This is mostly aimed at the non-reviewers. Are there any PC game developers whose new release you won’t buy the day it comes out? Have you been burned? Have you bought the hype instead of waiting for the reviews or forum feedback? Are you a unhappy purchaser of Pool of Radiance 2? MOO3? Ultima IX? HOMM4? Well, those guys (the ones that still exist) have lost my trust. Games cost money and since you can’t really return them anymore you have got to be more careful.
Hmm, I’d say Infogrames (Civ3) aka Atari for the most part. Interplay can be sketchy and westwood was verbotten after tiberian sun. It really depends on the title and what if anything I know about its development. If it looks like its gonna be a Moo3 I won’t touch it until reviews and most likely the bargain bin or a gogamer sale.
Peter Molyneux comes to mind. Yes, he’s been involved in the making of some great games but I’ve seen too many interviews with him over the years in which he hypes features and aspects of a game in-development that never manifest in the finished product. I very distinctly recall a '95 PC Gamer issue that sported a look at all the upcoming Bullfrog games and for The Indestructibles Molyneux talked about how cool it was flying through this fully 3D city, knocking buildings over and watching the subsequent destruction, etc. An interview with a Bullfrog programmer years later detailed how none of that actually existed, how it was all in Molyneux’s head. So I dug up my old PCG issue, reread the article, and nothing in the text of his words even remotely hinted that what he was describing were his plans and/or vision for the game’s final form, but rather the current working build Bullfrog had in-house.
And, of course, Black & White put the last nail into that coffin lid, IMO.
As a gamer, and not a reviewer, I’ve really lost trust in the 3DO games. They used to be “must buys”, yet have gone to “must avoids”.
Since 3DO is dead now and the corpse chopped up and auctioned off, that’s not going to be much of a problem…
When Mythic first went live with that MMO game they do, I had this extreme distrust for them, becuase they took all my heroes away.
Gave them jobs and got them into te industry.
/sniff
Div
For me it’s anything from Sierra, if they are even still out there. Maybe they are better now, but a few years ago you couldn’t even play any of their craptastical games out of the box they were so bad.
The ex-Impressions guys …
Caesar
Stronghold
etc…
I just never understood how the economies in those games functioned. Everytime I thought I had it right a seemingly arbitrary event woul dwipe be back to ground zero. I finally stopped buying anything they did.
Each and every game developer who posts on Qt3. :D
I will never rush to buy another Raven game that doesn’t begin with the letters HE-. Even if/then I will be a very wary buyer. Here’s some more letters: F.U.R.J. I will never forget the promise broken…grudges rule!
Sierra - but I do buy 'em when they look good since they have the return policy that no other publisher seems to have. Although I haven’t bought a sierra game for a bit so I’m not positive they still have that.
Anything run by interplay, and anything made by Dave Perry and crew.
I second that. After dumb SoF2 and boring JK:JO, Raven lost all my respect.
Next on the “don’t trust list” are Shiny (shame on you, Dave, for the abysmal ETM!), LucasArts (they’ve recently gotten a knack for turning good ideas into piles of dung) and Core Design (“the next Tomb Raider will knock you out”, yeah, as if! More likely Lara knocked herself).
Oh, and Interplay. Once upon a time I trusted these guys. Then came Icewind Dale 2, Fallout Tactics, lots of horrible console crap and, finally, Lionheart. I wish they’d do a 3DO and vanish.
All of the ones I’ve worked for…
The worst of the bunch has to be Infogrames(Atari) though.
SO. BITTER.
A couple of years ago I would have put Black Isle Studios on my no-brainer buy list but now they have flipped to the other end.
Anything by Acclaim is instantly ignored. They are like this big evil factory with the architectural visage of a red eyed, soot faced monster that belches out shitty software, like choking smoke clouds and ash, over the landscape of a dreary post apocalyptic version of the video game industry. They are like EA, the only difference being that EA gets it right a few times a year (Undying, LOTR:TT). I have even boycotting Burnout 2, one of their only diamonds out of years of rough, because I want Acclaim to go away - no more money, you!
Bioware after NWN.
I will be very careful with Maxis branded games, if they ever decide to produce something other than a game with the words “Sim” in the title.
Eidos.
But I’m just a bitter man.
Developers:That’s hard. I try not to dismiss any developer, who knows the stories behind bad releases.
Again Raven
Care to elaborate?