,) FPS (Dark Forces series,) a somewhat original RTS (the abysmal Force Commander) and a more traditional RTS (Galactic Battlegrounds) to name a few. Oh, not to mention the upcoming squad-level tactical shooter (read: Rainbow Six clone) Republic Commando. As adventure games are in a constant near-death state according to the popular gaming press, I'm not surprised that LucasArts decided to cancel Sam & Max 2. That doesn't mean that I'm not disappointed, however. I'll be writing a letter to LucasArts too. Just don't be surprised when the truly innovative and fun games (Sam & Max 2 and Full Throttle 2) get cancelled in favor of the safe bet that is a Star Wars game.

Effective petitions

[AllenChristopher]

I can only think of one instance. The official word from Sierra was that Quest for Glory V was only developed because of enormous fan support in the form of letters, faxes, and e-mails.

Of course, that was before people got so blase about these things. It's like running a hunger strike these days, instead of the sixties; nobody pays attention.

Also, Quest for Glory V sucked, and sold badly.

Re:Don't blame LucasArts too much.

[elmegil]

They are a company whose job it is to make money.

They used to make money by being innovative and releasing funny and great games like Sam & Max Hit the Road, Day of the Tentacle, and later Grim Fandango. Now they seem to think they can only make money by rehashing yet another tired Star Wars game. Companies who devolve to that point don't continue to make much money for much longer (especially given that their golden goose only has one more egg that they can definitively rely on).

Re:Don't blame LucasArts too much.

[elmegil]

If they can make more money from a Sam & Max than making Star Wars: Cantina Racer, don't you think they'd do it?

Because of course, making the most money on every single release, with a threshhold set by the effortless to market Star Wars franchise, is the very definition of success. Never mind all the other aspects of success. Never mind the examples thoughout our history of those who allow money money money to be their ultimate and only goal, only to completely lose their way and crash and burn.

There is balance to be had. Having a golden goose should free you to take risks in other places, not make you so risk averse that you become a snivelling gollumlike miser.

Re:Don't blame LucasArts too much.

[elmegil]

Maybe if someone could come up with a compelling value proposition for consoles, fewer of us would be so ignorant. Personally, I already have spent enough money on this general purpose box here that I know can play lots of varied games. I can't think of any game I've seen on a console that I couldn't play on my PC if it were coded for it. Why I should then spend additional money on single purpose, vendor locked boxes that clutter up my entertainment center is a complete mystery to me.

the adventuregamers writeup..

[gl4ss]

..is basically telling that you should become a corporate whore!

"And I understand now more than ever how important the success of Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude will be. Unquestionably I will buy it at full price the moment it's available, and I'll encourage everyone to do the same. Even if the game isn't great...even if the game isn't much of a pure adventure...it is the game that every major publisher is going to look at to evaluate whether or not there's any life in adventures, fair or not."

WHAT???? You think we should shoot them a message that whatever whoring you can do of old franchises is good and will go through? buy games that suck just because major publishers would get more intrested??

screw 'em if they don't make good stuff. what good is crappy adventure games?

it's not like they have a total monopoly on games biz anyways, there can always come games like Siberia 'out of the blue'(and in fact, if there's not much press flooding from the big houses they're mor probable to actually make it to the fans even if published by smaller publishers).

Remember when

[_Sexy_Pants_]

Max would appear in every Lucasarts game? And their catalog would feature a Sam and Max comic in each? Where did the love go?

Do we want them to change their mind?

[ZorMonkey]

I'm worried about what would happen if they somehow got convinced to start development again. The suits already cancelled it once, they wont be very likely to budget much more money for it. It will be rushed out the door.

So then we'd get a terrible, buggy release. The game wont sell, and the suits will say "We told you so". That would be the end of adventure games. The current situtation is just a bit of a speedbump.

Or am I just too pessimistic? :)

Email lucas himself!

[mrshowtime]

Emailing the management at Lucasarts will do nothing. Their shortsighteness cannot be cured with a few emails. It really is rediculous that Lucasarts is compromising themselves for profit/costs reasons. Too bad Lucas can't put ILM and Lucasarts together (that would make too much sense). As for the quote "It's not a good time to release an adventure game." Well, neither was it suppossedly a good time to release "Star Wars," but look how well that did!