|
After Losing Criminal and Civil Suites, Will TERA Survive?
In the wake of the 2 Billion WON (about $1.7 million USD) civil judgment against Blue Hole Studio, the developer of the mmorpg TERA, and the criminal conviction of it’s Chief Producer, Yong-Hyun Park, two questions remain. Will the game that has built a strong following of anticipated gamers actually make it to launch as planned, and should it?
You see a few years ago NCsoft set out to create Lineage 3 using the Unreal Game Engine. Everything was going smoothly until it was leaked that the code had been stolen and sold to another developer. What NCsoft didn’t really reveal is that while it agreed that several employees left the company and took the code, it was actually the main creator of Lineage 3, who also was the creator of Lineage 2. They didn’t sell the code, they started their own studio to continue the development. This is a major problem for any company. 
What are you supposed to do? Do you continue your Lineage 3 plans without its main producer knowing that they are going to build a clone of it and risk tens of millions of dollars on its development? Of course not, so Aion was born. That’s right, Aion is the direct result of the theft of the Lineage 3 code. This may have been a good thing for NCsoft since it allowed them to take a new direction and not be locked into the lineage 2 storyline, but it certainly was not what they would have preferred.
For Lineage 2 players, it gives them two options now. Try Aion and then try Terra, then just go back to Lineage or another game if they are not your liking. Terra without a doubt will be much more like lineage 2, and based on the fact that there are not as many previous Blizzard staff on the team as compared to Aion, you can certainly expect it to be targeted to more hardcore gamers.
With this major PR issue, and the loss of its leader (assuming he does not win his appeal) it certainly puts a question mark on exactly how successful this game can be. Since part of the suit gives NCsoft a percentage of future earnings, the game is expected by at least some to get to market. However, investors will certainly not be jumping on board Blue Hole’s investment plan, further jeopardizing continued development of the game that will still cost millions of dollars.
With a fitting first chapter title 'Exiled Realm of Arborea', will players forgive the gross lack of morals that caused the game to built as an elaborate theft or will it be exiled into obscurity? These may not be the only issues the game faces. It is possible it could get smacked with other suits which could delay the release in the states for years, or even prevent it completely. And honestly what standard does this set for the game industry if the game, which was proven in a Korean court to be stolen , is allowed to go to market after such an act by its developers?
While Blue Hole will assure everyone that things are ok on the launch and it will be launched as planned, can you really trust anything from that camp? However, we do not want to accuse Blue Hole of any future wrong doings and we admit that they may end up winning on appeal. But the doubt is already on the mind of gamers. We may not ever see what TERA was meant to be.
Trackback(0)
 |
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
