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PC Games (Games) Role Playing (Games) Entertainment Games

Turbine Cuts Out Publishers With Funding Boost 32

Posted by simoniker from the say-vee-cee dept.
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to an official press release announcing MMORPG developer Turbine has secured almost $20 million in venture capital funding to help fund Turbine's first self-published PC MMO project, Dungeons & Dragons Online. A GameSpot story quotes a Turbine spokesman as saying the move presents a "total shift in [our] business model. We're taking out the middle man between us and our fans." The Asheron's Call developers are still "partnered with Atari for retail marketing and distribution" on D&D Online, the company it "secured the D&D MMORPG sublicense" from earlier this year, but describes its intent to "[transition] from a developer into service publisher with its newest franchises." Turbine are also still working on The Lord Of The Rings: Middle-Earth Online in partnership with Vivendi.
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Turbine Cuts Out Publishers With Funding Boost More

Turbine Cuts Out Publishers With Funding Boost

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  • Good but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MMaestro ( 585010 ) on Monday December 15, 2003 @06:42PM (#7729742)
    "total shift in [our] business model. We're taking out the middle man between us and our fans."

    Yeah, but that doesn't mean that the game will still suck.

    Turbine is working on a MMO-LOTR game and now a D&D-MMO game at the same time? Isn't that reaching a little too far?

    • Re:Good but... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by L7_ ( 645377 )
      You underestimate the influence of Ken Karl and the rest of the Microsoft employees that were involved in the publishing of Asheron's Call 1 and 2.

      Ken Karl is known for taking the development updates and content additions in the direction that Microsoft wanted to take. If you look at Asheron's Call 2, you will find that alot (IIRC) of the design choices were not done by Turbine, but rather heavily influenced by Microsoft. Also, when Ken was appointed head of AC1 over at MS, things started to take a differe

      • You underestimate the influence of Ken Karl and the rest of the Microsoft employees that were involved in the publishing of Asheron's Call 1 and 2.

        Ken Karl is known for taking the development updates and content additions in the direction that Microsoft wanted to take. If you look at Asheron's Call 2, you will find that a lot (IIRC) of the design choices were not done by Turbine, but rather heavily influenced by Microsoft. Also, when Ken was appointed head of AC1 over at MS, things started to take a differ

      • You underestimate the influence of Ken Karl...how Darth Vader-like.

  • The economy is recovering... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ieshan ( 409693 ) <{moc.liamg} {ta} {nahsei}> on Monday December 15, 2003 @06:50PM (#7729810) Homepage Journal
    Well, the economy is recovering, so we ought to see a dramatic rise in pre-bust business models appearing.

    Current:
    Publisher says: We'll publish your game and give you money to produce it if you can demonstrate that it will sell. After we sell it, we'll give you your profits.

    Then:
    People say: Here's 20 million dollars! Go waste it on nerf guns and quake-lan parties. Oh, and if you get around to making a game, maybe spend some on that, too?

  • Cause cutting out quality control is a good thing? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Mike Hawk ( 687615 ) on Monday December 15, 2003 @07:12PM (#7729976) Journal
    Lets see, financial stability approaches zero. Quality control approaches zero. Customer support approaches zero. What was the last major PC game project to come out without a publisher? Oh yeah. Steam. Roger that.

  • Good for Turbine (Score:4, Insightful)

    by LordZardoz ( 155141 ) on Monday December 15, 2003 @08:02PM (#7730397)
    Game developers are typically at the mercy of their publishers when it comes to taking in money. As an example, its not like DICE is seeing the bulk of the profits generated from Battlefield 1942. EA is gettting the bulk of the profits on it.

    If Turbine can put out a decent MMPORG (which is likely), they will be getting all of the profits generated by the subscribers. And once they pay back the venture capitol, they will quite likely still be pulling in money from the MMPORG, and own the rights to the sequel them selves.

    The only downside to this is if they totally screw this up.

    As a game developer myself, I hope this succeeds for them in a big way. Anything that puts the developers in a stronger position at the expense of the publishers is probably a good thing.

    END COMMUNICATION
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Good for Turbine (Score:3, Informative)

      by whorfin ( 686885 )
      If Turbine can put out a decent MMPORG (which is likely), they will be getting all of the profits generated by the subscribers. And once they pay back the venture capitol, they will quite likely still be pulling in money from the MMPORG, and own the rights to the sequel them selves.

      Actually, you're describing a loan. Venture Capital buys a stake in a private company, and they intend to get their money back by selling that stake later, likely after the company IPOs. Venture Capital firms typically only giv
  • I certainly hope Turbine does a better job with their Live team this time, after their last game's abysmal failure in that respect. It doesn't take a genius to know that making every mob in the game 5x harder to encourage "grouping" isn't going to please the populace. Oh well, it was a good game while it lasted. The only satisfying thing is knowing that the players were *right*, despite the constant assertions of the Live team that "this is the only thing we can do to make a lasting and worthwhile game". A

    • Re:Well (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Asheron's Call 2 just had horrid character development.

      You got skills, but they were largely vanilla. You didn't see a spike in power like you did in the first one, ever. In the end your character used like 3 skills of all of them, it was a pain to boost them all, the crafting system lacked so that while you could theoretically make an all crafting character, you couldn't do anyhting with it in the game and the mining concepts were just ridiculous. It also attempted to be like planetside in the kingdon
    • Part of the problem was that AC1 was primarily a Turbine designed game. AC2 was a microsoft and committee designed game.
      I am great hopes that they learned thier lesson and D&D online and Middle earth show it. But then this could just be a dream.

  • fans (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Andy Smith ( 55346 ) on Monday December 15, 2003 @08:36PM (#7730654)
    A GameSpot story quotes a Turbine spokesman as saying the move presents a "total shift in [our] business model. We're taking out the middle man between us and our fans."
    Yikes, that's quite an ego we're dealing with here!

    I think Mr Turbine Spokesman will find that gamers are generally fans of a *game*, not the developer. Sure there are a few exceptions, Id for example, but it's kinda creepy to hear someone at a development company talking about the company itself having "fans". Surely he means customers? But then maybe that would be a bit too respectful.

    • Re:fans (Score:1)

      by Rhys ( 96510 )
      Turbine... and a comment about fans. They've been doing it for quite a while, I groaned at first but it was actually kinda funny. You know, turbine... fans... turbine... yeah.

    • Re:fans (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Kirby ( 19886 )
      I think this is a difference between MMORPGs and other kinds of games.

      For most games, you buy it, play it, expect a few patches, and that's the extent of your interaction with the developers for most people.

      For MMORPGs, the relationship is vastly different. There's a continuous active dialogue between the developers and the players. Changes are expected - in the Asheron's Call case, in the form of a monthly patch, some of which have a level of content that would be expected of an expansion pack. (And c
  • Just a quick nit to pick. The price mentioned in the article was $18 million, which isn't really "almost 20".

  • Can't wait for D&D Online (Score:3, Interesting)

    by stilleon ( 601857 ) on Monday December 15, 2003 @11:36PM (#7731844)
    I can't wait for D&D Online. Long overdue. I love playing computer ROGs based on the d20 system (such as Star Wars:KOTOR and Neverwinter Nights). This should be a good one. One question I have that hasn't been answered: what world is it in. I hope it's Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms. If its some generic new world they made up I will be dissapointed.
    • FR is a great world for making computer games in (as has been demonstrated repeatedly by various games, including the old SSI gold box games back in the day). I'm not sure how it'll deal with a MMO audience, though, since it tends to rely a lot on single-player/group mechanics and/or deus ex machina.

    • The game will take place in the newly designed world of Ebberon. Very different from any of the other D&D settings, and not my cup of tea. Give it a google.
  • VERY few companies ever receive funding to the tune of 18 million. I don't know of NONE that sourced if from venture capitalists either (as opposed to the usual developer-publisher relationship). From what I've read, after the whole dot-com crash post 2000, venture capitalists were VERY reluctant to invest in gaming companies.
    This is EXTREMELY good news for developers in and by itself. ESPECIALLY if Turbine can pull it off, as it will hopefully encourage greater spending and investing in game development.

    G

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