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Businesses Entertainment Games

Elixir Studios Closes Its Doors 38

Posted by Zonk from the line-them-up-and-knock-them-down dept.
Another development studio has closed up shop, with British company Elixir laying off staff and closing down development. Elixir has published two titles, the political sim Republic and the mad scientist strategy title Evil Genius. The cancellation of an upcoming project forced the company to make a hard decision. From the article: "I'm very proud of what all the staff at Elixir have achieved and the games we produced...We gave it everything we had but ultimately it wasn't quite enough. It seems that today's games industry no longer has room for small independent developers wanting to work on innovative and original ideas. Perhaps there is no longer any need for them."
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Elixir Studios Closes Its Doors More

Elixir Studios Closes Its Doors

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  • It was a neat concept and was fun, but I found it becoming fairly monotonus after awhile. I'm sorry they're going out of business, I would have liked to have seen more games from this company. I might have to look for a copy of Republic and give it a try.

    • Re:Evil Genius (Score:3, Interesting)

      by DingerX ( 847589 )
      yeah, "well received" is a bit of an overstatement. Cool idea -- really cool idea -- but the execution was a little wanting. The end product felt like half the game was shelved when time/budget overruns pressed in. Unfortunately, that was the fun half.

      As for

      "It seems that today's games industry no longer has room for small independent developers wanting to work on innovative and original ideas. Perhaps there is no longer any need for them."

      Maybe it's not enough that the ideas be innovative and original

      • most innovative and original ideas are not good ideas; and those that are rarely get implemented well.

        That's a real quoteworthy gem you crafted there. In fact, I'm going to print it out and stick it up in my office.

        Oddly, it relates to a special I saw on TV last night about Disney World and the "imagineers" who work there. One of them was asked if Disney kept a record of all their good ideas, and he responded something like, "No, we only keep and build the really GREAT ideas". Similar in concept to yo
    • Well, the description you just gave for Evil Genius would work really well for Republic as well.

      Rob
    • Never played any of their games but I've heard alot about them. Oh well another independent developer gets crushed beneath the corporate hoof.

  • Evil Genious sucked (Score:3, Insightful)

    by arkham6 ( 24514 ) on Thursday April 28, 2005 @01:37PM (#12374061)
    Well, it did. Sorry. The concept was good, but the execution fell flat. Building your lair and hiring goons was cool and all, but that seemed to be the end of it. To get anything done you just placed goons on a map of the world and waited while tehy did their evil things. After a while, it became very boring and pointless.

    Am I sorry to see Elixar go? Yes and no. They did not really make good games, but who knows, maybe they would have came out with something.
    • I echo those statements; I thought the idea was great, kind of an Austin Powers meets Dungeon Keeper game. Then, I read the (awful) reviews, and decided against buying the game.

      • I realized, after I seriously started the game, that there was one glaring, blinding flaw with the concept:

        THE EVIL GENIUS ALWAYS FUCKING LOSES.

        Take, for example, base defense. A super-agent comes in, so you activate your red alert. Your minions, including your highly trained mercenaries, run for the armories, grab weapons, and proceed to run, single file, up a hallway, and get mowed down in echelon. Forty armed soldiers? Bah, they'll still all get mowed down.

        Now, yes, this is EXACTLY how it works

    • Both these games strike me as failing for similar reasons. Yes, they had a premise that they execute awesomely - and in both cases, literally beautifully, too. Evil Genius was, "Hey, let's make you feel like you're in a 60's movie as the villain!" I defy anyone with a reasonable experience (ie, could spot the experience, had a monitor plugged in, got the game to start up... eccet) to state in this objective, Evil Genius was anything other than a total and resounding success.

      It was definately the "where do

  • Independent Developers (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Defiant00 ( 786745 ) on Thursday April 28, 2005 @01:41PM (#12374103) Homepage
    "It seems that today's games industry no longer has room for small independent developers wanting to work on innovative and original ideas. Perhaps there is no longer any need for them." It is quite sad how little chance small independent developers really have in today's game industry, however I don't think many would agree with saying that there's no need for them. Actually, having seen Evil Genius in Wal-Mart, it makes me wonder what the definition of a small independent developer is these days. Now what I'd consider small independent developers would be those responsible for games like Gish, Alien Hominid, or Darwinia. And, from what I heard Evil Genius was a great idea that suffered from some serious issues later on, such as trying to keep track of what your minions were doing around the world. I guess when you start working out a publishing deal even small independent developers can easily get pushed into completing and selling something that isn't necessarily 'done' in their eyes.
    • Gah, forgot to put the html tags in...fear the run-on sentence I suppose.
    • I am still wondering how Evil Genius is original or innovative. At least Dungeon Keeper offered multiplayer.
    • I agree, Darwinia is an amazing game, essentially written by one guy on a laptop in his bedroom, and marketed by him and 2 other guys... out of their bedrooms.

      Think Tron, Centipede, Space Invaders, and Cannon Fodder all rolled into one RTS-style game with a unique mouse gesture interface.

      http://www.darwinia.co.uk/ [darwinia.co.uk]

  • Well... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by soniCron88 ( 870042 ) on Thursday April 28, 2005 @01:47PM (#12374180) Homepage
    You get what you give. They sure did come up with some very unique concepts, however, they weren't very fun to play. As much as I hate (read: hate, hate, hate, hate, hate) the Sims, it is an incredibly original concept. I remember watching the trailer that came on a couple other Maxis products years before the Sims was released, and I thought, "Jeeze, this is gonna be crappy. Gimme more SimCity" Boy was I wrong. (Again, I don't like it, but I understand it's level of innovation).

    Point is, there is plenty of room in the world for unique and original games (*koff*Katamari*koff*), however, you also need to make them fun. This is the element that was sorely lacking from the two games I played from Elixir. The presentation was fantastic, but it seems to take more than a 95% failure rate for companies to realize that is the least important factor if gameplay is neglected.

    It is a game, after all. If it doesn't feel like you're playing a game, then you're probably not playing it.

  • Dead games can live on (Score:4, Insightful)

    by newrisejohn ( 517586 ) on Thursday April 28, 2005 @01:48PM (#12374185)

    Dear Elixir,

    Please open source your games so that your fans may continue to enjoy them, or modify and adapt them. The benefits will surely outway the remaining royalities/profits from keeping these games as commercial ventures.

  • Evil Genius (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BoRictor ( 559494 ) on Thursday April 28, 2005 @02:06PM (#12374429)
    I downloaded the demo version when it first came out. I think it was fun for about 2 minutes until I had to micro-manage everything. While it was a very cool concept and definitely had potential the execution unfortunately just wasn't there.

    Ultimately I gave up and uninstalled it.

    As for the comment regarding the lack of need for smaller indepedant game developers.. well I call bullshit on that. Just because 1 company fails at producing games that people will buy and enjoy does not mean that all companies will fall into the same boat. Those that can come out with games that are actually FUN TO PLAY (gasp!) should do well.

    Until they are eaten up by some bigger player who will then make sequel after sequel spewing out the same regurgitated crap with "All new features!"
  • I don't understand...they have to close down because their title was canceled? By whom? Their publisher? If that is the case, then that means all of their paychecks were coming from the publisher since they didn't have enough saved up from previous games. The term 'Independent Game developer' has been warped in this case. They were more like contractors. When I hear 'Independent', I picture it meaning you are 'Not Dependant' on other sources, like income from a publisher. 'Small' means your team is s
    • They are an independent developer. They were closed down, because their current project was cancled.... by themselves!

      Simple equation going on here: They didn't make enough money from their other games to support the costs of developing a third game, so they had to shut house. You think just because they are not some publisher's lapdogs that they can ignore financial reality?

      • I failed to see anywhere in that article that the game was canceled by their own decision. Thus..(thus!) I asked..and I quote.."by whom". Seeing that you replied, and you tried to belittle me, you must know of another article that states why the title was canceled. I ask you provide a link.

        On the side, my statement is that companies that are 'lapdogs' seem to think they are independant simply because their publisher, who is allowing them to exist, does not own them. There is a big debate about what the

  • Should this be seen as another reason to push for online distrubution (like steam), rather than the traditional publishing model?.

    Having played EG, and Republic, whilst not perfect games they were solid, however it was clear these games were never intended for mass market consumption, and were clearly aimed at a niche. Niche though appears to be a dirty word amongst the largely fatcat publishing industry today.

    I dont like Valves steam personally (mostly due to its over integration), however it does work,

  • Why did they fail? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TJ_Phazerhacki ( 520002 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @12:16AM (#12380029) Journal
    I own both Elixer games mentioned. I was PSYCHED for republic. I got it, put it on the laptop, and played for like 2 days straight. I actually restarted after I figured out the system. There was only one problem:

    It sucked. It was boring, monotonus, and after the 2nd level, not at all entertaining. It felt like work. Strike that. It was harder than work, with less reward.

    I didn't even realive the same studio had made E.G. until this article. And yet as I look back, I can see alot of similarities between the games. Too much information, a Not-At-All intuitive interface, and a lackluster AI in games where the interface is something you spend 95% of your time in and the AI basically has to play the game for you.

    Elixer failed not because they had publisher problems, or because they had a canceled game. They failed because they were a large group of creative, intelligent people with practically no outside testing. They internalized everything, thought their ideas were good, and sent them out. No one to say "This is too hard" or "this is too slow". I think I'd rather the company dissolve and the talent migrate to other studios than they release another game I get excited about, only to see the execution fail.

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