Palladium messes up big time

[Fellfrosch]

Knowing Palladium as I do, here's my best guess: Nokia offered them the best "no-risk" deal, essentially offering to bear the full cost of development and distribution (and failure) while still cutting Palladium in on the profits. Nokia is the most desperate platform by quite a wide margin, so they probably see this as a last-ditch chance to build a player base and save themselves. From what I hear, Nokia's entire E3 presentation lived and died with Rifts.

[Spriggan]

Several Palladium staff members over on their forums aslo pointed out that even if the game dosen't take off as well as it could (becasue it's on the N-Gage) that their primary goal has allready been acheived, and that is bringing a lot of attention to Palladium and hopefuly that will bring more developers to Palladiums door (and willing to agree to Kevins terms).  Also I think this is the start of building up intrest in RIFTS for the movie.

[Fellfrosch]

Almost certainly--and since the movie is "optioned" but not officially "in production," they might be using the game as a way of convincing the movie guys that they're serious about promoting their franchise. I just hope the game does better than the CCG, or Siembieda might never stick his toe in the product spinoff waters again.

[Spriggan]

You just made me think of somethign Fell, maybe one of the reason Kevin went with Nokia is that since there's a smaller market that has the N-Gage then other consoles the RIFTS game dosen't have to sell a lot of units to be considered a sucess.  It's good for the ego and for pointing out the popularity of the title.

[Fellfrosch]

Ah, very likely. I imagine he'll get the game out, wait for it to be as rousing a success as is possible on the N-Gage, and then sell the rights to port it onto other platforms.

[Fellfrosch]

Another interview, which confirms a lot of what we thought: Nokia impressed Siembieda by being Rifts fans, not by showing any kind of realistic business model or player base. This is actually a pretty good interview, though, despite dodging some very hard questions toward the end.

http://forums.palladium-megaverse.com/viewtopic.php?t=21267

[Spriggan]

But you're a micro-manager! You'd never let anyone else do anything unless you did it yourself!

Where'd you get that nonsense?

Online.

Well, according to the people online, I don't know anything about what's online, because I'm never online. So there.

that made me laugh

Just FYI that interview Fell posted (that I'm quoteing from) is Kevin interviewing himself.

[42]

Wow, I think they should be able to name a whole new nuerosis based on Kevin Sembienda. They should call it the Palladium syndrom or something like that.

[Spriggan]

I'm actualy reading a post on RPG.net (shutters) where Kevin actualy responds to a thread about palladium (and it was confirmed by many ex and current palladium emploies to be him) where KS and Bill Coffin trade blows at each other.

I did learn that KS dosne't use computers for layout of the books, he does them all by hand.

[42]

I shouldn't be surprised, palladium books look like they were laid out by hand. It makes me wonder if Kevin S. is trying to travel back in time by acting as antiquated as possible.

[Spriggan]

Well people that hate palladium's layout claim so.  But his reason for doing it is becasue he's very fast at doing it that way.  

[42]

I guess if you really suck with a computer, then the old way of laying things out would be faster, otherwise laying things out without a computer takes FOREVER. It adds like a gazillion steps.

Hence, chock that up to another concern as to why a Palladium-based video game is going to bite.

[Spriggan]

Well I don't think that's a fair statment 42.  Just because that's the way he prefers to do it doesn't mean he's computer illerate or that the game will suck.  I know you don't like the layouts and that we've allready had this conversation in other threads and it's not nessacery to keep on beating a dead horse.  Kevin isn't codeing the game or devloping it, he's makeing sure the game have the "feel" of rifts that's all.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

must... refrain.. from... biting... sarcasm.....

[Fellfrosch]

Why would you want to bite sarcasm?