Stainless Steel Studios Stops
In what is a shocking piece of Thanksgiving news, strategy game developer Stainless Steel Studios is no more. There isn't a lot of information on the whys and wherefores. Their main site is down so there is no official announcement or press release. The above linked forum suggests that the heavily promoted and very promising Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War is near completion but, at the moment, doesn't have a publisher to fund the final stage of development.
Daniel Higgins posts that many in the company are already moving on to greener pastures, which suggests that the collapse wasn't a complete surprise to everyone. Just the gamers, it seems.
SSS has had a mixed legacy to this point. Their first big title, Empire Earth, was named Gamespy's game of the year when it came out, but it never achieved the gamer following or respect that other RTS games did. It is never referred to as a seminal title in the field. Their second effort, Empires: Dawn of the Modern World, was narrower in focus than Empire Earth but was, in my opinion, a better game.
It's too soon to analyze what went wrong. The fact that SSS did not work on either the expansion or sequel to Empire Earth always struck me as peculiar. Tilted Mill used a Stainless Steel engine for Children of the Nile, so their technical skills were in some demand.
The action-RTS plan for Rise and Fall is an intriguing twist on a sub-genre that could use a radical reinvention beyond issues of physics and 3D art. I do hope that somebody can release it and we can see the final result of many years of hard work.
Good luck to all the Stainless Steel employees. I hope you all find good jobs doing what you love to do.
Daniel Higgins posts that many in the company are already moving on to greener pastures, which suggests that the collapse wasn't a complete surprise to everyone. Just the gamers, it seems.
SSS has had a mixed legacy to this point. Their first big title, Empire Earth, was named Gamespy's game of the year when it came out, but it never achieved the gamer following or respect that other RTS games did. It is never referred to as a seminal title in the field. Their second effort, Empires: Dawn of the Modern World, was narrower in focus than Empire Earth but was, in my opinion, a better game.
It's too soon to analyze what went wrong. The fact that SSS did not work on either the expansion or sequel to Empire Earth always struck me as peculiar. Tilted Mill used a Stainless Steel engine for Children of the Nile, so their technical skills were in some demand.
The action-RTS plan for Rise and Fall is an intriguing twist on a sub-genre that could use a radical reinvention beyond issues of physics and 3D art. I do hope that somebody can release it and we can see the final result of many years of hard work.
Good luck to all the Stainless Steel employees. I hope you all find good jobs doing what you love to do.
posted by Troy Goodfellow at 11/27/2005 01:07:00 PM
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