cyan-worlds posts

There's more news today of game developers losing their jobs. Today the word got out that the Spokane-based developed Cyan Worlds, best known for their Myst series of adventure games, laid off nearly 50 workers in its QA division. Cyan Worlds had been testing games for Gamecock Media but with their recent acquisition by Southpeak Games apparently also meant that those games would no longer be tested at Cyan.

Cyan has already had issues this year as its MMO Myst Online was shut down by its online publisher Gametap. According to the article at the Spokane-based Spokesman Review, Cyan is trying to make deals with individual game developers to test their games as a way to keep revenues going. They also have a new game concept of their own that they are shopping around to various publishers.

[Via Gamasutra]

Myst Online: Uru Live has had a troubled life. First released by Ubisoft, then canceled, revived as a community project, revived under GameTap, and then canceled again. Where does this lead? Well, straight back to the community project stage, it would seem. Cyan Worlds and, more specifically, Rand Miller told the Spokesman Review that they have entered into a deal with GameTap to allow the game to be worked on by the community once again. This is great news for those players who have missed the wondrous D'ni exploration or didn't get a chance to experience the adventure gaming splendor.

There are a large number of MMO games that have stayed online even after they lose most of their audience. However there are also a number of games that completely shut down their operations; The Sims Online, Earth and Beyond, Motor City Online . . . and those are just the ones from Electronic Arts. 1Up.com has an interesting feature story on how the developers and the community of shut down MMO games deal with the aftermath.

The article focuses on three now shut down titles; one is the Cyan Worlds developed game Myst Online: Uru Live which has actually died twice; once as part of an online beta for the single player game Uru: Ages Beyond Myst and later as its own product via the game download service Gametap. Despite a number of loyal players, Gametap decided to shut down Myst Online just last April and the article quotes Cyan founder Rand Miller as saying, " I don't want to be part of the game that wouldn't die. But at the same time, we've grown to love this thing."

Another game featured in the article is the Netdevil developed car combat game Auto Assault. Its publisher NCsoft shut down the servers in August 2007, just over a year after it launched, but a group of ex-Auto Assault players are trying to develop their own similar effort called Apokalypsos. Turbine's fantasy MMO Asheron's Call 2 still has its fans two years after its shutdown; according to a Turbine team member they get petitions from ex-players trying to revive the game. It appears that a select few don't want to let go of their passions and move on. The question is; is that healthy or not?

Cyan Worlds hit the mother lode with their release of their CD-Rom adventure game Myst back in 1993. The new storage format for PC games was perfect for Myst; its rich art style resonated with gamers at the time and made the original Myst the best selling PC game of all time with over 6 million copies sold (It has since been eclipsed by a number of other games like Half-Life, The Sims and World of Warcraft). Cyan and other developers created several sequels and spin-offs from the game but never achieved the success the original title received.

Now comes word that a group of independent film makers called the Mysteria Film Group are planning to create a Myst movie, with the full approval of Cyan Worlds. Indeed the movie's official web site has a note from Cyan Worlds' co-founder Rand Miller who states that he was so impressed with the film maker's presentation that Cyan decided to give them the green light, He added, " We suddenly realized that making a Myst movie was not about Hollywood and studios and cigars and agents. It was about passion."

To be clear, the Mysteria Film Group is not a massively funded enterprise but a group of enthusiastic folks who have been working on this project off and on for about four years (the game's web site has the trial and tribulations of the group's day to day tasks, including dental work). The movie's storyline is actually based on a series of Myst novels that were first published in the 1990s. Obviously with these kinds of efforts it's hard to say if this will actually come to pass (heck, even major Hollywood game-to-movie properties can get canned) but we admire that this group is pressing on with few resources to make their plans come true.