Atari Sells Civilization Franchise!

[Jon Shafer]

I'm working on Pirates! Xbox these days, so I don't get a lot of time to visit much anymore

Ahhhh, just trying to get away from me I bet.

 

[MarineCorps]

Yeah, what the hell is a 'grame' anyway?

It's gram?!?! I always thought it was game.


I do also wonder if it was Firaxis.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

$23 million dollars - That's a lot of cash considering the sales of the Civ series.

I hear rumors that it was not Firaxis though...

Breakaway?

 

[Licentia]

I'm sure the guy has got to be rich. He's had a lot of huge hit games. I hope he will should anyone try to change Civilization in the future. What I hope is this: That Civ4 will be left in Sid's hands, and that they will re-release civilization 1 back into the computer stores as a classic.

Oh wait... I guess he doesn't own the rights to the games he's created. That's why you ought to be your own boss, especially when you are as good as he is.

 

[warpstorm]

Dang. Lets hope the rumors are false.
I don't think I'd trust any other company with Civ.
After all, they've been the developers for Civ for years.

Even if the rights are sold, it doesn't mean that Firaxis won't be the developers. If I had the money, I'd still have them do it as they have the expertise.

 

[warpstorm]

Breakaway?

We are doing okay, but no where near good enough to drop $23M on a franchise.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Even if the rights are sold, it doesn't mean that Firaxis won't be the developers. If I had the money, I'd still have them do it as they have the expertise.

Yeah, especially since development has to be quite far along by this point in time.

 

[mrtn]

... I do have some sort of mental impairment/cognitive dysfunction/whatever that causes me to make reading mistakes like that, which I subsequently cannot spot unless someone points them out to me. ...

*mrtn spots a new game possibility*

 

[Mr Black]

Only a true civfanatic would shell out 15.000.000 Euros for Civilization.

I think this is good news!!!

 

[punkbass2000]

good to see i wasnt the only one who played them

me and my brother actually went through 3 or 4 of those, and about a joystick a week

ahhh memories

Hey, you guys ever play Intelevision? BurgerTime rules!

 

[Neomega]

I don't think EA is interested. The sales of the Civ series to date just aren't in the league they want.

Civ is, has been and always was huge. I am sure EA wouldn't mind.

Also, I just played a bit of Sim City 4... and it is a fantastic game.

I could help thinking about how the region system in it could somehow be utilized for MMOTBG.

Tha amazing thing is, at $50 a pop, they need to sell 403,000 units to get their money back!!!!! That to me says the promotional power of a giant... like Microsoft or EA games.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Methinks you're forgetting the fact that all 50 of those dollars don't go to the developer/publisher...

 

[civzombie]

Please no, please no, don't let the mystrey buyer be microsoft... anything but them.

MSFT owns the rights to shadowrun, I think they bought it just so it wouldn't compete with their games. If not, I am not sure why they bought it since they never made a new shadowrun game.

 

[Neomega]

Methinks you're forgetting the fact that all 50 of those dollars don't go to the developer/publisher...

You are correct, but all the more mind boggling.

There are also things like the costs of advertising, labor etc....

Whoever bought it must see it as an aquifer of cash 10 years down the road.

 

[sir_schwick]

Maybe we got lucky and Brian Reynolds convinced Microsoft to shell out the bucks and let Big Huge Games help finish developement.

 

[socralynnek]

As I first read the announcement, I thought:
Maybe Atari was owing Firaxis money for the first milestones and couldn't/didn't want to pay, so they said: Hey, we give you the rights for, ahem, x millions of dollars (which is exactly the sum we owe you) and then we can say we made profit by selling it.
But I doubt, that Firaxis could live without the money...
But either way, the buyer doesn't have to get the money back in with vanilla CivIV, because the rights have some book value and maybe pay off after a few XP, new versions, etc.and can then still be sold, maybe even for more money.
Maybe it's someone who isn't in Computer Games now and starts off with Civ a new company. Ahem, for example, ahem, yeah, like Coca-Cola. And with every bottle you buy, you get a code for turning on a new unit...

 

[Ivan the Kulak]

Well, this would certainly explain why their tech support for civ3 has been somewhat lacking in service quality of late. "Hmmm, let's quickly get out a final version of civ3! We'll call it Civ3: Complete, and charge $40 for it! Never mind the support thing, let's just get the extra cash!"

Maybe Activision bought the rights to it. Now it will be "Civilization: Call to Power IV". Yaaaaaayyy! (Now I'll wait, and listen for the despairing, outraged screams of hardcore, dyed in the wool fanboys.)

Seriously, though, I hope this doesn't affect the development of civ4 in any serious way. Hopefully, whatever company now controls it understands what a moneymaker this franchise can be if managed (and DEVELOPED) properly. I think this might effect the release date for it though.

 

[sir_schwick]

I'm still hoping Brian Reynolds gets involved again.

 

[Drakan]

to this day when i hear atari, i think of those 80s consoles, anyone else here had one of those?

those were cool

good to hear theyre still in bussines

I received an email today from ATARI selling me their New -old- consoles with joysticks and all and 20 classic games including Asteroids, Pitfall ...

OMG, Civ bought by MSFT, aghhhhhh !! Mind you, I'd love to see Bryan Reynolds back again.

 

[Jon Shafer]

I'm still hoping Brian Reynolds gets involved again.

Brian is last on the list of people to have a hand in Civ again, I assure you... Definitely don't hold your breath on this one...