Now it appears that the just released expansion pack to the game, Gothic 3: Forgotten Gods, was also shipped with a number of issues that even a couple of patches have yet to solve. The game's official message board has posted up a statement from JoWood executive producer Michael Kairat who basically apologies about the game's release. The expansion was developed by India based Trine Game Studios. Yet another patch is expected to be released soon that hopefully will fix some of the problems.
The statement also says that JoWood plans not to have the same thing happen again for the next full game in the series, Arcania: A Gothic Tale, that's being developed by Spellbound. JoWood plans to have a beta release of the game before it's scheduled ship date of late 2009.
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Demanding Publisher (JoWood) + Unproven Developer (Trine) = Disasterous release. I can already bet this is what has happened, JoWood has a falling out with Piranha Bytes over low sales. Fingers are pointed both ways and it gets personal. The go shopping for a new developer and Trine promises them the moon. They have not developed anything close to this size of a game (mostly mobile games from what I saw) and the engine gives them real problems (Piranha Bytes is a top notch dev and they had issues). JoWood is uncompromising on the release date and the push this unfinished product out. Then because SpellBound (Gothic 4) already have experience patching Gothic 3 and have a decent grasp of the engine, they are brought in to patch the failed expansion. They will fix it to a manageable point but they won't be able to address some major overhauls the engine needed.
I liked Gothic 3 and I though with more time it would have been great. I have to say at this point shame on you JoWood for your business practices and that you need to give the developers you work for the time they need or you will never get me to buy one of your games again. My constructive recommendation for you is to balance your business/financing arm that determines release dates with a real gamer/programmer that takes great pride in the product itself. Give them equal sway and if they work as a team you will have outstanding products because you have such talented developers.Posted at 3:41PM on Nov 29th 2008 by Jason