Absolutely poxy news :(

TwoShedsJackson

Looking Glass Studios (of System Shock, Thief, Terra Nova, Flight Unlimited et al.) have been closed down by Eidos

I think I can honestly say this is the first time I've felt upset at hearing that a computer games developer was shutting down. Since I got my first PC I waited for every LGS release anxiously, and was never disappointed.

I will never forget hearing the spoken emails on the CD version of System Shock (hey this was a big deal in 1994

I cant help feeling that Eidos have pulled the plug on LGS at least partly because of that steaming pile of horse $hite Daikatana, and the wedge of cash they'll most likely lose on it. If I find out that is the case, then whoever took this decision is a dead man

In all honesty though, this is crap news for those who appreciate well made, atmospheric, and original games, rather than yet another does of FPS every couple of years. Gah.

Maximilian

I hope thats a rumour, I really do. If its true, I can safely say I'll probably not buy another Eidos game again. Not out of principle, Lglass were about the only good developer they had. Tomb Raider X+1? No thank you.

Mills

I wasnt a big fan of the thief games but I LOVED shock2, probably the second best single player FPS I've played (Halflife on top) Its a shame there wont be any more of this kind of game from looking glass

---

I am inflatible !

TwoShedsJackson

It's no rumour, LG confirmed it themselves

bugs

I suppose these days , one or 2 hits just isn't enough to sustain a company.
I'm not to sure about looking glass , i only jumped on the thief wagon and never really heard of them bar that.

The companies that do make it (square, namco.....) all have shares in other companies , square own a chunk of EA is i'm right. Namco , well sony blow these guys just for getting up in the morning, they're not going anywhere soon and anyway , they have an absolute fortune from years of arcade and console gaming, i don't think i've ever heard of the making a loss, even on their *seemingly less than par* games tekken tag and RR5 , they outsold every single DC game put together ; 600,000 units of RR5 and tekken tag sold 400,000 in a week.

I guess you could call em the buzz companies , they're always in the limelight.

I'm not about to get upset about companies shutting down , thats silly. Sure , they made great games, but theres always someone waiting to make a better game. The industry isn't about to dry up.

Come to think of it , what happened to shiny entertainment ? Havent heard from them for a while, bring back earthworm jim, fu<k its crap 3D version in the ass

Hobbes

Shiney just released Messiah.. how quickly we forget.

EA kind of sucked up all thier development companies under EA.* labels. So I think Origin became EA.GAMEs ? or was it EA.FANTASY. I forget.

SS2 was and is a classic of a game.

ThunderingMike

I tell ya man , EA are the Big Brother of the Gaming Industry. Those mother ****ers own everyone and can make or break a gaming system. Many of the first games to come out on playstation were EA games and look how playstation fared. However , only in the last week or two , EA decided to bring a title to Dreamcast. There is previuose evidence aswell. Back when it was the snes versus Mega Drive , EA released games like Madden and Desert Strike on Mega Drive. Ultimately , Mega Drive sold better inspite of the fact that some of the greatest games of all time came out on the Snes and it had better technology too. If EA ever start to take loss's , it will hit the industry in a serious way.
As for Eidos , those guys are a crying shame. They just keep feeding the franchis's (not to mention a certain deformed english lass by the name of Lara) more money and ignore promising new ideas. It is funny how much they changed in 6 months.
Still though , we always have some very reliable talent in Britain. Lionhead is doing fine thanks to Molyneuxs millions and although Nintendo own a big chunk of their ass , Rare are consistantly brilliant. Plus Elixir Studios show much promise and nobody had even heard of Valve until the month Half-life was released , so I think there will always be fresh talent out there.

ThunderingMike

I was not really a big fan of their games but Thief was amazing for the time and System Shock 2 was deep. On the bright side , they will probably all go join bigger and better development house's. Look at the Xatrix team (the cool cats that made Kingpin). They were disolved , but then formed Grey Matter and now they are working on the Wolfenstein update.

---

So the pope puts down the Badger and leans over to me and says , 'At TFC my son , I 0wnz j00'. Before I could speak in walks Dustin Hoffman in a giant Silk Worm costume and just then...it started to get weird...

Shinji

This is the second announcement like this in recent months that has genuinely upset me, the first being the closure of DMA Design's Dundee studio - which is the studio where all the creative work was done, and games like Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto were born. It was shut down and most of the creative staff are gone... This is what happens when big soulless corporations muscle in on small developers It doesn't matter how successful your product is, they will cut you out of the loop just in order to save costs because of bad investments elsewhere.

Infogrames are killing small studios at a rate of knots.

Eidos killed LookingGlass, and crapped on Core Design to the degree where all of the key staff in there have left.

Cavedog was killed (by Eidos as well, I think, though I could be wrong).

Sony have crippled Psygnosis to the stage where they are a shadow of their former selves, and afaik none of the original WipeOut crew are working on WipeOut Fusion - they even broke the link with Designers Republic.

Sierra shut down half their development studios, killing games like the B5 game in the process.

The only developers who survive are those with the cash to self-fund - id Software, SquareSoft, Namco, Konami, Epic Megagames and Westwood spring to mind.

And people wonder why all the innovation seems to be gone from modern games... Put games developers in cubicles, and they'll make games with all the innovation of a cubicle.

---

--
[EED]Shinji -=*=- shinji@electricdeath.com
http://www.utgamer.com

Shinji

There's always talent out there, yes. But somewhere like LookingGlass had a lot of incredible games, and didn't deserve to go down the pan like that, with Thief 2 selling so well...

Electronic Arts are the Borg.

Then again, Infogrames are twice as bad.

And Sierra are getting there...

Ja,
Rob

bugs

Rare ?
Nah , i don't like the guys , they made 2 games of any use , donkey kong country ( all its follow-ups were the exact same game!!! ) and goldeneye.
Its goldeneye copy , perfect dark is getting called just that , a goldeneye copy. Goldeneye was cool and all but they really need to do something better. As far as their other games go , banjo kazooie etc. , i hate them , once again they all look the same and play like mario 64.

Isn't molyneux no longer making games for PC after he completes black and white ?
EA.... mmmm they didn't make the psx successful , they didn't have any games on it when it came out. Ridge racer kept it selling , tekken helped alot.....can't remember apart from that. They do 0wn0r alot of stuff , thats obvious , but as far as big brother , nah , i don't think so , i could quite happily live without most of their games. I think i've only ever bought 2 EA games.
The japanese houses will always be the big daddies, capcom (despite flogging street fighter with the same characters as the first one , why are ppl still buying it???)
namco , and to a lesser extend SNK.

Ere , can ya buy a neogeo pocket anywhere, i haven't bothered looking so they're probably everywhere!!!

LegacyUser

That really does suck donkey rhubarb.
Why dont the Looking Glass boys just set up a new company ?
They really did kick ass , never saw this coming at all

---

It's about a society in freefall....

bugs

Kept thinking of this , and bothered to find out in the end.
Looking glass never made System shock 2!!!
They made system shock 1.
Irrational games made system shock 2.
It was just annoying me cos i knew i had cleared the game before and never seen any sign of a looking glass logo anywhere.

So mourning the loss of that game is errr silly

TwoShedsJackson

errrr no bugs it isn't. Irrational licensed the game from LG, used LG's graphics engine from Thief (the Dark engine), and LG staff had creative input according to Irrational themselves.

So no LG, no SS2 (or, natch SS1 itself), therefore mourning the loss of that game is not silly.

TwoShedsJackson

I think you'll find that the 3d engine is quite a large part of and 3d first person game, and the 3d engine in SS2 was done by LG.

As for them not being a legacy company, that's just b0llocks, check www.ttlg.com for the amount of followers and fans that company had/has.

They made the best and some of the most original games of the 90's - I think they will be remembered more than six months from now.

bugs

Check it , they didn't make it full stop , a creative input usually falls in between telling someone how they did something in a previous game.
Unless LG actually made the game , which they didn't , there it was never theirs!
They had the idea, the had the original, that pretty much covers it.

I still don't get all the whining .
Yes they made good games , but the only reason this has been so floated is that its the first time that its been shown that a company who made quite a bit for a publisher got destroyed by said publisher.

They were never going to be a legacy gaming company ,4 or 5 titles don't make you famous.

In 6 months , i'll be surprised if anyone, bar the few die hards here even remembers their name.