FASA Studios Now Out of Business 72
PhoenixOne writes "Another chapter in the long and sometimes-frustrating history of the name 'FASA' comes to a close today, as Microsoft's FASA Studio has closed its doors. 'It is my sad duty to announce that FASA Studio has officially closed its doors. Today was the official last day of employment for those of us who had not moved on to other positions within Microsoft Game Studios. While the rumors have been circulating forever, we chose to wait on an official announcement because we didn't want people's attention distracted from our last product, Shadowrun, a game we love.'"
Big Deal (Score:2, Funny)
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Though, I must admit, having just gone through several loan documents, I read it as FAFSA at first.
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Bugger! (Score:1)
Oh, that's swell. I just spend a half hour composing a submission on this :o(
I felt ill when I heard Microsoft had acquired FASA Interactive, which meant all and future BattleTech video gaming properties (except those held by Activision) would have to come through the hands of a giant corporation which acquires properies which quietly die and fade away.
If I had just sunk some change into Shadowrun I'd be rather pissed right now. At least for me I spent most of my happy hours with the illicit BattleMech
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You know, if the company goes out of business that doesn't mean the game isn't playable...
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But it's been labeled all wrong. It really did need to be Generic Sci-Fi Fantasy FPS X : Elves with Guns Edition and not THE NEXT-GEN SHADOWRUN GAME (OMG). Although, having said that, not labeling it Shadowrun would have meant it probably faded into obscurity (even) quicker than it already migh
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At least for me I spent most of my happy hours with the illicit BattleMech and BattleFort games written by Ralph Reed for the Amiga.
I, too, spent countless hours playing that. I especially loved designing mechs.
There's is a windows game called "Titans of Steel", which is inspired by Mechforce. I enthusiastically bought it a couple of years ago, but either I really, really suck, or the game is way, way too hard. Despite max'd pilot and gunnery skills for their level, my pilots couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, and were constantly falling down. I got so angry with the game, I popped it out of the CDROM drive and flung the CD acr
Not Surprising (Score:3, Interesting)
FASA Interactive has long been dead, with no new Mech games for a number of years and certainly none on the horizon at any point after MW4. It's sad, that all traces of Battletech have been wiped off the face of the Earth - between the death of FASA itself and now its spinoff companies. I really wished someone would do something great with those properties - even Mech Commander wasn't such a bad game despite its flaws.
I really do wish someone would translate the original Battletech table top game into computer form, but with some concessions made for easy multiplay and quicker learning - i.e. something X-Com style.
Re:Not Surprising (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Not Surprising (Score:5, Informative)
FASA may be gone. FanPro may be gone. But BattleTech and Shadowrun live on.
All the primary developers for CBT and SR for the past 7-ish years are now at Catalyst Game Labs [catalystgamelabs.com] And, already, they've released around half a dozen new products in the last 4 months.
As Robotech Master pointed out, there's still MegaMek [sourceforge.net].
Heck, if you want a taste of old-school FASA Interactive, there's even an approved copy of the sub-rosa PC BattleTech [mektek.net] that JUST became available (thanks to Virtual World and Microsoft).
If you're looking for fiction you have BattleCorps [battlecorps.com] and, eventually, Holostreets [holostreets.com].
That and the Classic BattleTech [classicbattletech.com] and Shadowrun [dumpshock.com] communities [shadowrun4.com] have been alive and bustling for the better part of a decade now.
Good riddance. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Mechwarrior was a mech simulation at heart. But haven't you read the news? Simulations are dead, so let's do... a RTS! But wait, now FPS are the best-selling titles and we're busy losing $4bn on our console anyway so let's drop the PC...
Chromehounds sold well despite having some big flaws (just look at the reviews) and despite being part of a "dead" genre. This shows that there would have been a niche for a well made "re
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Hell, I just wish that they'd made more games compatible with the Steel Batallion controller.
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To steal my comments from another forum on FASA's closure:
FASA was just a name by the time they closed down - all their goodness had been pillaged and destroyed.
I would love to see another REAL Mechwarrior game (none of this xbox arcade-style stuff) and/or another Mechcommander game. Both series were fun romps in the superb Battletech universe.
The last iterations of each (Mechwarrior 4, MW4: Mercs, Mechcommander 2) were all a blast to play, had decent stories, and great cinematics. Picking mechs, cus
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Now if you're referring to stuff like MechAssault, then yeah, that wasn't very good, but I don't consider them part of the MechWarrior series in any way, except that they happen to include mechs.
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I remember when FASA and I were friends (Score:3, Insightful)
Regardless of what happened since then, it's sad to see them go.
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back when I wrote SF and Fantasy gaming articles in the 80s. Regardless of what happened since then, it's sad to see them go.
I met Michael Stackpole on GEnie where FASA had a considerable BattleTech and Shadowrun presence in the 80's. After GEnie because too much of an expense and I left them I kept contact with Mike through email and his website. I picked up some euro editions of his books and sent them back to him so he could study what changes were edited into the euro copies. In the mid 90's it w
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Chris Mattern
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They shot themselves in the foot really. I watched it happening at GenCon. First there was Earthdawn. I can't speak for others, but I thought it was a pretty good game. The problem is that they never marketed it at all, and I thought they missed a big chance. It seemed like a lot of people were getting fed up with D&D at the time. The TSR castle was the biggest thing on the convention floor and it was nearly empty most of the time.
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FASA Interactive [wikipedia.org] was a division of FASA Corporation [wikipedia.org] which (along with perpetual rights to the creation of electronic BattleTech and Shadowrun properties) was sold to Microsoft in 1999. MS dissolved FASA Interactive (so that all IP rights would be directly owned by MS) and created FASA Studio which went on to create MechAssault, the Shadowrun FPS, etc. FASA Studio is what this /. article is talking about.
FASA Corporation went out of business in 2001 and sold most of their remaining IP (including BattleT
Mechwarrior (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mechwarrior (Score:4, Funny)
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Traveller was only fatal in the first edition and the "hardcore" variant of Megatraveller (optional rules), after that, you were booted before completing a term (mustered
It is much more likely to die in HOL (Score:2)
You start with what is officially labeled the 'chart chart'. And, before I forget, you have to have the supplement - Buttery Holesomeness - before you actually even have character creation rules.
Death by Character Creation (Score:1)
If you had Superspeed, and therefore were attuned to the Speed Force, there was a slim chance you would be sucked into the Speed Force before you even got to play the game.
Not like you couldn't just roll up the exact same thing minutes later.
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True. But that's because it simulates a realistic universe.
I enjoyed writing articles for Traveller, and developing for it.
shadowrun (Score:2)
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I'm not going to defend the price. I think if they priced it at $40 they would have sold a lot more. But the only problem with the limited number of maps is marketing.
Each map in Shadowrun is amazing. You get the feeling that they spent months perfecting each one.
But, given how many people cite the "lack of maps" as a killer, they probably should of made a dozen more half-assed levels just to bump up the count.
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Battletech on Sega Genesis (Score:1)
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This isn't really FASA dying... (Score:5, Insightful)
Give the Mechwarrior franchise back to the remnants of Microprose, who can give us a fabulous Mech game, like Mechwarrior 3. Mechwarrior 3 was nearly perfect. Mechwarrior 4 was too "Arcade-like"... and Mechassault is just a console shoot 'em up with Mechs.
Also, give Shadowrun to Bioware, so that we can have an awesome Shadowrun RPG. I couldn't even BEGIN to think of how wonderful a game Bioware could make with Shadowrun.
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As I know people who worked at FASA, FASA Interactive, and FASA Studios, I beg to differ.
Take a look at the people who worked at FASA Studio when Microsoft assumed control of FASA Interactive.
No ripoff there.
As for MW3, it's was a "meh" last-minute slot-in.
MW4 was a conversion of the Virtual World code, begun at FASA Interactive when they and Virtual World Entertainment were occupying the same offices (I've even see the early conversions of RedPlanet).
Unfortunately, FASA Interactive had never rel
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It wasn't "spun".
It was a, once formed, self-sustaining entity right from the get go.
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First, I would love to know where that conversion of RedPlanet went (I loved that game, and I'm sad to see it go).
Having played the MW4 on the custom hardware ("Firestorm" Pods) I have to say I still prefer the previous (Tesla) version. You could play the original Tesla BattleTech for years and still not get bored with it, but the learning curve was high for new players. The Firestorm version removed the simulation parts to make it easy to learn, which made sense since they also moved the Pods into arcades
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Having played the MW4 on the custom hardware ("Firestorm" Pods) I have to say I still prefer the previous (Tesla) version. You could play the original Tesla BattleTech for years and still not get bored with it, but the learning curve was high for new players. The Firestorm version removed the simulation parts to make it easy to learn, which made sense since they also moved the Pods into arcades, but it stopped being a sim and just became another arcade machine.
Even MW3, rushed as it was, still had the right feel of a military sim (not surprising given Zipper's background).
I have heard this same thing said elsewhere and it made me curious because I was a big flightsim person and played all the mech games with a joystick setup for a more sim-like experience. What specifically was different between them (these "simulation parts" you mentioned). Any details would be great!
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You could control which weapons fired from what triggers.
You could control which weapons received recharge priority after firing (want to make your PPC come up faster, sacrifice power to your lasers, etc). You could reroute coolant away from areas that had been cored out to help increase cooling efficiency.
You could switch piloting modes from just your joystick and throttle t
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I played MW4 on the PC. You could do all the control stuff (custom weapon groups, assign them to whatever buttons, use pedals, etc) but it certainly didn't have any power management stuff. Sounds interesting - I always thought the power management in games like X-wing and TIE Fighter added to the fun.
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Given the Red Planet news released on their website a few days after this story went up, I think I have my answer. :)
Who here... (Score:3, Insightful)
...hates how Microsoft buys companies and then destroys half their product lines?
It's not just FASA, I don't really know much about them. The one that really pissed me off was Access Software, which MS bought for the fricking golf game, incidentally destroying the Tex Murphy franchise.
I understand, and am resigned to, Microsoft buying and/or destroying competitors. What really pisses me off is when they decide to purchase and then sit on intellectual property, like I am sure they are about to do with FASA's licenses, simply because they think it won't make them high enough profits but are too fucking lazy to sell it, despite the fact it has nothing to do with any of their core business.
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Oh, sure, EA's just as bad, if not worse.
I don't know why big companies decided to purchase companies instead of specific products, but it's pretty damn stupid and annoying. If you want a game, buy the game. Don't buy a company with five games and use one of them, delay another one years and then never release it, and just ignore the other three.
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Kinda sad (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, there are some funny comments about it already, but I would like to say how this is a bit sad for me. Me and friends played some seriously neat Mech games, with me acting as GM. We read all the books and noted the makes and models of the parts, and I'd invent "issues" that the techs needed to solve to make certain parts work with other parts, and garage facilities that they needed in order to implement various repairs. The players always had to be thinking about risking their mechs because of repair issues, and when they got damaged it spawned mini-quests to secure the necessary parts to make things right again, or mini-mini-quests for parts to fix the interoperability problems.
So although the main game revolved around mech pilots, I focused on the repair techs, ammo specialists, tankers, cooks, construction teams, radar ops, MASH units, etc. that made the expeditions a success, and threatened them and the adventures practically wrote themselves. Really good times.
Crimson Skies (Score:2)
The first computer games was pretty good, but I was hoping for more. There were even rumors of a movie, but I doubt this will happen.
The corps got them! (Score:1)
This is sad, but... (Score:3, Informative)
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1) WizKids owns the Shadowrun tabletop game, as well as BattleTech and MechWarrior.
2) Microsoft owns all video game rights to SR, BT and MW. FASA Studios was part of MS.
3) Catalyst Game Labs currently licenses SR and BT from WizKids.
So it's not convincing WizKids to license for video games, it's convincing Microsoft.