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Businesses PC Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Atari Shuts Down Legend Entertainment? 58

Posted by CowboyNeal from the tough-times dept.
MachDelta writes "Yet another talented PC game studio has closed their doors today. Shacknews is reporting that Legend Entertainment, most commonly known for their work on Wheel of Time, Unreal 2, and Unreal 2: XMP, has been shut down by Atari. Though nothing official has been announced by either Legend or Atari, insider reports have confirmed that the sad news is indeed true. Losing Black Isle was hard enough, but now Legend? It raises the question: Who's next?" Update: 01/18 04:34 GMT by S : ShackNews has a messageboard post by Legend designer Glen Dahlgren seeming to confirm the closure.
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Atari Shuts Down Legend Entertainment? More

Atari Shuts Down Legend Entertainment?

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  • 1. I travelled to the future earlier this morning, and read this article.

    2. This exact article was posted earlier this morning.

    3. This exact article was postead earlier this morning and it was removed, since I can't seem to find the earlier copy.

  • Buggy software kills... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BulletMagnet ( 600525 ) on Saturday January 17, 2004 @05:44PM (#8009986)
    I owned UR2 and remember how much pain it took to finish that game with all the crashiness it had using a specific SB soundcard. The gameplay was great, albeit short and annoying when it blew up.
    • This is exactly what I thought when I read this story. I bought Unreal 2 as soon as it came out thinking it was going to be sweet, and it wasn't even playable on my system, which was top of the line at the time. They promised a patch for two months after release that never came. I wasn't the only one getting 12fps when I should have been getting a lot more. I ended up getting a huge retailer, who will remain nameless, to take the game back and bought UT2003 instead. :) I vowed never to buy anything from a c

  • Perhaps It Raises the Question? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It begs the question: Who's next?

    No, it really doesn't.

    • Re:Perhaps It Raises the Question? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Beg the question means neither raise the question, invite the question nor evade the answer. To beg the question is to adopt an argument whose conclusion depends upon assuming the truth of the very conclusion the argument is designed to produce. All governments should promote free trade because otherwise protectionism will increase. This begs the question.
      • The article now raises the question, not begs it. Thank you to grammar scholars everywhere :)

        • Re:Perhaps It Raises the Question? (Score:1, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Thank you for being a slashdot editor who cares about the site. Is there any chance the others will follow your example?
        • And yet another slashdot summary is edited with no mention made in the summary.

          • Re:Perhaps It Raises the Question? (Score:1, Funny)

            by Anonymous Coward
            You're one of those assholes that just needs something to bitch about, aren't you?

            If they mentioned editing the summary, in the summary, then they would have to mention that they mentioned mentioning editing the summary in the summary. This, of course, would lead to mentioning that they mentioned the fact that they mentioned mentioning editing the summary, in the summary.

            I would go on, but I hope you get the idea.

      • Thanks, Grammar/Logic/Philosophy God (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Good grief (blincoln, presumably). So the meaning of "beg the question" has been completely misconstrued by the media and mainstream culture into a meaning that now makes more sense than it once did. Everyone knows what the poster meant (that it "raises" the question), and the media now uses this meaning in the same way. If something "begs the question," it now means that it is so obvious an indication of something that it does, in fact, "beg" for the following question often then presented by the erra
      • Nonsense. There is a fossilized phrase "beg the question" which has the meaning you describe. There is also a perfectly logical modern phrase, formed through standard sentence construction rules, "beg the question", in which "beg" carries its modern meaning of "request", meaning "raise the question".

        Tell me, have you ever used the word "treacle" to refer to a kind of sugary syrup used to flavour desserts? How ignorant of you! Treacle means an antidote to snake venom. At least, it did a few hundred yea
  • All of the good dev houses get shutdown, yet all of the utterly terrible [titusgames.com] ones get to survive?
    • The good dev houses make games you want to play, with innovative features, impressive strylines and novel gameplay (not that I'd claim any of this for Unreal 2. I've finished it once and found it the emost cliche-ridden, predictable, bug-infested game for years, but that's beside the point). The problem is that doing this involves the very thing publishers increasingly tend to abhor: risks.

      The uesless houses that churn out formulaic sequels are the low-risk, simple option. They're also less likely to be st
    • Still lamenting the fall of Dynamix myself.

  • who's next? (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by BTWR ( 540147 )
    gamecube. it's "so dying" (or at least that's what every article on /. always claims...)

    Oh, and apple too. totally dead.
    • I'm *so* sick of people complaining about "Gamecube is dying" comments. Nobody is saying that!

      In fact, the complete opposite is true; this place is filled with f*cking Nintendo zealots left, right and center!

      I like my Cube as much as the next guy, but shut up! Really. Please. Stop.

      Anyway, this is offtopic. Sorry.
      • sorry if it wasn't clear (now that I look at it, it wasn't) - but I was being sarcastic. I'm a nintendo boy (NES thru gameboy, even have a virtual boy!) and I was just poking fun at all the idiots who always claim big N is on the way out...

  • Not really that sad (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) * <jhummel&johnhummel,net> on Saturday January 17, 2004 @08:03PM (#8010835) Homepage
    To be honest, I never thought that Legend was really that great. "Wheel of Time" was interesting and good looking, but nothing to really go nuts about. "Unreal 2" was another - nice, but not supreme.

    This sounds more like capitalistic market forces working than (in Interplay's case) Point Haired Bosses making silly decisions.
  • I guess this means that I'll never be playing a Gateway 3, not that I really expected to anyway.

    Series' that good usually end up unappreciated anyway...
  • More crappy companies. Companies that cant turn profit. Companies that make bad games. The list goes on.

    No tears here.

    • Re:whos next? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Drantin ( 569921 )
      You've obviously never played any of Legends Entertainments older games that weren't mentioned in the summary... the Spellcasting games(101 201 301) Gateway 1,2 the list goes on...

  • Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gtshafted ( 580114 ) on Saturday January 17, 2004 @10:43PM (#8011552)
    The studios are really about the people. Their names mean nothing without the very people that started them. In most cases when these studios are shut down, the personalities that were important in leading them already left. For example, how important is BullFrog when most of its key developers and founder leave to form another studio? What's Origin without Richard Garriot or Black Isle without Ferquant (or whatever his name was)? The bottomline is that's it's really mainly the people that matter. The studios / their names mainly just serve as a marketing vehicle. Unless these developers / designers die - great games will still come from them - just in the form of a different brand / studio.
    • It's not that simple.

      These guys can't just go into their garage and make a new game, have it released next month. They'll need to find new jobs. Chances are - that won't be with each other. Divide up the talent, divide up the quality.

      Sure, when a group of talent voluntary moves together, it can make little difference. This on the other hand, can be devastating.

  • Legend's Old Days (Score:3, Informative)

    by ReyTFox ( 676839 ) on Sunday January 18, 2004 @03:06AM (#8012366)
    Before they ever did Wheel of Time, they were an adventure game house. Steve Meretzky was one of the great names, and came there from Infocom IIRC.

    Their first games were basically text games dragged into the 90s kicking and screaming, by letting you play using both verb/object bars, or just typing in your commands like usual. Small still images and BGM tracks constituted the technical advances.

    That might sound bad, but the games were good, especially the later ones. The asthetic essentials of descriptive text and vibrant environments were never left out.

    I think Legend's two main problems were:

    1. It got stuck in FPS games after WOT was a success. Its core strength, after all, was originally in adventures.

    2. It got sucked into the folds of a large game company. When a developer reaches that position, it seems like death is inevitable.
    • That's true! I don't remember the WOT game at all, but I remember Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All the Girls, and Spellcasting 201 and Spellcasting 301. :)
  • Legend completely ruined Star Control 3, and Unreal 2 was an embarrassment to all gamers everywhere. Since then, every time I've seen that Legend logo when starting up a game, I've had that sinking feeling in my stomach. Finally, the market system has worked and one more awful game development house has closed. The only unfortunate thing is those ex-Legend developers now have an opportunity to work elsewhere, spreading their legacy of crappiness.

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