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Re: Halogen Beta?
Posted By: Quikthnkr <Quikthnkr@excite.com>	Date: 10/4/06 1:37 p.m.
In Response To: Halogen Beta? (Sharkface217) They said they were in closed Beta which is pretty close to being done. One or two things I would like to point out. The way that MS handled the situation (letting Bungie break the news) could be seen like many things that MS does as a financial decision. You pay someone like Frankie or KP a salery and dealing with the community is part of their job. So having them handle this (which, once you make the decision to shut Halogen down is a no-win situation at least from a community relations perspective) doesn't cost a dime. Having lawyers draft cease and desist orders and taking them to court and all that nonsense; even when they are in house lawyers, isn't as cheap as just having Frankie or KP send an e-mail. My point here is that once MS decided to shut down Halogen how they did it was a simple matter of choosing the cheaper of bad situations. But let's look at the reasoning behind the shut down. Some folks have argued that EA and MS are competitors. And that sending business the way of EA would somehow cost MS. I would argue that not to be the case. When it comes to video games you could say that MS and Sony are competitors. You could say that MS and Nintendo are competitors. But to say that gaming studios are competitors, I just don't buy it. There simply aren't enough really good video games out there to say that any one studio competes with another. Most games are pretty original, have original stories and IP's and have something to offer that seperates them even from similar games. The closest thing I think you can find out there to direct competition is sports games (and even then I know lots of folks who bought all the football and baseball games regardless of who released them) involving the same sport distributed by competing studios and EA has mostly eliminated that through their exclusive licensing of sports leagues. MS in fact has very lucritive agreements with EA. They are in fact business partners. Remember all the old XBox MS Studios Sports games that came out because EA wasn't releasing their games on the XBox? Where are they now? MS closed that division down. Why? Because of the deal they made with EA. Remember Grand Theft Auto and all its many incarnations? You can play them all on the XBox now but originally they were exclusive to the PS2. Why can you play them as well as many other EA games on MS platforms? Because MS and EA are business partners. My feeling is that MS shut Halogen down very simply because big business does not like uncertainty or lack of control. There are many questions without answers when it comes to Halogen. MS had no control over the quality of the game. If it sucked badly then for those folks who play RTS and may not know a lot about Halo it could potentially poison their thoughts towards the franchise. With the movie and the new books and games coming out that could be bad. If it was amazingly good (and all signs appeared to show that it could have indeed been very good) it could embarress MS for not releasing a Halo RTS themselves. And what if they did release Halowars and let HaloGen come out? What if HaloGen was better? Then they would look really foolish. And what if a successful HaloGen lead to various other mods of games? The fan communities would start designing their own games based on the engines created by the major studios and would no longer buy what they were told to buy, but rather what they actually want. Things could get out of control very quickly with precedent like that. The sheer lack of control coupled with the unanswered questions seems to me to be the only reason to shut down HaloGen. But it could have gone another way and I really think they dropped the ball here. If they had instead used their contacts at EA and through the Bungie Community leaders asserted a bit of creative control over the final version of HaloGen I really think they could have had a public relations feather in their cap. They could have released HaloWars a year or two after HaloGen hit (which looks like the soonest it would hit anyway) and there would already be an existing Halo based RTS fan base out there. Additionally the two products would not be in direct competition since HaloWars will almost certainly be released exclusively for the 360 and even if it is ported to PC that would take an additional years or so. As various folks have pointed out, HaloGen was PC only. Plus the addition of an in canon story for HaloWars as opposed to what I can only assume would be the complete lack of story in HaloGen would have anyone who is a fan of Halo buying it anyway. And the final reason for them to do it would be because it would make them look like the good guys who care about their fan communities and while Bungie is pretty great at that MS in fact sucks at it and doesn't get to look like the good guy very often. It's all in how you spin it. And they chose to zip up the fear of the unkown rather than take advantage of a possible opportunity. Chances are they just didn't think the benefit outweighed the risks. I think they made a mistake. But that's big business in America. You pays your money and you takes your chances. The guys at HaloGen took a chance and I commend them for it. I wish it had worked out better for them. But that won't stop me from buying the things I like in the future. I for one plan on buying anything with the word Halo in it for many years to come and probably many things with MS attached to it for just as long.

http://www.lightningquikproductions.com

Message Index

Halogen Beta?	Sharkface217	10/3/06 2:37 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	KP	10/3/06 2:52 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	WortWortWort	10/3/06 7:39 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	WortWortWort	10/3/06 7:42 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	WortWortWort	10/3/06 7:53 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	N/A	10/3/06 8:01 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	DarkSim	10/3/06 8:17 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	WortWortWort	10/3/06 9:18 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Narcogen	10/4/06 12:16 a.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Miguel Chavez	10/4/06 9:01 a.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	UrsusArctos	10/4/06 9:20 a.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Matt	10/4/06 9:45 a.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Hawaiian Pig	10/4/06 10:40 a.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Matt	10/4/06 2:39 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Dry Ice	10/4/06 3:06 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Dry Ice	10/4/06 3:09 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Narcogen	10/4/06 10:56 a.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Matt	10/4/06 2:37 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Count Zero	10/4/06 3:00 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Louis Wu	10/4/06 3:27 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Hawaiian Pig	10/4/06 7:23 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Anton P. Nym (aka Steve)	10/4/06 9:56 a.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Narcogen	10/4/06 10:54 a.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Hawaiian Pig	10/4/06 10:58 a.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Schedonnardus	10/4/06 3:26 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Matt	10/4/06 3:42 p.m.
Someone's been swigging the cough syrup again. *NM*	Louis Wu	10/4/06 4:32 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	mercury	10/4/06 4:38 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Narcogen	10/4/06 8:32 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Schedonnardus	10/5/06 11:06 a.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Endbringer	10/5/06 11:31 a.m.
Nice!	Miguel Chavez	10/5/06 12:41 p.m.
Re: Nice!	Sep7imus [subnova]	10/5/06 2:12 p.m.
This is what I meant, yes	Miguel Chavez	10/4/06 5:44 p.m.
A Mod Developer's Take on the Situation	RedMoney999	10/4/06 8:08 p.m.
Re: A Mod Developer's Take on the Situation	Narcogen	10/4/06 8:59 p.m.
Re: A Mod Developer's Take on the Situation	Miguel Chavez	10/4/06 10:21 p.m.
Re: A Mod Developer's Take on the Situation	Sep7imus [subnova]	10/5/06 2:22 p.m.
Re: A Mod Developer's Take on the Situation	RedMonkey999	10/5/06 11:18 p.m.
Re: A Mod Developer's Take on the Situation	Louis Wu	10/6/06 4:45 a.m.
Re: A Mod Developer's Take on the Situation	RedMonkey999	10/8/06 3:44 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Konrad	10/4/06 11:08 a.m.
Heh! *NM*	Stuntmutt	10/4/06 11:15 a.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Narcogen	10/4/06 12:07 a.m.
Couldn't be said any better. *NM*	Cocopjojo	10/4/06 1:22 a.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	BARBARIC RAGE	10/4/06 12:21 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	mercury	10/4/06 1:22 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	mercury	10/3/06 4:43 p.m.
Bungie didn't shut them down.	58	10/3/06 5:40 p.m.
Re: Bungie didn't shut them down.	Sharkface217	10/3/06 7:59 p.m.
Bungie's role in Halogen shutdown	Narcogen	10/4/06 12:22 a.m.
Re: Bungie's role in Halogen shutdown	Rox	10/4/06 3:07 a.m.
Re: Bungie's role in Halogen shutdown	Narcogen	10/4/06 4:14 a.m.
Re: Bungie's role in Halogen shutdown	Rox	10/4/06 7:54 a.m.
Re: Bungie's role in Halogen shutdown	Narcogen	10/4/06 10:58 a.m.
HBO: Waiting for Microsoft lawyers to shut us down *NM*	Stuntmutt	10/4/06 8:44 a.m.
They'll be sure to shut down One One Se7en first	UrsusArctos	10/4/06 8:47 a.m.
Re: They'll be sure to shut down One One Se7en fir	UrsusArctos	10/4/06 8:50 a.m.
To clarify my position...	Stuntmutt	10/4/06 9:18 a.m.
Re: To clarify my position...	Anton P. Nym (aka Steve)	10/4/06 9:53 a.m.
Re: To clarify my position...	A of T	10/4/06 11:54 a.m.
Re: To clarify my position...	Miguel Chavez	10/4/06 3:45 p.m.
Re: To clarify my position...	Anton P. Nym (aka Steve)	10/4/06 3:54 p.m.
Re: To clarify my position...	Blck	10/5/06 2:27 p.m.
Re: To clarify my position...try starcraft :p	vshields ash	10/6/06 4:25 a.m.
Re: To clarify my position...try starcraft :p	ShortRoundMcfly	10/6/06 7:05 p.m.
Re: To clarify my position...try starcraft :p	UrsusArctos	10/7/06 11:53 p.m.
Re: To clarify my position...try starcraft :p	Sparkamus	10/8/06 12:51 a.m.
Re: Bungie's role in Halogen shutdown	Miguel Chavez	10/4/06 9:03 a.m.
Re: Bungie's role in Halogen shutdown	Vlad3163	10/4/06 9:48 a.m.
Re: Bungie's role in Halogen shutdown	ShortRoundMcfly	10/4/06 12:58 p.m.
Re: Bungie's role in Halogen shutdown	Narcogen	10/4/06 9:02 p.m.
Re: Bungie didn't shut them down.	mercury	10/4/06 1:09 p.m.
Re: Halogen Beta?	Quikthnkr	10/4/06 1:37 p.m.
A Mod Developer's Take on the Situation	RedMonkey999	10/4/06 8:17 p.m.
Re: A Mod Developer's Take on the Situation	Sharkface217	10/4/06 8:47 p.m.
Re: A Mod Developer's Take on the Situation	The 'Loot	10/5/06 2:47 a.m.
Re: A Mod Developer's Take-meh...	vshields ash	10/6/06 4:42 a.m.