The Difference Between Then and Now

[Shifty]

I think I've come across at least part of the reason for the difference between the old days of Air Warrior (AWI) and today.

There was however, a fundamental difference between then and now.  In AWI you couldn't capture bases.  No one ever won the war.  You could shut a base down for 20-30 minutes but not capture it.  This meant the there was no "win the war" mentality.  Sure, there were bombers and toolshedders but in the end it really was all about the fight because that's all there was.

I played AW DOS on the Old Genie network, I about went broke doing it. I seem to remember being able to capture bases even back all the planes were gray with no markings. I could be mistaken though.

[dtango]

I listened to John Riccitello's own words from the shareholders teleconference from the 3rd quarter of 2001.  I also read several former Kesmai peoples observations after the fact.  Mr Riccitello specifically said that their premium subscribership (which involved almost exclusively Kesmai produced games) were doing as well as had been anticipated (iirc it was somewhere between 25-35k).  He then went on to give pie in the sky projections ("Ultima Online numbers" was the example given) of what subscribership numbers the dot com division would deliver when they launched their in house online gaming products.  The fact is, from my research, which by the way is from primary souces, is that EA untimely decided to jump on the dot com bandwagon way too late to hit the "boom" numbers.  They had no product themselves developed at the time to offer, and shanghi'd established products as an interim solution.  The problem was that they had put too much money out, and did eventually have to answer about their books to both the parent corp. and shareholders.  The easiest way to make the books more palitible is to cut expenses.  The easiest way to cut expenses was to consolidate to the "in house" projects and axe everything else.  In my view none of that has anything to do with the merits of any individual game, its subscribership, or even reflect on the studio's producing them.  Again, the Kesmai products were "performing as expected."

So, all that said, what are you basing your assertions on?

If they were doing well, why did they kill it?  The only logical explanation I can think of is that "doing well" was indeed not what it was doing.  Why would they shutdown something that's profiting, unless of course it wasn't competing well against AH and WB. ?  I don't know of any business that cuts off a cash cow when times get bad unless they are going bankrupt.  Usually what goes is the marginal businesses.  EA obviously made it with Ultima Online, the Battlefield series, the Sims etc.  These obviously developed a critical mass of players that made it worth EA's while.

Hey I'm speculating but it's pretty illogical to me to blame on EA deciding to cut AW to make up on it's balance sheet unless AW was indeed a marginal business for them.  Perhaps the person to ask is EA's CEO himself to get his side of the story.

Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs

[Murdr]

If they were doing well, why did they kill it?
The CEO said that it was performing as expected, not I. 
The only logical explanation I can think of is that "doing well" was indeed not what it was doing.
Check again.  He assured the shareholders that the 25k-35k subscribership was meeting projections.  And that future projections for their in house games (sims, and motor city) of 150k were yet to come. 
Why would they shutdown something that's profiting, unless of course it wasn't competing well against AH and WB. ? 
I think the premiss of the question is rather silly.  I already stated the numbers they were promising the shareholders per game were more than AH, WB, AW, and FA at the time combined.
EA obviously made it with Ultima Online, the Battlefield series, the Sims etc.  These obviously developed a critical mass of players that made it worth EA's while.
Ahh, so you are getting it.  Kesmai games was an apple in what was planned to be an orange crate.  I say Kesmai because you ignore the fact that AW was not singled out for the chopping block, the producing studio and its entire suite of games were.  However your assertion was not that AW was an apple among oranges.  Your assertion was that AW was a poor apple along side all the other apples (WWII flight sims).  While that argument might hold water if we are talking about the game engine, it is simply does not in terms of subscribership.

[Alky]

-GE (I still have boxed versions of all of 'em that were actually .. boxed)

Me too... installing any of them is a letdown though. We've come a long way baby!   

[dtango]

Murdr: 

I'll agree to disagree .  If AW was such a gem why did it not make it off the chopping block?  If it indeed was something that they felt they would be quite profitable it makes no sense for them to include it in the chop.  I don't think it's a silly question at all, but the most fundamental.  Maybe someone should go look up EA's books for 2001.   What the CEO says in public means little as you well know.  Just look at all the present news headlines especially with the financial institutions.

Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs

[Murdr]

Murdr: 

I'll agree to disagree .  If AW was such a gem why did it not make it off the chopping block?  If it indeed was something that they felt they would be quite profitable it makes no sense for them to include it in the chop.

Actually we are getting closer I think.  I am not aspousing the virtues of AW.  What I am saying is that any game of this genre never have met their long term goals at the time, period.  Insert a different WWII flight sim title into the story, and the result would be the same.  It had nothing to do with direct flight sim to flight sime competition.  Hence the fallicy of the retort of "where is AW now?"

[dtango]

Actually we are getting closer I think.  I am not aspousing the virtues of AW.  What I am saying is that any game of this genre never have met their long term goals at the time, period.  Insert a different WWII flight sim title into the story, and the result would be the same.  It had nothing to do with direct flight sim to flight sime competition.  Hence the fallicy of the retort of "where is AW now?"

Well, again we just have to disagree here.  I don't think you could just "insert any game" there.  EA didn't chop other stuff.  Why did they chop AW?  Sure it was a part of kesmai but that's really odd for them to chop them without keeping anything from them if that's what they always intended to do.  In my opinion I think it's reasonable to conclude that EA didn't feel they got enough revenue / player base from the Kesmai acquisitions.  If this was true then I think it logically also leads to the gameplay of AW not being compelling enough to generate the growing numbers that EA wanted compared to the others out there.  Sure I'm speculating but I think it's a plausible explanation.  At any rate I think that Hitech and Pyro purposely have taken a bit of a different tack for a business reason that you can glean from some of Hitech's comments on the gameplay topic.

Anyhow, I really don't want the last word on the topic !!  I'll look for yours and others replies.  I think I'm just repeating myself now.  I hear what you're saying.  "EA cut the Kesmai products because they had to balance the books."  I just find this hard to buy from business logic standpoint that it had nothing to do with Kesmai's lack of revenue including the AW franchise.  My speculation comes from this line of reasoning.

Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs

[Grayeagle]

Well..it's a fact AW is dead.

Also a fact that EA killed it.
Also that EA will not let it go.
(people have tried to negotiate buyin the rights to it)

Coupla other facts ..when it went live on AOL ..the servers weren't big enough to handle the load.
There were weekends where you could not get in.. at all ..pattern was full Ghostrider

I was told it was a niche market by the Art Director himself .. LOL . . then we launched.
Not bad for a niche market I thought .. just about completely full, every nite, all nite.

For months ..while the server farm got bigger and bigger.

It was the place to be for thousands of us.

When EA got involved .. AW was cutting edge in a lot of ways.
As lead artist .. I was rarely given the go ahead to spend the time necessary to do what I wanted.
I mean .. I was asked to do a 'table' .. or a 'lamp' ..for some other project that never saw the light of day.. it SUCKED.

I was all about revamping plane shapes and blowin the status quo out of the water.
I wanted full gear animations, with every moving part of the original.. I wanted full 3d cockpits, and I knew I could do a heck of a lot better than Jane's did (they had some nice cockpits .. but . . sheesh .. the poly count was thru the roof since they modeled the back part of the throttle quadrant that you never see with just as many polys as the front that you saw -rolls eyes- .. for just one example. It was just nuts.

I knew I could smoke 'em .. and when I was given the go ahead for AW4 shapes .. I did.
The P-51D I built at the last was magnificent, my best ever. It looked better than the ones I made for hi-res rendering, because I had learned a lot in the years since I built that one. And it was for real time .. the game shape itself. It even had the folds in the inner gear doors, it looked 'photo-realistic' all the way baby.

Too bad I got chopped off at the ankles before I could do any texture mapping, or any player saw the results. It was *nice*

EA will forever change my mood when I start thinkin about what they did.
Don't get me started.
And the outright lies posted on bigweek by people that should have known better .. OMFG.
I will never return there.
I have been asked ..and I replied 'no thanks .. it would be like bending over and dropping my pants in a public place, inviting anyone to just go ahead, stick it in till it breaks off' .. I PASS.
Been there DONE that mk thx.

-GE (not that I am still a bit wired about it.. nosir. -feels better after a 100+ mph blast down the freeway, late nite)

[Murdr]

If this was true then I think it logically also leads to the gameplay of AW not being compelling enough to generate the growing numbers that EA wanted compared to the others out there.  Sure I'm speculating but I think it's a plausible explanation.

ELECTRONIC ARTS ANNOUNCES AGREEMENT TO ACQUIRE NEWS CORP. ONLINE GAME UNIT, KESMAI

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., November 22, 1999-- Electronic Arts (Nasdaq:ERTS), the world's largest interactive entertainment software company, today announced the acquisition of Kesmai Corporation, a developer and publisher of multiplayer online entertainment.

Electronic Arts And AOL in Online Games Deal
Added: (Tue Nov 23 1999)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - In a bid to become the world's top provider of video games online, Electronic Arts Inc. (NasdaqNM:ERTS - news) agreed to be the sole supplier of games to America Online Inc. (NYSE:AOL - news), the No. 1 Internet service provider.

"This exclusive deal merges the two into what we see as a dream team," said Lise Buyer, a Credit Suisse First Boston analyst. "We think (Electronic Arts) is very well positioned to be the No. 1 supplier of games online. All that was missing was a distribution network. AOL provides that."

You still insist it was about Kesmai games, when the facts suggest that it was more about their licences and getting exclusive rights with the largest ISP.  You insist on speculating that AW was not doing well in comparison to the rest of the genre.  But I was bouncing around checking out all the games before the announcment of it being discontinued.  Its health by way of prime time rosters was on the high side when looking at the other wwii flight sims.

Gamestorms entire existing subscribership did not meet 20% of what EA wanted out of individual game titles.  Yet they aquired it and move in on AOL.  They put Kesmai games on their own server, because they had nothing else on hand to offer there for 2 years.

Well, again we just have to disagree here.  I don't think you could just "insert any game" there.  EA didn't chop other stuff.

What "other stuff?" they offered no other pay subscription games on their own game server website at the time?  They kept the Kesmai games going until they could get their first in house game out of the pipeline (MCO, which barely peaked above 35k).
They had no interest in games that could not post UO numbers.  Yet they aquired a suite of games that could not.  Why?  Because of the in AOL.

[BaldEagl]

In my opinion I think it's reasonable to conclude that EA didn't feel they got enough revenue / player base from the Kesmai acquisitions. 

I think it's reasonable to assume that a company such as EA did enough due dilligance to know exactly what they were buying, what it's revenues, profits and subscriber numbers were and also enough to make reasonable projections.

The way the deal went down and thier quick exit suggest that there were other motives for that aquisition.

IIRC the moment EA bought Kesmai, all development on AWIII stopped.  Is that how a company that's buying for the future handles things?  I think not.  I think they planned on killing Kesmai from the outset.

[Murdr]

Bald, actually the game engine was in process of a complete rewrite when the studio was shut down.

[Alky]

Bald, actually the game engine was in process of a complete rewrite when the studio was shut down.

I think it had something to do with them wanting to go to a Korea (jet) add-on to Air Warrior if i remember correctly (?)

[Murdr]

Alky, the way I understood it was that the original code had been patched over so many times over the years that it became more and more difficult to update/upgrade without having stability issues.  Essentially it needed to be done to keep the game expandable.  At least that was the way I heard it explained by a former "Kesmaite".  I bet you mean AW Vietnam?

IIRC it was a three phase project they named "torch", "avalanch", and "overlord"?  Torch was already released, which included an updated FM they called "ultra realism".  2nd phase was projected to be ready for Feb 02, with the thrid in the fall.

[doc1kelley]

I think it had something to do with them wanting to go to a Korea (jet) add-on to Air Warrior if i remember correctly (?)

AW already had a korea arena with the F-86 and Mig-15.  They had it when AW was on AOHell.

All the Best...
    Jay
  awDoc1

[Alky]

AW already had a korea arena with the F-86 and Mig-15.  They had it when AW was on AOHell.

All the Best...
    Jay
  awDoc1

I remember the F-86 and Mig-15 thing, I didn't remember it being released. Maybe I left AOHell before that. The Vietnam version I don`t remember at all, but then I`m a really old phart LOL.