KingsIsle Ent.: A new studio with id co-founder Tom Hall
KingsIsle Ent.: A new studio with id co-founder Tom Hall
Today, the founding of a brand-new game development studio was announced: Although KingsIsle Entertainment has been formed back in 2005, nothing was known about the company (at least to us) until now. More than 100 employees have been working from Austin and Dallas on two MMO projects. The company was founded by Elie Akilian (CEO), David Nichols (president), Todd Coleman (head of development) and, last but not least, Tom Hall as the Creative Director. Tom was the co-founder of id Software and also Ion Storm (and has an Blog called tomtomtom.com) (we've borrowed Tom's picture from there). If you're interested in all the games Tom worked on, see here.
The first MMO to be released by KingsIsle is headed by Todd, it is supposed "to enter beta this spring." Tom's first project ("A cool, interesting new type of massively-multiplayer online game", in his own words) will be disclosed at a later date, the PR message says. CEO Elie Akilian (who co-founded public company Inet Technologies) is cited as follows: "We've pulled together some of the most creative minds around and given them room to push boundaries and create superlative entertainment experiences." Well, a hundred people working under two developer veterans could indeed put some interesting new ideas into the MMO landscape. Let's wait and see.
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It seems to me that at least every 2nd developer on the market is working on MMO's right now. Why? What's the use in flooding the market like this?
I would like it much more if some of those developers would try to bring the normal/singleplayer games forward again?
Because if the MMO boom goes on like this, I think that the future for singleplayers wouldn't look to well. No new ideas lead to stagnation.
Of course I probably paint the future a bit too dark. And I like MMO's like "Guild Wars" myself. But still, I can't help myself but be a bit worried.
I share these worries, but I can also understand the appeal for developers. On one hand you "can" make much more money with MMO's, then with conventional games (because of monthly subscriptions or micro-payments) and on the other hand you don't have to worry about pirated copies (which leads to even more money).
And when you hear all sorts of stories about the golden goose World of Warcraft, attracting people that were never into games before that, what would you do if you were a developer? You'd surely want a piece of that.
often I have the feeling that it's just a Manager sitting in some chair without a clue of games thinking that he should have a piece of the cake as well
"how long does it take?"
"how much does it cost"
"how risky is it"
fine, do it!
:)
You forgot the fourth question that every manager asks since Oct 2007: "Will there be cake?"
The Cake is a lie!