Lionhead Cancels 'BC' Development

Anonymous Coward writes "Worthplaying is reporting in with the rather sad news that Lionhead has stopped further development of B.C. , its highly anticipated Xbox title. Not giving any specific reason as to why, Lionhead's Peter Molyneux said he hopes to "revive the project at a later date." This news is especially odd since a few days ago Lionhead announced to have secured millions of pounds on venture capital."

odd

[cheeseSource]

It seems like they were pretty far into development...

Is it odd?

[SandSpider]

Is it odd that they'd stop development for a while after getting venture capital? I would imagine that the VC is for something specific, and they have to focus their attention on where the money wants them to.

Re:Is it odd?

[gl4ss]

well, it kind of depends.

one would have assumed that they would have gotten that vc kind of because of that projects merits..

but probably penis*.. errr.. PETER got a new idea and suckered some vc's for it. dunno, b&w.. BUT THIS TIME IT'S IN INTERNET.

(*penis reference purely because of pennyarcade :)

Re:Is it odd?

[cgenman]

Not to mention that having that VC available allows them to eat the costs of a failed development. Now, likely their publisher ate the majority of the costs, but they wouldn't get out of the arrangement without some form of financial punishment. This decision, of course, would be a lot easier to make if you had VC to cover the costs of prototyping a new project.

Sad to tell, but at points in game development you have to throw out things that aren't working. If you wait too long, everything becomes interd

Re:Is it odd?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was once with a game company that accepted VC.
First, the VC company wanted a say in the running,
then when the contracts were being signed, it
became a seat on the board. Then when the money
was coming up, a seat on the board with full veto
power. Then when the money was there, and the
game company actually ordered a whole bunch of
new stuff, and signed contracts to produce games,
the VC money was yanked back. The VC company then
demaned that the 'high risk, low return' games
development division be closed down an

Figures...

[hollismb]

Coming off the whole apology thing, it makes sense that they'd stop development on something they'd touted as so revolutionary and promised so many features for, many of which probably got pulled over the course of development. Sounds like he had another Fable over-hype on his hands, and wanted to save face.

VC monies ....

[drfrog]

usually have stipulations involved

its their money , so they have a bit of say in what will be developed.

this is no different than any other industry. for example the record industry grooms and prompts their artists to behave a certain way.

so what does this mean in this case?

well it sure seems like whomever these VC's are they didnt like that direction

Obligatory PA Link

[bobgoatcheese]

Gabe and Tycho love Peter Molyneux! [penny-arcade.com]

Simple answer

[Taulin]

What type of game takes a lot of money, and everyone on staff to make? I won't be suprised if they announce a MMORPG soon. The BC project was not cancelled, just postponed, and I think they just needed more man power, and all that cash, on a bigger project.

Where was the money from?

[narrowhouse]

Maybe Microsoft gave them a chunk of money to hold the game and develop it for the next version of the Xbox? They are going to need a string of top games to introduce the platform, so why not hold off a "highly anticipated" game for when it will do the most for you?

Fable Flop

[XsynackX]

I think that this is somehow related to the huge flop of a game that Fable was. BC was almost as overly hyped in its early stages as Fable was, and Peter promised impossible things for both games. Maybe they decided its better not to continue making a game that won't live up to expectations just to save face?

Personally I'd rather just see Peter Molyneaux shut his fat mouth about these games instead of overhyping them only to have them released to IMPOSSIBLY high expectations, just as Fable was.

Re:Fable Flop

[samael]

Yes, selling more copies of your game than any previous XBox game is a real flop. An utter disaster.

Re:Fable Flop

[Anonymous Coward]

Fable sold more copies in the first week than other Xbox games have sold in the first week.

And of course it would. It's the first Xbox-exclusive game that has debuted with nearly that much hype, and people have been desperately searching for a second game that justifies owning an Xbox. They thought Fable would provide that justification. Heck, even I was expecting it would be worth buying an Xbox for.

In the long run, however, I don't think Fable is going to end up selling remotely as well as Halo, or o

But what about the sequel?

[antin]

This seems really odd, especially as back in July (this year) IGN ran a story about the BC sequel...

Seems the sequel was going to be online. At the time I thought perhaps the developer should finish the first game before worrying about sequels - it seems I was right.

I presume the sequel is cancelled as well then? The story didn't seem to say.