Is Stargate Worlds, the highly anticipated massively multiplayer online role-playing game set in the Stargate universe, ever going to make it to store shelves?
This week GateWorld asked Stargate executive producer Brad Wright about the current status of the game — and the franchise’s lack of a title in the multi-billion dollar video game industry. (Wright and fellow Stargate executive producer Robert C. Cooper have been serving as creative consultants on the title.)
“We don’t know,” Wright told GateWorld, regarding the future of Stargate Worlds. “It’s a shame. If it doesn’t happen — and, let’s be honest, it should be happening now if it was happening. It’s a shame. It’s a terrible shame.
“They had an opportunity and they got our support, and they obviously had significant funding, and it didn’t happen. It’s kind of a drag for the fans and the time that we invested — what little of it there really was, in comparison to what they did — was still a shame that it was wasted, because it should have happened.”
Stargate Worlds hit financial trouble last year, and according to reports was unable to pay its employees for several months. The anonymous Web site days-since-cheyenne-mountain-employees-have-been-paid.com was taken offline within the last few weeks. The company was seeking new investors when that story broke — an effort which may have faced even greater hurdles when the economy went south in the fall.
Meanwhile, the game’s production studio, Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, is being sued by a data center business called IO Capital Princess for an unpaid account, according to the Arizona Business Gazette.
Now fans are wondering if the studio will be able to finance the game to its completion, when it can finally see some income from customers.
The official status of Stargate Worlds, according to Cheyenne Mountain, is that the game is still development and will be released as planned. But the fact that it is now April of 2009 and the game is not out — nor has any firm release window been announced — is troubling. The game’s official Web site, however, continues to remain silent on the studio’s financial problems and the widespread concern over the game’s fate.
Should the game fail to reach the market, it will be the second major Stargate video game title to suffer such a fate. Stargate SG-1: The Alliance was in production by Australian developer Perception, but canned in 2005 following a dispute with the publisher over its quality at the beta stage (story). The cast of SG-1 had even lent their voices to that title.
“Now MGM is back in a position where they don’t have a product in that marketplace that they should,” Wright said. “There should be a shiny Stargate game on the shelves right now and there isn’t, and it’s wrong.”
I want Stargate Worlds! >< But I would prefer it as a PS3 or 360 game, it’d be better. ;) But I would still play the online one. :P
I was afraid of this. This is what happens when they pick morons to make games. The first company was incompetent the second was too ambitious. An MMO was never a good idea, Especially for a first game.
P.S. Consoles are crap.
I was affraid this would happen but i was also looking forward to Alliance far more than worlds, i would much much prefer a next gen console game to a PC game. Halo Game and Stargate universe combined would be perfect, in fact i would prefer that to stargate universe.
I was beta testing an MMO game last fall. It was franchise piece as well, but I don’t think it would have been very appealing to a mass audience, especially in the state it was in. For something that had an opportunity to have a broader appeal like LotRO, it appeared to be written on, I will say, an ‘odd’ choice for an MMO game engine. Like someone was trying to turn a first person shooter into an MMO. Would have been fine for a title called “Timmy’s Afterschool Fiesta” or “GTA 29” or some other such nonsense, but not… Read more »
Come on MGM! Either buy CME out or give it to a more experienced developer and keep what they have so far.
I can’t say much(NDA), I was helping on this project and have been concerned that i have not heard anything asking for our group to come back to finish what we started. I cannot say much more, but it seemed to me that the development does know what they are doing, they are good folk and are trying hard. I am unsure of what the problem actually is like everyone else but you can rest assured that the developers will release this if it can be released. I am going to write them a letter offering to work for free.… Read more »
Unless Stargate Universe is as big a hit as Battlestar Galactica was, which seems unlikely to me, I think Stargate Worlds is our last hope for a major video game set in the Stargate universe.
Whats sad is the fact that this game looked so promising, but every time you turned around you heard the developers out at conferences talking about the future of gaming and a bunch of stuff that seemed more like vacationing than it did work. We saw them appear at more “conferences” about the gaming industry than we did actaul content from the game. I just feel like they thought it was a big party and then were shocked when the money ran out.
Yea the game look promising but at lease we had one Stargate console game even though it was not based on SG1. Anyone remember “Stargate” for the SNES/SEGA circa 1995. See http://tiny.cc/FRB9v for a refresher.
I was in on the Beta testing and saw this coming. To me the game did not look promising, clumsy controls and boring combat mechanics. They stated that they didn’t want it to be a FPS … possible the worst idea they had. Stargate is custom made for a great FPS. It could be the next in line of the FPS sub-genre of tactical squad based game play to follow the lines of Rainbow Six and SWAT games, I think those game mechanics would fit the established Stargate universe perfectly. Think of an empire building game, you start out as… Read more »
Good, I don’t think Stargate should go into videogames.
I still freaking want Stargate SG-1 – The Alliance! It’s a shame all this awesome game work goes to waste. It all looks so awesome. Hopefully Stargate Worlds will come out or some other game will come out and be a bazillion times more awesome.
I believe the Stargate Franchise should venture into the video game entertainment. If they made one and it actually hit retail shelves and if it was even close in comparison to todays top games, that game would sell itself, no problem. Also in my opinion stay away from single platform releases. There nothing but a sure failure unless you have that fan support(like Halo for 360 and Killzone for ps3), which I think is growing but no where near where it needs to be to have one of these kinds of games to be released just for PC.
Wright and Cooper have no place to talk about what other’s have been unable to produce when they let down SGA fans for the sake for some “new, shiney” SGU idea. I’m glad there’s still Stargate-something in the world today, but those 2 producers never thought of the SGA series as the same kind of investment as SG1. It is one thing to comment on the shame of how 2 corporations can’t see eye to eye enough to get a worthwhile project completed, but the real shame is when you don’t put forth your best production values by ensuring that… Read more »
WTF! I am getting real sick & tired of this crap from companies that are run by idiots! I am still upset when the Babylon 5 game never materialized after its hype & very long development. Then SciFi Channel in their infinite wisdom canceled SG-1 and had to revert to making The Ark of Truth & Continuum to tie up series lose ends. (Both were outstanding pictures BTW). Then Stargare: The Alliance was given to us all to drool over and wait endlessly for so the developer could run it into the ground and ruin that for us, then we… Read more »
I think some people are looking over a keyword in the story said by Brad and thats “We don’t know,” which basicly means nearly everything said is speculation on his part as he is not working for CME he doesnt know. All he has said is what we hear in the news. Anyway most of us know SGW is delayed
I would also like to see this be completed, but with the economy tanking it has had a bad effect on everything. Working in the game industry and watching companies fold up left and right. Everyone has missed the point, Firesky is trying to get this done when everyone is freaking out and closing the “purse strings” on anything that isn’t making money NOW. The company is still here, a bright spot in all this as it means there is still hope of the game’s release. These guys are fans too, they want this to happen as much as everyone… Read more »