Originally posted by Agamon Yes, you're right. I'm in a bit in a tizzy from the news. Infogrammes did publish PoR2, UbiSoft designed it (well, SSI designed it, but then there were buyouts). And Interplay published the rest of those games, thorugh Black Isle or BioWare. My bad.
To be specific, because I'm anal like that, Interplay Published the Infinity Engine games and UBI Soft published POR2.
Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor (POR2) was developed by Stormfront Studios, with a lot of turnover in the development team.
The Infinity Engine was created by Bioware who developed the Baldur's Gate series (BG1, BG:TotSC, BG2, BG2:ToB). Torment, Icewind Dale, ID: Heart of Winter, and ID:HoW: Trials of the Luremaster were developed by Black Isle Studios (owned by Interplay). All of the Infinity Engine games were published by Interplay.
So the important part to remember is that Bioware created the Infinity Engine which the good games were based on and they're the ones developing NN. So it doesn't matter who publishes it as long as they (Infogrammes in this case) don't interfere in the development. Considering Biowares track record so far why would they.
So in closing three companies have the rights currently to publish electroinc D&D games Infogrames, Interplay, and UBI Soft (depending on their contract). Hopefully Infogrames will use the new deal for NN to foster good relations with Bioware so we can get good D&D PC games for the next 20 years with no worries.
As always check
http://desslock.gamespot.com/ if you want to know more about this or PC RPG's in general.