Freeze B5:ItF Finland
Spaceman
Well, it appears the fight is over and we've been beaten by the very company that caused all this pain ... Sierra. The space combat sim that was going to rock the scene has finally died.
When everything else was in place - the publisher, the financing and the lisence ... THEY SAT ON THE GAME MATERIAL AND REFUSED TO SELL IT. I consider this as spitting into our faces, and like all the others who have been trying to save the game swear, that this will not ever be forgotten. Never. What Sierra did was a disgrace to the game industry, and they will not be allowed to forget it.
Each and every new game that gets published by Sierra, we'll be there to make people remember and rejoice in every game box, that's left unsold. This is not a threat, this is a war declaration. We've had enough!
Here's Sector 14 Studios's CEO's Richard Brewer's message to FirstOnes.Com:
To the Into the Fire fans, and those who’ve offered support over the past year—
These last two weeks have been very difficult on us at S14, and we wanted to be sure there were no options left before making this announcement.
It is with deepest regret that I must inform you that our efforts to finish “Babylon 5: Into the Fire” have failed.
It is not due to problems with Sector 14 Studios, nor is it due to lack of interest by publishers, or lack of funding, but rather the current holder of the materials recently informed us they were no longer interested in selling the game assets. Appeals to the highest levels of management at Havas in France were not able to change their stance.
This outcome is unfortunate, for several reasons. Those of you close to the project know just how revolutionary the game design and gameplay would have been, and given the rather stagnant performance of space combat games, many to us knew in our heart of hearts that ItF had real potential to turn the market around, and get some of the life that the first person shooter market has been enjoying for the past 3 years. Technology-wise, we had many features in the design that are now becoming common-use tools such as multithreading and hierarchical AI—it was exciting to push the boundaries of technology in that way. For the fan of Babylon 5, it is another blow—the last remaining unseen footage of the cast and crew will remain unseen. This is a tragedy in itself.
What does this mean for Babylon 5 gaming? What’s next for Sector 14 Studios? Time will tell. More than a few of us have put our blood, sweat, and tears into this project. Personally, I’ve been working on this as a second job, logging in 10 plus hours a day for the past year on top of the demands of a full-time engineering career. Sector 14 Studios is a labor of love for us, and we won’t let it die. It is as much a way of thinking as it is a development studio—we’ve shared a special bond with our fans, and we hope that bond continues in the future when we are ready to start anew. We have ideas where we might go, but for now we need a rest—it’s a time of closure, as many of us have been putting 110% into ItF for over 3 years. In the meantime, we’d be happy to hear from any of you. Please feel free to send us your thoughts at sector14studios@yahoo.com or contact me directly.
For those of you getting started in the games industry, and are interested in what it takes to propose a game to a publisher, we’d be happy to offer what knowledge we’ve taken out of this entire process. Truth be known, the work there is almost as much as what you spend immersed in working on issues with multithreading your sim, renderer, and AI successfully, or how to squeeze a few more FPS out of your engine to let your artists’ work shine. The more you know about your market and how your game fits into it, the better. I may post a “game neutral” version of our business and completion plans, if there is enough interest to do so.
We have built some good friendships, business and otherwise, over the past year. At this time we would like to extend our deepest gratitude to those who helped us make it as far as we did:
Deepest thanks to Dan Foy, Randy Littlejohn, Marc Hudgins, Christy Marx, David Gehringer, John Trauger, Jack Nichols, Keith Landes, Victor Crews, John Walker, Jeff Reitman, Benito Gonzalez, Robin Phanco, Dave Artis, and Byrt Martinez – you are the model of a great development team, and all it can accomplish. Even though we did not get the results we hoped fore, take pride in the work we did, and rest easy knowing now that we did indeed do all we could to save the game.
A special thanks to Scott Johnson at Warner Interactive—you couldn’t ask for a better person to work with on a licensed property. We wish you success in your future endeavors, and hope that we might partake in some of them when the time is right.
Thanks also go out to American McGee, Barett Alexander, RJ Berg, Rick Johnson, Scott Draeker for helping us build our network of publishing contacts
Thanks to Mike Abrash for remembering me from the briefest of meetings, and helping us get in touch with the X-box team at Microsoft.
Additional thanks to Will Binder, John Carmack, John “Milo” Dimattio, Steve “Blue” Healsip, Sean “Redwood” Martin, Jack “Morbid” Matthews, and Alisa Schreibman.
Deepest gratitude to Janne S. Pionte, the creator of S14’s logo, and arguably one of Finland’s best artists.
Thanks also to the many developers in the game community who offered their words of support through this year of fire. Those words helped keep us going.
A special thanks to Mike Klumper at HD interactive – A true gentleman by the definition of the word. It’s one of my greatest hopes that someday we’ll be able to work on a project together.
And, of course, our thanks go out to J. Michael Straczynski. Thank you, Joe, for giving inspiration to us all and letting us play in the backyard of your imagination.
But most of all, we’d like to thank Lorien Newman, Kevin “Drazi Guy” Mac Neil, Michael “Grinner” Lu, “Sanfam,” Vesa “Freeze” Juusola, and all the fans at http://www.firstones.com and http://www.b5itf-finland.org/ who have supported our efforts in the most passionate way. Without you, we wouldn’t have made it this far. You are the Army of Light. And you made the world stand up and take notice.
To the fans- I’d like to encourage you to support those who supported us: HD Interactive, EA, Gathering of Developers, Microsoft X-box, Raven Software, and id Software. All of these people are working hard to bring innovation to gaming, just as we have.
The game may die, but Babylon 5 ... Babylon 5 endures.
Best regards,
Richard G. Brewer
CEO, Sector 14 Studios
richardgbrewer@hotmail.com
When everything else was in place - the publisher, the financing and the lisence ... THEY SAT ON THE GAME MATERIAL AND REFUSED TO SELL IT. I consider this as spitting into our faces, and like all the others who have been trying to save the game swear, that this will not ever be forgotten. Never. What Sierra did was a disgrace to the game industry, and they will not be allowed to forget it.
Each and every new game that gets published by Sierra, we'll be there to make people remember and rejoice in every game box, that's left unsold. This is not a threat, this is a war declaration. We've had enough!
Here's Sector 14 Studios's CEO's Richard Brewer's message to FirstOnes.Com:
To the Into the Fire fans, and those who’ve offered support over the past year—
These last two weeks have been very difficult on us at S14, and we wanted to be sure there were no options left before making this announcement.
It is with deepest regret that I must inform you that our efforts to finish “Babylon 5: Into the Fire” have failed.
It is not due to problems with Sector 14 Studios, nor is it due to lack of interest by publishers, or lack of funding, but rather the current holder of the materials recently informed us they were no longer interested in selling the game assets. Appeals to the highest levels of management at Havas in France were not able to change their stance.
This outcome is unfortunate, for several reasons. Those of you close to the project know just how revolutionary the game design and gameplay would have been, and given the rather stagnant performance of space combat games, many to us knew in our heart of hearts that ItF had real potential to turn the market around, and get some of the life that the first person shooter market has been enjoying for the past 3 years. Technology-wise, we had many features in the design that are now becoming common-use tools such as multithreading and hierarchical AI—it was exciting to push the boundaries of technology in that way. For the fan of Babylon 5, it is another blow—the last remaining unseen footage of the cast and crew will remain unseen. This is a tragedy in itself.
What does this mean for Babylon 5 gaming? What’s next for Sector 14 Studios? Time will tell. More than a few of us have put our blood, sweat, and tears into this project. Personally, I’ve been working on this as a second job, logging in 10 plus hours a day for the past year on top of the demands of a full-time engineering career. Sector 14 Studios is a labor of love for us, and we won’t let it die. It is as much a way of thinking as it is a development studio—we’ve shared a special bond with our fans, and we hope that bond continues in the future when we are ready to start anew. We have ideas where we might go, but for now we need a rest—it’s a time of closure, as many of us have been putting 110% into ItF for over 3 years. In the meantime, we’d be happy to hear from any of you. Please feel free to send us your thoughts at sector14studios@yahoo.com or contact me directly.
For those of you getting started in the games industry, and are interested in what it takes to propose a game to a publisher, we’d be happy to offer what knowledge we’ve taken out of this entire process. Truth be known, the work there is almost as much as what you spend immersed in working on issues with multithreading your sim, renderer, and AI successfully, or how to squeeze a few more FPS out of your engine to let your artists’ work shine. The more you know about your market and how your game fits into it, the better. I may post a “game neutral” version of our business and completion plans, if there is enough interest to do so.
We have built some good friendships, business and otherwise, over the past year. At this time we would like to extend our deepest gratitude to those who helped us make it as far as we did:
Deepest thanks to Dan Foy, Randy Littlejohn, Marc Hudgins, Christy Marx, David Gehringer, John Trauger, Jack Nichols, Keith Landes, Victor Crews, John Walker, Jeff Reitman, Benito Gonzalez, Robin Phanco, Dave Artis, and Byrt Martinez – you are the model of a great development team, and all it can accomplish. Even though we did not get the results we hoped fore, take pride in the work we did, and rest easy knowing now that we did indeed do all we could to save the game.
A special thanks to Scott Johnson at Warner Interactive—you couldn’t ask for a better person to work with on a licensed property. We wish you success in your future endeavors, and hope that we might partake in some of them when the time is right.
Thanks also go out to American McGee, Barett Alexander, RJ Berg, Rick Johnson, Scott Draeker for helping us build our network of publishing contacts
Thanks to Mike Abrash for remembering me from the briefest of meetings, and helping us get in touch with the X-box team at Microsoft.
Additional thanks to Will Binder, John Carmack, John “Milo” Dimattio, Steve “Blue” Healsip, Sean “Redwood” Martin, Jack “Morbid” Matthews, and Alisa Schreibman.
Deepest gratitude to Janne S. Pionte, the creator of S14’s logo, and arguably one of Finland’s best artists.
Thanks also to the many developers in the game community who offered their words of support through this year of fire. Those words helped keep us going.
A special thanks to Mike Klumper at HD interactive – A true gentleman by the definition of the word. It’s one of my greatest hopes that someday we’ll be able to work on a project together.
And, of course, our thanks go out to J. Michael Straczynski. Thank you, Joe, for giving inspiration to us all and letting us play in the backyard of your imagination.
But most of all, we’d like to thank Lorien Newman, Kevin “Drazi Guy” Mac Neil, Michael “Grinner” Lu, “Sanfam,” Vesa “Freeze” Juusola, and all the fans at http://www.firstones.com and http://www.b5itf-finland.org/ who have supported our efforts in the most passionate way. Without you, we wouldn’t have made it this far. You are the Army of Light. And you made the world stand up and take notice.
To the fans- I’d like to encourage you to support those who supported us: HD Interactive, EA, Gathering of Developers, Microsoft X-box, Raven Software, and id Software. All of these people are working hard to bring innovation to gaming, just as we have.
The game may die, but Babylon 5 ... Babylon 5 endures.
Best regards,
Richard G. Brewer
CEO, Sector 14 Studios
richardgbrewer@hotmail.com
