Wing Commander III: Why Origin? (June 26, 2012)

[Bandit LOAF]

There's one more surprise from Shari Graner Ray:

More interesting (at least to me) is the "Why Origin" sheet for Wing 3. By the time of Wing 3, Origin was owned by EA. EA required that everyone who wanted to propose a game idea, had to do a "why Origin" sheet. This was to give a high level overview of the game and show that it was timely, feasible and something that would make sense for Origin to do. Even Chris had to do it for Wing 3. I think you might have fun looking at it, as it's how Chris sold the game to Origin. You might also notice there is no mention of any live action or filming

This truly is a fascinating document. It's very interesting to read about some of the things that were planned, including an Academy-style mission builder and plans to carry over Strike Commander's 'virtual cockpit' feature. Note that Heart of the Tiger's final budget--including the film shoot--was around four million dollars.

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Original update published on June 26, 2012

 

[Quarto]

Fascinating. With all of these features, Wing Commander III would have been a better game... but without the film cutscenes, it probably wouldn't have been anywhere near the success it eventually became.

 

[Aginor]

I agree. I love WC3 (my favourite part of the series) but some of that features sound just great and I would have loved to see them.

 

[c0mc0]

A proposed budget of $592,900. Haha.

Obviously between this time and the games release, Origin convinced EA that it was worth the gamble of the virtually unheard of live-action sequences. I'm glad they did. What an effect it had on both Wing3 and the entire industry.

It's a cool document, recalling a very different game industry than what we have today. Love comments like (paraphrasing) "even if we don't have those two programmer positions filled...". These days, big budget games are measured in the 10s-100s of millions.

What a great find. Thanks for sharing.

 

[AD]

To me it almost sounds like Armada was born out of the efforts to build a multiplayer mode into WC3...

 

[Quarto]

To me it almost sounds like Armada was born out of the efforts to build a multiplayer mode into WC3...

I was actually under the impression that Armada was a project done to "test the waters", to see if multiplayer was a vital feature for WC3.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I was actually under the impression that Armada was a project done to "test the waters", to see if multiplayer was a vital feature for WC3.

That seems unlikely, with Armada shipping only eight weeks before Wing Commander III. It only SEEMS like it took forever!

Origin had an interesting system at the time regarding projects. There were regular meetings which any employee could attend and pitch a project. If you could get support for your idea it would go onto the development slate. Wing Commander Armada was one such pitch, with Jeff Everett selling the concept to the company (probably, as here, based on early work considered for WIng Commander III.)

(This is why you tend to have the smaller games credited to developers you don't know as well... because they could pitch an affordable project like Armada or Academy much more easily than a multi-million dollar Wing Commander or Ultima.)