Argonaut Games goes into administration - Jez San resigns

Jesus feck christ. This is awful news.

While I realise that Argonaut of dished out some sub-standard titles recently, the developer has been responsible for some of gaming's greatest moments, not least the Super FX powered Starfox.

I sincerely hope there's a switched-on business angel out there to save this legendary outfit from the trash heap.

I have recently played the Catwoman game on PS2, if they were responsible for that game, it's no wonder no-one has faith in them.

Just look at the awful title screen!


The game couldn't even get a decent picture of Halle Berry for the first screen!!

It is a shame that Argonaut seem like they are going under, but some recent games weren't up to their old standards.

daymn, I just mentioned in another post the growing problem of UK developers closing down, and now here we are.

I'm sure there are more factor's contributing to their demise, but just because a well respected developer produces 2 recent duff games, that's it ? you're out ??
This really does seem like an unsustainable industry when it comes to small developers, but what can be done to stop this trend ? no small developer can be sure they wont have one crappy title every now and again, or a title that is good but just doesn't sell.

Is this the begining of the end for small game devs ?
sure, some may be doing very well, but for how long ??

Like old Freddy Mercury used to say ''Another one bites the dust''.

It's a shame to see Argonaut of all people, get into this trouble spot. I feel that things are only gonna get worse unless something else is done to stop it.

The yet ironic twist in this tale is that if Argonaut are saved from the abyss, it will most likely be someone like EA who will swallow them up on the cheap.This is like your worst case scenario since I'm sure no one wants to see these large companies get any bigger.

Anyway cheers for your work on Starfox and all the best for the future.

Hope all those leaving can start out again in some way or another. Good luck.

I think he meant "pillow"




It is. Especially after they have weathered storms in the past. A few years ago, they were producing the Tank Girl game, and when the film tanked, their publisher pulled the plug.

But then signing up to produce Catwoman seems like they are either a sucker for girl-superhero movie conversions, or that they have REALLY bad choice in licences.

I haven't played Catwoman, but there's no reason why it couldn't have been a good game - and done correctly a Tank Girl game would have rocked full on!



But what would stop it?

Our fate is now in the hands of the free market. And without a free press to temper its excesses (software publishers throw their weight around, pull their advertising, refuse to give any information unless they get the coverage they want, when they want - and sometimes unless they get the review scores they want) the free market is a cruel mistress.

Dude, I don't know about Halle! But this is the picture they should have used:

Please speak for yourself with your pinko communist assumptions.

I for one would like to see the computer games industry managed and run by just one corporation, as long as I owned shares, and maybe a nice cosy non-executive directorship. And as long as they pay taxes to America. But then, I dream of a time when everyone in the world pays taxes to America. Not merely because we have invaded them, and established a puppet government, because we might not be able to get away with that everywhere. But also because we have forced them to privatise their infrastructure and sell it off at bargain basement prices to American companies.

I see this future for the computer games Industry. Sony and Electronic Arts will hoover up the small companies. Then Microsoft will buy Electronic Arts.

Then Microsoft and Sony will build giant robots that shoot lasers out of their eyes. And they will battle it out in the streets of Seatlle and Tokyo for global computer games dominance.

If Microsoft wins, we'll all (well, mainly just poor people, actually) be given the opporunity to pay for everything we use (including the air we breathe) on a pay per use basis. Our consumption will be monitored by an Xbox built into a huge rucksack that we all have to wear at all times. Especially during sex, where you will be charged per stroke - early finishers will suddenly become the lovers of choice...

If Sony wins, things wil be pretty much the same, but the monitoring technology will be ultr

The crazy bint prolly didn't want to have her mush plaster all over a videe-o game*, so the artists had to come up with a similar-but-not-Halle Catwoman.

I recall there being a bout of this following Arnie's "likeness" being used in the (IIRC) awful torso-based beat 'em up "Red Heat" (anyone played this and wanna give us a write up?)

*but it's alright to be shagged variously by Billy Bob Thornton and his monster balls.

Dude, I may be wrong. But I suspect it was not Ms Berry's face, and the likeness of same, to which Van Helsing was referring.

Instead, I believe he was referring to her most fine physique, which is rendered deformed and hideous by those same artists.

I've never been a fan of the woman, but I have to admit, in Catwoman... she fine!

About time too. this company was run by assholes. they kept on promising shareholders that they would only spend money on developing games where a publisher had already been secured, and then pissed away millions on badly thought out in-house IP with no backing. Malice, for example, was dismal and cost millions.

Now several thousand shareholders (mostly pension funds) have lost their money, and numerous developers have lost their jobs, because Jez San treated Argonaut like a hobby, not a business.

ouch!!! sounds like we have a former employee or invester in our midst

let it out dude ... dont keep it pent up. we wanna see all that dirty laundry...

Dude, don't be a c&nt.



Aw, Jez slept with your girlfriend did he? What company did you start and bring to prominence? What game (Better than Starfox) did you write?



Shareholders are f**king scum. They are the whinging cowards of the capitalist system. They put the suck in success, leeching of someone elses talent and entrepreneurialism.



Oh, don't try that s**t. Making out like it's all little old ladies and kindly white-haired gentlemen who have lost their pensions. Firstly, badly managed pensions funds are a f**king con that are going to cost most people their "golden years" as they have to work to 70 years old. Plus, those people paid big money Porsche driving investment bankers and "I'm doing nicely even though you're dying of hypothermia in your freezing council flats" pension companies to manage their funds.

The value of investments can go up as well as down...people shouldn't invest what they can't afford to lose. But fund managers and investment banks are always looking for a "bigger fool".

That picture makes my pee-pee feel funny.

I apologise for saying "about time too" - that was not fair on the employees who will be made redundant. Sorry.

But otherwise get real - the quoted development sector in this country is constantly asking for more pension fund backing with no care thought as to whether they'll make a decent return.

10 years ago the UK was level with Japan and the US as a games developing nation. incompetent management who wouldn't know a cash flow if it bit them on the arse have succeeded in almost entirely destroying the uk industry.

I think people who write games out of love are tops, but they should do so with their own money, or that of a similarly motivated backer. In the UK over the last few years we have had a number of quoted developers take a flyer with other peoples money while lying about the risks involved in order to fund what is in effect their hobby.

And just to rub salt into the wound the worst perpetrators of this dont even produce decent games, most of it is copycat genre rubbish based on ropey licensing deals.

It is most typically the quoted sector who make the least risky, least innovative games.

Enfatuated (or obliged) as they are with shareholder value, they are hamstrung when risk taking is involved.

Quoted companies may be good for fund managers and investors, but very often, they suck for gamers and gaming.

They have created an industry where small individual, bold and creative companies find it more and more difficult to survive. It happened first in movies- incidentally the industry that games makers have most penis envy for, and then in music. The mainstream providers in these markets care little for the vaguaries of individual taste, and much more for the economies of scale afforded by stack-it-high, sell-it-cheap dross.

In the "good old days" where a small company could develop and self publish (or was published by an idealistic indiependent company) they reached the point where they were rich enough to take a few risks, and as a consequence issue a few unprofitable games. Now risking shareholders money is a big no-no, so creativity and innovation have disappeared under a deluge of me-too games and sports sequels.

@almondVanHelsing