Well it’s official, I just got off the phone with my contact at Sierra who wants to remail nameless. ORCS: Revenge of the Ancients is dead, no chance of any sort of comeback, moreover MEO is being ‘restructured’ as we speak, with a whole new team taking it over.
I was to scream ‘SIERRA SUCKS!!’ I want to say ‘YOU PEOPLE ARE IDIOTS!’ as I’m sure many of you do. But the truth of the matter is, Sierra is not to blame.
As much as we’d like to think that the folks at Sierra were a small bunch of cool dudes who liked to play video games it’s not true. They are, in fact, a company like all others. And they are owned by someone else, like so many other companies. Sierra is owned by ‘Havas Interactive’, which in turn is owned by ‘Vivendi’ a french company which is the 64 th biggest company in the world.
Do you think any of them know or even care about this game? No. Do you think they care that people like John Race and his Berkley team made this game their blood, sweat and tears for months now? No. And in reality do you blame them?
It’s all about money here folks, Sierra obviously wasn’t paying the bills so CHOP CHOP CHOP! And they decided that ORCS, an LOTR inspired game would not catch the video gamers eye. Forget the fact that the films, due out in the next few years will be the biggest thing EVER, forget the fact that it’ll beat Star Wars, Titanic AND Jaws.
They don’t see that far ahead, or maybe they do but they STILL think ORCS wouldn’t have been a moneymaker.
Shame on them for not taking the risk.
As for John Race and his team, they apparently are not one of the 105 people being fired. They will be moved to other tasks, if they are willing. I heard that at this very moment they are out getting drunk, good, stick Vivendi with the tab, they obviosuly have the money to pay for it now.