Hey PC...what happened to those Looking Glass guys?

[Darklance]

I was playing Thief 2 this weekend and I started wondering when Looking Glass Studios would churn out another great game. I went online and found that they had closed their doors due to money problems or some kind.

I remember you talking about some guy(s) in your game that worked for looking glass and I was just wondering what had happened to them? Have they relocated to different development studios? Thanks.

 

[Psionicist]

Dr Rictus and some more guy at the boards, IIRC.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Looking Glass Studios went out of business die to some bedly made business deals. How they managed to go under after Thief, Thief 2, and System Shock 2 remains strange to me, but it happened. Eidos, which owned Looking Glass, hired some of its people on directly to work on Thief 3, which is due out before Christmas this year.

 

[werebrownie]

what happened to looking glass was rather sad, and really a matter of bad timing.

eidos pumped a good deal of money into ion storm and daikatana. at the same time their overall sales took a nosedive. end result was that their credit rating went south.

looking glass ran into trouble and eidos was simply going to buy the studio outright and keep them going. unfortunately they were unable to find a bank that would finance the deal and thus looking glass closed its doors.

warren spector, who heads up the austin branch of ion storm, jumped in and hired as many of the looking glass guys as he could and last i heard that's where they were at.

 

[Darklance]

, hired some of its people on directly to work on Thief 3, which is due out before Christmas this year.

I believe that was left as a vague "In 2003"

 

[Piratecat]

Sagiro (mostly seen in his story hour), Dr. Rictus, Tor Bladebearer, Blackjack and KidCthulhu are all ex-LookingGlassers, and are either current or former players in my game. I'm a lucky man!

Sagiro is at Irrational Games (you can hear his voice in Freedom Force), Dr. Rictus is at Vicarious Visions making cool Gameboy games, and Tor is working for - err - big game company in Austin whose name I forget. Blackjack and KidC are out of the industry.

 

[Gizzard]

How they managed to go under after Thief, Thief 2, and System Shock 2 remains strange to me, but it happened

As I recall, they had a number of products in development that ended up being a bit expensive and never shipped. Before they closed up, they shopped their sim IP to Janes EA; I cant recall the exact details, but I do remember the Janes due dilegence team coming back, shugging and indicating that they were going to pass on the opportunity. Which probably indicates something about the state of the company at that point.

Sagiro (mostly seen in his story hour), Dr. Rictus, Tor Bladebearer, Blackjack and KidCthulhu are all ex-LookingGlassers...

Well, if any of you are Jim Berry, drop me a line. I did the AIs on the product you did before you went to Looking Glass. ;-)

 

[Fade]

I believe that was left as a vague "In 2003"

Latest data was 'second quarter 2003', but that may slip again.

Get all your Looking Glass info here!

 

[Dr_Rictus]

and Tor is working for - err - big game company in Austin whose name I forget.

Close. Tor is at Ensemble Studios (the makers of Age of Empires and the upcoming Age of Mythology), in Dallas.

Oh, and I am indeed at Vicarious Visions (plug, plug).

 

[hong]

Heh. I wonder if the ex-LGers on this here UNseboard are aware of the near-deific status their company and games enjoyed on csipg.*?


Hong "er, not that I'm a fanboy at all" Ooi