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February 15, 2000

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Cavedog: R.I.P
Long rumored to be in the process of restructuring its development divisions, last week GT Interactive carefully slipped a major announcement into its quarterly earnings press release: Cavedog, developer of Total Annihilation, is out of business. Although Cavedog has had its share of growing pains over the past year, as evidenced by the cancellation of ambitious online game Elysium and the first person shooter Amen: The Awakening, the news that the company has shut it doors brings the end to a developer that was once compared to industry greats such as Westwood Studios and Blizzard. It's rare that the gaming industry sees such a prominent developer fall from glory so fast, but the story of Cavedog illustrates how important it is for a company to stick to what it does best. When Cavedog should have been off building Total Annihilation 2, it was busy trying to innovate too many new games in vastly different genres.
It's unfortunate that some talented game designers and good design concepts will be left for naught in the wake of Cavedog's demise. Although I always thought Amen was way too elaborate to ever be completed, the underlying story sounded compelling. While Elysium was just as ambitious as Amen – if not more so – no one could deny that with Betrayal at Krondor designer John Cutter at the helm it was likely to be something special. Similarly, everyone had long been awaiting the next game from Monkey Island designer Ron Gilbert, entitled Good & Evil. Although it always seemed to be more of a pet project than a game, it now appears to be cancelled. At the end of the day, it's unfortunate that a designer as talented as Gilbert hasn't been able to bring a product to market since Monkey Island 2 arrived in the early 90s.
In truth, Cavedog never recovered from the critically panned Total Annihilation: Kingdoms, a game that was billed as a sister product to TA, despite the fact it bore next to no resemblance to its predecessor in theme or play style. However, I hear the Total Annihilation franchise will survive, with GT-owned developer SingleTrac (Twisted Metal) in Utah likely to take over the design of Total Annihilation 2. While the franchise may not be lost, the fact that a once-esteemed developer can go from riches to rags in such a short span of time is a harsh lesson for the industry. It proves almost any developer is only a lackluster game or two and a few flawed decisions away from going out of business.
Incite Videos
I've often raised concerns about the plethora of magazine demo discs that seem to offer the exact same content. Now I have to hand it to the new Incite PC magazine for breaking through the clutter. Besides offering the ubiquitous collection of demos, Incite has quietly been producing impressive creative content for its CD-ROM in the form of Incite Video Documentaries. These professionally produced company profiles have taken me inside the minds of designers such as John Romero, Peter Molyneux, and Warren Spector; seldom do they disappoint. Let's hope that other PC game magazines will get their acts together and start producing quality content to remain competitive with Incite. I think we've all had enough of every magazine shoveling the same game demos and videos on a CD-Rom.
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