Vivendi Games Lays Off 350, To Close Sierra Offices 65
An anonymous reader writes "Vivendi Universal Games has laid off 350 people and closed its Bellevue, Wa. office (formerly Sierra), according to a report on CNN/Money. In addition to the shuttering of Sierra, say goodbye to the Hoyle card games, which may not have been popular with hardcore gamers, but were beloved by mothers and other casual players." The article also notes: "The job cuts follow the May shutdown of a pair of longtime [Vivendi-owned] development studios... Papyrus Studios (makers of the company's 'NASCAR' games for years) and Impressions Games (makers of strategy titles, such as 'Zeus', 'Cleopatra' and 'Lords of the Realm III'.)", However: "Blizzard Entertainment, VU Games' top earning developer, was not affected by the restructuring."
Former Vivendi CEO Messier in prison (Score:5, Informative)
Boston Studios (Score:5, Informative)
This isn't such a clear-cut case of the expendability of your north-west studios. Papayrus has been frozen with Nascar for years, and losing that license meant losing their company. Impression games was stuck too, stuck making Caeser and other historical strategy games in a saturated market. I don't think the closure of either of these studios comes as a surprise to anybody. But one can't shake the feeling that we're in for another round of publisher abuse, looking at their North East studios as if they were expendable, despite having produced Asheron's Call, Karaoke Revolution, System Shock II, Empire Earth, Neverwinter Nights, Thief 1 and 2, The great Mind Rover [mindrover.com], etc, etc.
Re:Bnetd scandal=bad but Diablo 2 (3?)= Good (Score:1, Informative)
All the original Diablo guys bailed out from Blizzard like a year ago. Check out Guild Wars. It's like Diablo, minus the suck! (And no monthly fee)
Sierra (Score:2, Informative)
Still, I doubt many young gamers realize the influence that Sierra had on the industry. These are the people who developed the very first graphical adventures when everyone else was just using text. They might have been one of the first to use motion capture to animate a game (King's Quest 5). They were innovative, and they created what are certainly some of the best computer games ever made. I realize the lack of flashy 3D graphics is a turn-off these days, but I played through the QFG series again about a year ago and loved it. No one else has done anything that rivals QFG and KQ5+6. The adventure genre has simply been dead for ten years.