Eidos Shuts Down Ion Storm

[hal]

Gamespot is reporting that parent company Eidos Interactive has, today, shut down Ion Storm. Creators of some classic PC games such as the Unreal-Engine Deus Ex series and the Thief series (whose last game was also U-Engine), the developer was also notorious for a few horribly received and over-hyped games such as the infamous Daikatana.

Eidos announced "the displacement of some 35 jobs" at its Austin, TX based Ion Storm unit and an expansion at its Crystal Dynamics unit in San Francisco, though it was not clear whether or not the "displaced" Ion Storm employees would be among the new hires.

[bid]

Thats what happnes when you screw PC Gamers-the very people responsible for your success and make Console Games.

[Sir_Brizz]

Important to note is that this was Ion Storm Austin, they were not responsible for the Daikatana mishap and this was the studio lead by Warren Spector before he decided to leave.

John Romero's division of Ion Storm was to blame for Daikatana. They were shutdown months after Daikatana's release.

[W0RF]

DESIGN IS...

... erm, what?

... so who's going to make me his bitch now?

[bid]

Originally Posted by Sir_Brizz

Important to note is that this was Ion Storm Austin, they were not responsible for the Daikatana mishap and this was the studio lead by Warren Spector before he decided to leave.

John Romero's division of Ion Storm was to blame for Daikatana. They were shutdown months after Daikatana's release.

It's not just Daikatana; it's every game Ion Storm has released for the past half decade has been cheap console ports.

[Sir_Brizz]

No Daikatana failed for more reasons than one, mostly because it was too little too late. Romero spent millions of dollars of his and Eidos' money just on building his own development "palace" and then released a shoddy game that looked two years old when it was released and didn't have engaging gameplay whatsoever.

As for Ion Storm Austin, their focus changed after Deus Ex. They wanted to be able to draw money from all markets and eventually sank themselves. HOWEVER, in my opinion Thief 3, and Deus Ex 2 were really good games, they just weren't as good FOLLOW UP games to their originals as they should have been. I would imagine that Deus Ex 3 would have been much much more successful had it ever been planned/made. That said, the Physics and lighting engines in both of those games were great.

Edit: Worf Romero has been gone from Ion Storm for years

[Ulukai]

Originally Posted by Sir_Brizz

Romero spent millions of dollars of his and Eidos' money just on building his own development "palace"

W3rd Jonny Boi

[tool]

There was some real good talent at Ion Storm, they just weren't allowed to use it. Hopefully they move onto better game development companies and help make great games.

[TossMonkey]

Ion Storm Austin was a very good developer. They created 2 excellent titles, namely Deus Ex 2 and Thief 3. What was even better is that they hired from Looking Glass to create the latter game, which in my opinion is one of the greatest games of all time. To say it was a console port is almost fair, but to say it is in some way flawed because of this is an extremely unfair judgement. Hopefully Eidos hasn't attained the rights to the Thief series in closing the studio. If they have then gaming make have lost one of the most important franchises to one of the worst publisher/developer companies in the whole industry. If Eidos has got the right then they will not bother making a sequel just so they will not tarnish the good Thief name. I would hate to see them do another Tomb Raider on us.

[hal]

Originally Posted by TossMonkey

I would hate to see them do another Tomb Raider on us.

As luck would have it... they are INDEED working on another Tomb Raider at Crystal Dynamics (responsible for a very fine conversion of Star Control 2 for the 3DO - one of the best games of all time!).

[Sir_Brizz]

Sweet! Crystal Dynamics made the Legacy of Kain series. Possibly one of the best storylines to date (minus the Blood Omen stuff of course).

[Mad Max RW]

Even on its own Invisible War was an awful game. It's horribly linear and short, boring, had the worst interface ever, a whole bunch of idiotic design decisions such as a centralized ammo type, and ran like **** no matter the setup or platform. Everything that was promised about the story and gameplay months before release mysteriously disappeared.
The only people who even moderately liked Invisible War are A) Idiots or B) Never played a PC game before.

Eidos and everything associated with them is the perfect example of the decline in the video game industry.

[TossMonkey]

Originally Posted by Mad Max RW

Even on its own Invisible War was an awful game. It's horribly linear and short, boring, had the worst interface ever, a whole bunch of idiotic design decisions such as a centralized ammo type, and ran like **** no matter the setup or platform. Everything that was promised about the story and gameplay months before release mysteriously disappeared.
The only people who even moderately liked Invisible War are A) Idiots or B) Never played a PC game before.

Eidos and everything associated with them is the perfect example of the decline in the video game industry.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, even if it is as silly as yours.

[Sir_Brizz]

It was at least better than Unreal 2, and that is saying something

[Dark Pulse]

I think it's sad anyway. Deus Ex is probably one of the least-recognized brands to the general public. It never was terribly hyped or anything, and yet the game set ridiculous standards for immersion and non-linearity.

Ion Storm will sorely be missed. In Pace Requiescat.

[Mad Max RW]

Chris Carollo just confirmed everybody at Ion Storm was fired.
I love people like TossMonkey who ignore reality.

I'd like to see a vs. poll with Unreal 2 and Invisible War. U2 would crush it.

[FluXs]

i rmbr reading about the first Deus Ex.... huge cities where you could wander around anywhere, doing missions. And you had to be very careful about who you killed and what and where etc. Still in Deus Ex Invisable war i was still waiting for this. Instead I had a series of small interconnected rooms where you could stab someone and no one else apart from sentry bots would react.

Still picking up dead bodies, throwing them around or pilling them up was tons of fun.

Still its sad to see people go.

Just on a off-topic note: I am glad how Epic is run. Lets just hope Epic never gets bought by EA... omg... the idea makes me sick.

[Justin286]

I can't say that I'm surprised by this. Did they have any games in development when they closed?

[Sir_Brizz]

if they did they were unannounced. My gut tells me they didn't have anything past the design phase at least.

[W0RF]

Originally Posted by Sir_Brizz

Edit: Worf Romero has been gone from Ion Storm for years

SHUT UP STOP KILLING MY FUNNY!