The Tobies
To those people who were regular readers, I'm sorry. There's three reasons why I haven't been posting much:

1) Work - I'm almost finished with my chapters for the video game textbook. Man, I'll really be glad when this is done. I'm working a lot more than I'm getting paid. Of course, being a game programmer, I'm pretty used to that.

2) I've been hopped up on goofballs because I messed up my back. About six months ago, I screwed up my back picking up a 55lb. bag of dog foot. I've been suffering through it until the last two weeks, when I managed to convince my doctor that this was, in fact, a serious problem. He took it seriously, medicated me heavily, and now my back feels all better. I'm not even taking the painkillers anymore.

3) World of Warcraft. This was the first time I've tried a MMORP since my disastrous first experience with Ultima Online (ask me about it, if you're really interested). Man, I've got a lot to say about this game. But it will have to wait until another post.

Anyway, I'm better now, and I'm going to try to get back up into the practice of writing.

I noticed something kinda funny today, while reading through the Electronic Gaming Monthly. They were giving away this year's Tobies (a booby prize for bad games, named after Tobias Bruckner, from Turok:Evolution).

They named the Tobies after Tobias Bruckner, because Turok:Evolution was one of the worst games they had reviewed, and Tobias Bruckner was one of the worst conceived villains ever.

Now, I'm not going to try to defend Turok:Evolution. I know why it was such an abysmal failure, and I know my friends and I were not to blame. That's why I don't mind telling people that I worked on it.

Anyway, the funny thing is, I noticed that several of the people who worked at Acclaim during the Turok debacle, now work at Retro, and are part of the smash hit Metroid. Metroid, by the way, took the prize as Gamecube game of the year. In fact, the guy who's technical director on the Metroid games is the same one who was the producer for Acclaim's 100 Bullets.

How does that work out? How could anybody work on the best and the worst games at the same time? Does it mean that the developers don't matter? Did the Retro guys suddenly learn a lot about making games?

My guess is, it was the management. Nintendo was desperately worried about making the best possible game for their license, which culminating in them buying Retro studios outright. They threatened, they cajoled, they watched the game every step of the way.

Acclaim was worried about one thing, shipping on time. There was no leeway with regards to that, so a lot of art, story, and gameplay had to be scrapped. There was lots of office politics, finger pointing, team competitiveness, and extreme crunch time.

The result? Acclaim wins the first of the Tobies.
- posted by BrandG @ 11:13 AM