A while back I had a thought; what if the Titan IP wasn't actually new? It would be "new" for players who hadn't seen it outside Blizzard, but what if the Titan IP or ideas were actually very old or acquired from another company?

It was something I was going to recommend to Mynsc one day: "Hey, you should investigate companies that Blizzard acquired to see if they bought any IP along with it!" I did a quick glance over acquired IPs at the time, though, and I couldn't find anything interesting so there was really no point and I just forgot about it.

Fast forward a couple months, and I had found a puzzle piece that actually connected Titan to earlier game concepts. This connection to SAS is what led me to create that post about Swingin' Ape Studios (henceforth referred to as SAS) and their other "secret" projects. If you haven't read it already, I recommend that you do.

Why Acquire A Company?

You see, the thing with gaming developers, publishers, or any business for that matter, is that they all go through the same patterns and they all end up the same. Every large and aging business eventually dies, or it's absorbed into another company or conglomerate. As businesses become successful in what they do, they become complacent and they stop evolving or changing with the times. One day, it's too late for them to adapt, and a younger start-up steps in and steals their market.

Blockbuster is a perfect example. They thought that physical media rentals (VHS, DVD, BluRay) would be around forever and jumped into digital delivery far too late (and they did it the wrong way). Every successful business right now will eventually be acquired by a younger company or go bankrupt.. they'll join the ranks of once-big-names like Acclaim, Atari, Hercules, 3DFX, Epyx, Commodore, Marvel, etc.

In order to stay alive, the trick is to change, evolve, or stay fresh. And the only way do that is either to replace the management team or acquire younger businesses that can bring in fresh ideas or new approaches. The smart businesses do this anyways.. sometimes these "old man companies" buy out younger businesses to purely eliminate competition or for short term goals.

The SAS/Blizzard Next-Gen Team

To kick things off, let's start out with the information that got me interested in SAS in the first place.

John Lafleur is a programmer on Blizzard's Next Gen MMO, and he previously worked on Metal Arms as well as other secret projects within SAS. To view his older resume entries, go here and here.

So, Swingin' Ape Studios was previously working on an "Unannounced Next Generation Console" game that started in April 2003, as well as an "Unannounced PS2 Title" that started in September 2003.

It appears that the "Unannounced PS2 Title" was in fact Starcraft: Ghost but they expanded development to the XBOX and GameCube as well. They were still working on another secret project, though, entitled the "Unannounced Next Generation Console" game.

After SAS was acquired by Blizzard Entertainment, they also acquired this Next Generation Console game and it was something that continued development. John was technical director for Starcraft Ghost and he was also made technical director for the other Unannounced Next Gen game. Eventually, when the team was broken up (due to continued SC Ghost problems), he was relocated to World of Warcraft for a short period of time, and then immediately to the Next Gen MMO as soon as the project started. :)

John still lists the "Unannounced Title" (where he was "Technical Director") in his resume, even though it's not in development anymore. And he's now the "Lead Engine Programmer" for the current Next Gen MMO.

Nathan Miller also worked for SAS on the SC Ghost project (which was console exclusive), and he was one of the first individuals to be moved into the Titan team as well (he was actually hired back from Blizzard after a 1 year absence to specifically work on the Next Gen MMO). :)

In 2005, Blizzard had several positions up for their "Next Gen Console team". But then in August 2006, the employees of the console division were redeployed onto other projects within the company (e.g. when Nathan moved to WOW before leaving Blizzard 3 months later) and SC Ghost was pretty much cancelled.

Now, you would assume that this Unannounced Next Gen Console game was probably just the Ghost project, but John makes a clear distinction between Ghost and the other "Unannounced Project". Ghost was already announced by then too. Plus, SAS started work on the Next Gen Console game in April 2003 which was long before Blizzard even talked to them about SC Ghost.

Whatever this project was, it didn't have anything to do with Blizzard, and Blizzard didn't know anything about the secret project until they started their Ghost relationship. After that, SAS was suddenly acquired, along with some of the employees, their IPs and game ideas.

If the project was eventually abandoned, or if it is still being worked on within Blizzard, there's at least evidence showing that there was/is another project being worked on. It might be Titan or it might not be. (It's not an Action RPG or RTS though. The SAS team focused on Next Gen/Console 3D games similar to WoW or Ghost.)

In March 2006, Blizzard decided to re-evaluate SC Ghost as a Next-Gen (PS3 / XBOX360) title instead. Previously, it was being designed for the PS2 and XBOX platforms. This was around the time that they had all of the new postings for the Next Gen Console game before Ghost ended in August 2006.

Financial Investments

As you're aware, the first hints of Blizzard's Next Gen MMO were from mid 2007 job postings.

But in June 2006, a full year before it's existence was made known, Vivendi (the owner of Activision Blizzard) published a presentation for their investors which detailed future Blizzard franchises and plans for growth.

In this document, they state that Blizzard has three core franchises that were born on PC, but they are investing heavily into "new executions" across multiple franchises. They make note of their investment into SAS, as well as a curious investment into a "Next Gen PC" game.

Blizzard’s three core franchises were born on PC but are rich in character and naturally extendable

* We are investing heavily right now in developing new executions across multiple franchises
* Purchased and integrated Swingin’ Ape as core of next gen console strategy
* Put investments in place for numerous future Blizzard products

"Product Development Investment Per Game":

"Over €50MM MMORPG" (Most likely WOW and Expansion Packs)
"Over €10-13MM Next Gen Console" (Early development costs for SC Ghost)
"Over €10MM Next Gen PC" (Early development costs of a Next Gen MMO)

Strange that at the same time they were investing into future franchises, they acquired SAS, set aside funding for a future Next Gen MMO title, and said that SAS was a part of this future strategy. They also indicated Subscription and Transaction-based business models for these games.

Bethesda finally announced the outcome of their Interplay/Fallout legal battle in a press release today:

FALLOUT® MMO RIGHTS RESTORED TO BETHESDA SOFTWORKS® IN INTERPLAY LITIGATION

All Fallout® Intellectual Property Rights Belong Exclusively to Bethesda

January 9, 2012 (Rockville, MD) –ZeniMax® Media Inc. today announced that a settlement had been reached in the lawsuit filed by its subsidiary, Bethesda Softworks®, against Interplay Entertainment Corporation in 2009, Bethesda Softworks LLC v Interplay Entertainment Corp., seeking cancellation of the license granted to Interplay to develop a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) based on the Fallout brand. Bethesda maintained in its complaint that Interplay had failed to meet the conditions for the license and the license was therefore of no continuing validity.

Under the terms of the settlement, the license granted to Interplay to develop the Fallout MMO is null and void, and all rights granted to Interplay to develop a Fallout MMO revert back to Bethesda, effective immediately. Interplay has no ongoing right to use the Fallout brand or any Fallout intellectual property for any game development. ZeniMax will pay Interplay $2 million as consideration in the settlement, each party will bear its own costs of the litigation, and Bethesda will continue to own all Fallout intellectual property rights. Interplay will be permitted to continue to sell the original Fallout ®Tactics, Fallout® and Fallout® 2 PC games through December 2013, after which time all rights to market those games revert to and become the sole property of Bethesda. Under the original agreement pursuant to which Bethesda had acquired the Fallout property, Interplay was granted certain merchandising rights to sell those original Fallout games, but those merchandising rights will now expire on December 31, 2013.

Blah blah blah.. Interplay did bad things "allegedly"..

If you might recall, here's what I was predicting several months ago:

I think Interplay is just playing the long game. They might not have any money, but they're thinking ahead and they just need to hold out longer then Zenimax can in facing their private investors.

There's probably no real development happening, and Interplay has no serious plans to produce a Fallout MMO, so they're just waiting for Bethesda to fold and finally purchase the Fallout IP unconditionally with an outrageous price tag. This recent legal game is just demonstrating how desperate and unplanned Bethesda is in dealing with the situation. I think, in the end, Bethesda will completely own the Fallout IP but they'll pay an arm and a leg for it.

Interplay originally sold the Fallout IP for $5.75 million, and now they're selling it back to them again for an additional $2 million. (I wonder if there is anything else undisclosed in the settlement?)

Plus, Q4 ends December 31 (I guess that makes it FY2012 Q1 in the US?) and quarterly shareholders meetings will be held in late January to early February 2012.

Nailed it. :)

Even with the rights to the MMO, it's not like Bethesda is even planning on creating a MMO. They just wanted the full IP to move forwards with their single player adventures. Although, even without a MMO, multiplayer features are still very likely for future installments. There are a lot of problems creating a MMO of this genre, and it's something I'll be talking about soon.

(By the way, I'm guessing that the Diablo 3 Release Date announcement will be made before Activision Blizzard's early Feb shareholders meeting if they intend on releasing it by March. They'll want something nice to tell their shareholders, but they won't be revealing any pre-order numbers or anything. Cataclysm was announced 1 month before the shareholders meeting, but SC2 was announced just 3 days before the meeting. Cataclysm had Digital Pre-Downloads though.)

I will be giving away 2 beta-keys tomorrow at 1:00PM PST.

One for Path of Exile and the other for Tribes Ascend (Thanks Matais!).

You obviously won't have time for both (keys go fast), so make sure you pick the one that's higher priority for you. :)

For the Tribes Ascend key, I don't know how exactly to register it since I haven't done it myself. I assume that you'll need to create an account with Hi-Rez Studios, and then register the key there. So, you'll have to do some leg work and prepare for tomorrow.

I'll be doing another simple random letter shuffle for both keys. Good luck!

* UPDATE:

Tribes Ascend Key: F3F75A74511AFD4B42AE7C2B1

Apparently, these are pretty easy to get a hold of. So, if you have any spares that you want to give away, just post them as a comment here.

Path of Exile Key: FRSQJ-5G2PN-HBKGV-3____

Letter Shuffle: P M F P

If you win and get a friend invite, the people here would really appreciate it if you throw it back for another contest. :)

• This post has been upgraded from "Minor" to "Significant Updates". A Public Relations representative from Irvine HQ has confirmed that the Korean Times article is correct. As you recall, I was waiting for a retraction, but instead there has been a confirmation. :)
  
  What was contained in the factual news (non-blog) source? Blizzard has a simultaneous global launch planned, it will be region-free for the first time in the company's history, each country will have identical software, and the Korean Board's decision has kept the game launching in other countries.
  
  Blizzard PR has also provided a quote that there are global launch plans, even though it was never officially announced. This is all some very credible evidence, and I can now call them "facts" which I wasn't able to do before. All of this confirms what I've been writing about to be accurate. :)
  

  Asked whether the situation might cause Blizzard to launch the game in other markets first, instead of a worldwide simultaneous release, Damron stated that “this will not impact our global launch plans.” Given this, a delay in the South Korean Market could impact the release in North America and Europe as well.

  Although the initial delay was caused by the SK issues, this means that Blizzard right now has plans to launch and the SK issues are no longer holding it back. Because they're having a worldwide simultaneous launch and you can't launch without all countries being in line, this means that Blizzard is plowing forwards with an expected approval. Meaning that Diablo 3 will be approved for use in SK either because Blizzard knows things are positive and it will be approved with the RMAH, or they're planning on stripping out the RMAH entirely. If this is the case, then they have a launch date planned already and it also might explain the confidence surrounding the new "Q1" statement instead of old "Early 2012" regurgitation. Atleast now you know why Bashiok had to be so ambiguous about his posts. :)

• Details about the Bethesda v. Interplay settlement have not been announced yet, but it appears that Bethesda has dismissed their lawsuit against Interplay. And by dismissing with prejudice, it might mean that Bethesda has made Interplay immune from being sued for the same reasons in the future. Can't wait to find out what really happened here. :)

• I've updated the "Diablo Delay Debate" post with additional information. I also moved that awesome "I'm a problem" Bashiok quote to my "Important Notices" page.

• The Korea GRB never made a final decision today. They meet every Wednesday and Friday and these constant delays in making a decision may force Blizzard's hand. Typically, release date announcements are made on Mondays (and right before their shareholders meeting, unless there's something unusual about the circumstances.) There won't be an announcement made next Monday, though, because Bashiok said that they still need to announce their new game changes "before or with the next beta patch."

• Bashiok confirmed that Blizzard is planning for a Q1 2012 release. So "Early" means Jan, Feb, or Mar.

• It also looks like Diablo 3 will indeed have Pre-Digital Downloads available. I wonder when (or if) the region-free announcement will be made and how this will work. For example, if you download the Digital Copy, they'll probably lock the game to the region's Battle.net that you downloaded it from. That way, you can't just download the game for a much cheaper price, but then register the game in your own country. Does that really matter though? If I setup a US Battle.net account, pay for and download the game, I still have the option of playing on faster AU servers and I can register my home region for the RMAH as AU. Will they have some security measure or process in place to prevent this though? (e.g. the B.Net account you register on automatically becomes your "home region" for RMAH.)

• I'm still working on another post about Titan, but I just haven't had a lot of time to work on it. It's getting pretty big too, so I might need to break it down into parts (surprised?). Really nothing much else going on, so don't be surprised if things are a little quiet around here. Until, that is, new or interesting information comes out.