MeiSooHaityu, on 22 February 2017 - 12:57 PM, said:
Yeah, the designs of the robots weren't the greatest, and the weapons were comically over sized. Still, I remember having a lot of fun with the first one. Never played the sequel though (only watched it as a Let's Play).
Dynamix made the first Mechwarrior game, MW1. They were in the process of making MW2, as it seemed they were confident in getting the contract, when FASA switched the developers from Dynamix to Activision. Talk about getting pissed off.
They took whatever they were building as their version of MW2, and recycled that into Earthsiege. That's why ES1 and ES2 looked more similar to MW1 than MW2 is to MW1.
After that, FASA, which basically explains why I have no trust in those people and the business acumen of Jordan Weisman, switched developers from Activision to Microprose for MW3. And guess what Activision did? They turned the same team into making Heavy Gear 1 and 2.
And then FASA moved from Microprose to Microsoft for MW4, and sold the digital rights to Microsoft. Jordan went back into business, starting up Wizkids and with it Hero Clix, followed by the table top clix game, Mechwarrior Dark Age, which lasted from 2003 to 2006. Wizkids was sold to Topps, and with it, the models and miniatures rights to Battletech and Mechwarrior. How MW:DA got screwed up is another long story.
But guess what, after Mechwarrior 4, and Mechassault's attempt to help sell Xboxes, Microsoft dropped the franchise like a smelly potato, and decided for the XBox 360, to contract FROM Software, the makers of Armored Core, to do Chromehounds for the 360. They also discovered that as a sci fi franchise, Halo can sell more of their XBoxes. When Microsoft wanted a game to highlight their Kinect peripheral, they went to FROM Software again, by then famous for Dark Souls, to so a WW2 style version of Steel Battalion. Seems to me, that since 2006, Microsoft has internally decided, they can't make money out of a Mechwarrior franchise game or use it to sell more XBoxes.
With each new XBox generation, Microsoft tries to introduce a sci-fi mech game that can sell XBoxes. For the Xbox One generation, guess what --- its obviously Titanfall.
With Microsoft holding the rights and sitting on it doing nothing, no big ticket game company is going to do another Mechwarrior.
So this, is a basically a short story of how NOT to do Franchise Management. Especially when you have the digital rights and the model rights to different companies, Microsoft and Topps. You want a shining example of Franchise Management, go look at the Pokemon Company.
You ask me if I am willing to invest my money on another Jordan Weisman venture, I say :PPP.
Edited by Anjian, 22 February 2017 - 06:16 PM.
1
