Wargaming buys new franchises

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Sources:

http://world-of-ru.livejournal.com/2360397.html

http://www.gamer.ru/news/sostoyalsya-auktsion-ip-prinadlezhavshih-atari

Unless this is some sort of hoax, Wargaming bought from the Atari franchise auction the rights for the Master of Orion franchise.

Oldschool players might remember the amazing Master of Orion and Master of Magic strategy games – for me, they were a part of my childhood. Master of Orion was a space turn-based exploration strategy game, pretty awesome in its day.

Another franchise bought by Wargaming is Total Annihilation and it is rumored that Wargaming paid much more for the MoI and that the price of the MoI franchise was over one million USD.

70 thoughts on “Wargaming buys new franchises”

  1. They bought Total Annihilation?
    Oh sweet mother of god no.

    It was a great game, Supreme Commander 1 was a great game, just leave it as it is.

      • And BTW they have father of TA and SupCom in their big family. So i dont see any problems if Wargaming would allow Chris to make new TA game. =)

    • Well at least WG has made strategy games before so it could be worse, look who bought Homeworld after all.

  3. What?! Total Annihilation?!

    Looks like we’re going to have SupCom in the future WG style *0*

    I’m already drooling of the thought of a modern RTS on SupCom style from WG.

  4. Well Chris Taylor works for Wargaming now, no? So I think he’s going to be finally making TA2!

    As for Master of Orion, one million seems kind of….low. Truly not a big expense for WG raking in the millions per month.

    • They’ve only got Chris Taylor. The rest of the TA team works at Uber these days and Planetary Annihilation is due out for the end of the year. It’s already in alpha. So I really doubt TA2 is on the menu. Maybe Dungeon Siege 4? Dungeon Siege with tanks!

    • 1 million i a lot to pay for just a name. They could have made a master of orion type of game for free instead, now they have to do it as they paid lots for the rights to do so.

  5. Chris Taylor and Supreme Commander, Total Annihilation, Master of Orion strategy game…

    I really hope we can expect an RTS game in the near future and as long as I get control over massive armies, I wouldn’t care in which time period the game plays (future like SupCom/TA or in WWII/Cold War similar to World in Conflict).

  6. they should focus on fixing issues with there current games before buying the rights to new ones

    • yeah, because all studios would work on one project…
      Those comments are just stupid…

  7. So that’s where Löwes’ prices go to.

    But they “don’t have” resources to implement such petty things as multi core support…

    How terrible… really…

    • Why should they? Multi-Core-Support would need massive redesign of the engine to work properly and is not really needed.

      • It is needed, the game could run better on laptops, as laptops often have multiple cores but low frequencies…

        • There is not much in WoT that would require a good CPU.

          If WoT is lagging for you, you might consider getting a better GPU.

          • Graphically WoT is not demanding if you do not try to overstretch it by your GPU standards, it is more of a CPU demanding for God knows why… If your single CPU is lacking then it doesn’t matter if you have Nvidia Titan on your board, because sometimes everything is not like they are thought to be. I have seen switches from 2 core to 4 core to 8 core, and the only difference was that with higher core the game ran smoother.

            There is kind of multicore support, but the core support is given to the ‘soon to come’ ( like never? ) HAVOC… So there is no multiCPU support. Only for something which could be done by GPU already… Visual stuff is only visual with minimal interaction from CPU, but if you recall everything the GPU has to calculate from CPU ( WoT at its best ) we have large scale CPU usage problem. Thus real multicore support is indeed needed.

            • I never get a single core maxed-out on a lowly Intel i3-2120 (one core is at 75% and the other at 25%, total CPU utilization around 50-60%). There’s little if any to be gained from splitting tasks into more threads, if that even possible with the current codebase.

            • For some reason there is no reply button for ferongr below me…

              Must answer myself then :D

              You run 3.3Ghz core, that is more than what I currently run and I can tell difference between say Intel and AMD too. It is quite dramatic despite being AMD fan… To the core speed issue, there are plenty of 1.6-2 Ghz laptops with 2 core 4 threads which would be happily equivalents of 2.4-3 Ghz two cored without threading with proper multicore support. I have ran the game with 2.9 dual and 2.66 quad setups. And 2.9 felt much better even thout upgraded graphics in between the two and even swapped them at times before full upgrade.

              So nope, your core is not lowly, it is actually good, but it is devalued by newer cores… the ones from 2-3 years back are actually the ones that are great ones with the ones we have now new being superb, so your core is atleast good one on the scale. There just is difference how people perceive their pieces… Building ‘top notch’ for 2k instead of good/great with less than 600… The difference is not that big and after few years the 2k has already become 1k worth and then it is down to 600… where the good/great was before, but their true distance is not that big anymore.

              There is need for multicore support as there is plenty machines which do not feature 4 cores, but only dual which are at 2-2.6ghz range which would ran very well with multicore support. Now they struggle as windows doesn’t have inherent core support… it locks things to one core due to games demanding it while debateble which is at fault… gaming company or windows.

              Also running stress on multiple cores increases life time of a processor by exponent… one can debate thout that when only one core fries you can still utilize the others, but I would still get new one instead. But mostly it decreases overall threshold when windows itself does something in the background ( reasons be many ) and due to lack of multicoring if a task is given by windows to that single core it becomes part of the calculating cue, while the game is simply bound to the one core it becomes struggling if it is on the verge of running WoT to beginning with.

              So were talking about machines which are defined by some ‘old’ but more than capable, if given chance by multicore support which have been begged from the time of alpha… Single core has been history over a decade ago, to utilize this would bring more happy customers as even more would change from struggling to reasonable play.

            • >windows doesn’t have inherent core support… it locks things to one core due to games demanding it

              If a program (e.g. game) uses multiple threads for different parts of it the Windows can and does schedule different threads on different cores. And this happens with WoT.

              >Also running stress on multiple cores increases life time of a processor by exponent…

              There is no literature on such a thing, and if there was, I’d know since I’m an electrical engineer. Seimiconductor aging is a very complicated thing. In any case your CPU is good to go for at least a decade even if you overclock. Loading only one core doesn’t accelerate aging, only exceeding TDP.

              Lastly, splitting computing load on different threads is no small undertaking, especially on an existing codebase. It could take 20 low-level C++ developers and a multitude of testers months or even a year to do it and make sure the code is at the same quality it originally was.

              I’d rather developers worked on new features (HAVOC for example) instead of engaging in a huge undertaking with dubious results.

            • Quite baffled to put it frankly.

              After ten years of going forward it is such an hard task to be achieved? Multicoring. I know that to existing system it is bit trickier, but didn’t quite think it involving so much work. I’d thout still say the benefit is there as there is plenty of those who are on the edge, but are still struggling. And for sure bottleneck for most is not on the GPU side… WoT can go cheap in terms of graphical.

              Anyhow I cannot argue about it being hard, but seems there is lack of interest in making the core system better, which is to blame windows for. If it could handle all processors as being one just giving the processor to decide how to divide the tasks across multiples the need for gaming industry doing that would vanish. God knows how much it would suck at first, but when done those 24-cored would already be on the market on double time.

              I would thout say that a processor running 10-15 years would increase with less stressing of single core as major core. It is just natural that less component is went under high stress the less it gets exhausted. The difference is something for sure, but how much is no concrete knowledge because there is no need for data of 10 year old processors running 10 more years if there would be main core switching involved.

              But I thank you for insight about all this. Cleared much of ‘of the feeling’ stuff to concrete.

          • It is not idiot who uses what he has. I would use laptop if it runs… and I wanted to play. Even if it is not as smooth it is still the same game. Maybe you have gotten your head high about what is called gaming rig versus casual for everyone… Laptop is good for everything, except high end gaming where it clearly loses, but on medicore, like WoT is, it is more than adequate.

            Kellomies, you should really stand out of your cloud you live on while you bash everything below you, it will come back to haunt you… or already has thus you have to boost yourself to feel equal. *trollface*

  8. Master of Orion IV…
    As much as I would want that (I still play MoO2 once a month) I can’t see
    a tbs work well with today’s CoD/SC/Diablo playerbase.

    Tbs are slow and require tons of thought and even with hours of preparation and thinking everything
    through, a single counter move can throw your plan into chaos.
    Sounds great to me, but most players nowadays won’t like that…

    Then again Civilization seems to be doing well, so why shouldn’t MoO?

  10. Gas Powered Games + Total Annihilation licence…

    sounds good, but WG as publisher etc. HELL NO

    • I fail to see the problem.

      Though the one at your end seems obvious enough.

  11. I cannot tell you how much of my life I lost to Master of Orion, I think I still have the disc’s around here somewhere…

  12. Buying Total Annihilation makes me think they want to compete against EA with their Command and Conquer free RTS game, or whatever the fuck it was called. Knowing how EA destroys it’s franchises, id say Wargaming has a good chance to win.

  13. Coincidentally, I was browsing through my original MoM rulebooks a week back or so. A fun game, but rather slow and limited at times. My fav char was Kali.

    • me again

      THQ -> Supreme Commander
      ATARI -> TA (its also to buy for 250.000 $)

  15. OMG TA was my .. no .. is my all time favorite game ! Oh i loved the epic Zippo mass rushes or Phoenix bomber raids :P Oh and, shooting down planes with the big bertha was super epic :P

  17. I wonder if they are going to get the right to make new Red Alert games. (Would be awesome to see one that is in the WW2 era) I bet it’s better in their hands than in those of EA.