Январь 2010 Февраль 2010 Март 2010 Апрель 2010 Май 2010
Июнь 2010
Июль 2010 Август 2010
Сентябрь 2010
Октябрь 2010
Ноябрь 2010
Декабрь 2010
Январь 2011
Февраль 2011 Март 2011 Апрель 2011 Май 2011 Июнь 2011 Июль 2011 Август 2011
Сентябрь 2011
Октябрь 2011 Ноябрь 2011 Декабрь 2011 Январь 2012 Февраль 2012 Март 2012 Апрель 2012 Май 2012 Июнь 2012 Июль 2012 Август 2012 Сентябрь 2012 Октябрь 2012 Ноябрь 2012 Декабрь 2012 Январь 2013 Февраль 2013 Март 2013 Апрель 2013 Май 2013 Июнь 2013 Июль 2013 Август 2013 Сентябрь 2013 Октябрь 2013 Ноябрь 2013 Декабрь 2013 Январь 2014 Февраль 2014
Март 2014
Апрель 2014 Май 2014 Июнь 2014 Июль 2014 Август 2014 Сентябрь 2014 Октябрь 2014 Ноябрь 2014 Декабрь 2014 Январь 2015 Февраль 2015 Март 2015 Апрель 2015 Май 2015 Июнь 2015 Июль 2015 Август 2015 Сентябрь 2015 Октябрь 2015 Ноябрь 2015 Декабрь 2015 Январь 2016 Февраль 2016 Март 2016 Апрель 2016 Май 2016 Июнь 2016 Июль 2016 Август 2016 Сентябрь 2016 Октябрь 2016 Ноябрь 2016 Декабрь 2016 Январь 2017 Февраль 2017 Март 2017 Апрель 2017 Май 2017
Июнь 2017
Июль 2017
Август 2017 Сентябрь 2017 Октябрь 2017 Ноябрь 2017 Декабрь 2017 Январь 2018 Февраль 2018 Март 2018 Апрель 2018 Май 2018 Июнь 2018 Июль 2018 Август 2018 Сентябрь 2018 Октябрь 2018 Ноябрь 2018 Декабрь 2018 Январь 2019
Февраль 2019
Март 2019 Апрель 2019 Май 2019 Июнь 2019 Июль 2019 Август 2019 Сентябрь 2019 Октябрь 2019 Ноябрь 2019 Декабрь 2019 Январь 2020
Февраль 2020
Март 2020 Апрель 2020 Май 2020 Июнь 2020 Июль 2020 Август 2020 Сентябрь 2020 Октябрь 2020 Ноябрь 2020 Декабрь 2020 Январь 2021 Февраль 2021 Март 2021 Апрель 2021 Май 2021 Июнь 2021 Июль 2021 Август 2021 Сентябрь 2021 Октябрь 2021 Ноябрь 2021 Декабрь 2021 Январь 2022 Февраль 2022 Март 2022 Апрель 2022 Май 2022 Июнь 2022 Июль 2022 Август 2022 Сентябрь 2022 Октябрь 2022 Ноябрь 2022 Декабрь 2022 Январь 2023 Февраль 2023 Март 2023 Апрель 2023 Май 2023 Июнь 2023 Июль 2023 Август 2023 Сентябрь 2023 Октябрь 2023 Ноябрь 2023 Декабрь 2023 Январь 2024 Февраль 2024 Март 2024 Апрель 2024 Май 2024 Июнь 2024 Июль 2024 Август 2024 Сентябрь 2024 Октябрь 2024 Ноябрь 2024 Декабрь 2024
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28
29
30
31
Game News |

After 20 years of patience and negotiations, RPG veteran Brian Fargo managed to buy back a lost haul of memorabilia from Fallout, Baldur's Gate, and more: 'It was like a very exciting version of Storage Wars'

Christmas came early this year for Interplay co-founder and inXile Entertainment studio head Brian Fargo. In a series of tweets last month on X, "The Everything App," Fargo showed off industry sales awards and other Interplay goodies he had recently re-acquired. Over email, Fargo explained to me how they had left his possession in the first place, and the long march to get them back.

First though: The trove itself. Most of the items Fargo showed off were sales awards for various Interplay games from the Software Publishers Association (now the Software and Information Industry Association) of "Don't Copy that Floppy" fame. The OG Baldur's Gate plaque, meanwhile, came from the Consumer Products Council, a decidedly less musical industry body.

Image 1 of 4

(Image credit: Brian Fargo)
Image 2 of 4

(Image credit: Brian Fargo)
Image 3 of 4

(Image credit: Brian Fargo)
Image 4 of 4

(Image credit: Brian Fargo)

As Fargo pointed out on Twitter, those sales numbers definitely seem quaint in comparison to modern blowouts like Black Myth: Wukong's staggering 10 million units in one week: "Back in the day, you'd get an award for selling 50 or 100,000 units," Fargo wrote. "Now it's the end of your career."

There are two outliers in the pictures Fargo shared: A Fallout 3 poster from after Bethesda took over the series, and a mammoth, six foot-tall poster of Baldur's Gate 1 baddie Sarevok⁠—he should also look familiar to any new school kiddies who only checked out the third game. That Sarevok is definitely the piece of the collection that earned my gaming tchotchke envy, but I am once again reminded that a large part of Baldur's Gate 1's plot revolves around the people of the titular city wanting this clearly evil spiky armor guy to be mayor. Democracy has its flaws.

"When I left Interplay [in 2002] I was not able to take many things with me, they were the property of the company," Fargo told me over email. "That's just how it works sometimes but obviously I had an emotional attachment to the memorabilia and knew that the current owner did not.

"It's never easy when such a corporate split happens, so I knew I'd have to wait a decade-plus for emotions to reduce, so I didn't even start asking about acquiring the things in the warehouse until around 10 years ago."

After that thaw, Fargo said it took another decade of "asking, cajoling, and humoring" Interplay CEO Hervé Caen to let him buy back the merchandise. "Finally we met, agreed on a price and then it took another 3 months! I was very happy when I finally got them as you might expect.

"It was like a VERY exciting version of Storage Wars. I only knew partially what was in there."

As for Fargo's favorite piece of the collection, the Fallout sales award from the SPA looms large, but he has a soft spot for the awards for older, less-remembered games like Battle Chess and Castles that were "critical to [Interplay's] survival."

"There were several times in the history of Interplay in which the company would have gone under had the game not succeeded," Fargo recalled. "Battle Chess was our first published game in which we financed the development, manufacturing, and marketing, all chips were on the table. Castles was the same except in terms of finance risk, but it represented our first game for which we went direct to retail (Battle Chess was distributed by Activision).

Image 1 of 3

(Image credit: Brian Fargo)
Image 2 of 3

(Image credit: Brian Fargo)
Image 3 of 3

(Image credit: Brian Fargo)

"Activision was going bankrupt at the time and could not pay the money owed to us, so we were back in a perilous position, and to make matters worse, retailers were making us give them credit for inventory for games that Activision didn’t pay us for, so it was a double hit. A very scary time."

There are still a few lost treasures from Interplay that Fargo hopes to find: First are any of the clay sculpts used for Fallout's "Talking Head" NPCs. The models by Scott Rodenhizer were posed and digitized to make the key frames of sprites, a rendering style reminiscent of stop-motion animation that many other '90s games (including Doom and Donkey Kong Country) experimented with before the advent of full 3D graphics.

"The other thing that I tried to acquire were the design and vision documents from the games," Fargo said. "That would have been a nice insightful look into the thought genesis of the classic Interplay games."



Читайте также

Ubisoft had an absolutely dire 2024 and desperately needs a win

The biggest gaming controversies of 2024

Monster Hunter: Outlanders стала ближе к релизу




Game24.pro — паблик игровых новостей в календарном формате на основе технологичной новостной информационно-поисковой системы с элементами искусственного интеллекта, гео-отбора и возможностью мгновенной публикации авторского контента в режиме Free Public. Game24.pro — ваши Game News сегодня и сейчас в Вашем городе.

Опубликовать свою новость, реплику, комментарий, анонс и т.д. можно мгновенно — здесь.


Персональные новости

Филиал № 4 ОСФР по Москве и Московской области информирует: Социальный фонд упрощает работодателям возмещение затрат на охрану труда

Филиал № 4 ОСФР по Москве и Московской области информирует: Свыше 110 уроков пенсионной грамотности провели сотрудники Отделения СФР по Москве и Московской области

В Москве и Московской области жилищные условия за счет материнского капитала улучшили свыше 537,8 тысячи семей

Филиал № 4 ОСФР по Москве и Московской области информирует: Социальный фонд упрощает работодателям возмещение затрат на охрану труда