Two recent developments in the gaming industry have given me new hope for accountability in video game creation.

First of all, Eidos has transferred development of future Tomb Raider games from Core Design, who delivered the last installment of the series in an apparently extremely buggy and crappy state, to US-based Crystal Dynamics, who make the decent Legacy of Kain series of games. You'd think after 6 iterations of basically the same game, Core would have the formula nailed down, but apparently not. I would say it'd be a better idea to drop the series entirely and write it off as a sign of the times of the 90's, then let it die with as little dignity as it has, or let it simply live on in movie sequels.

The funny thing is, Eidos essentially said to Core Design, "Your new TR game was so crap that it hurt ticket sales of the new movie." I may not be totally familiar with media consumption patterns, but typically people, and especially the target market of teenage boys, are pretty likely to see a movie starring Angelina Jolie runing aorund and shooting stuff, even without having played that game, but hey, what do I know. They made a crap game, and so lost their license, good.

Also, 3DO filed for bankruptcy and is auctioning off their franchises. The reason they went out of business is because they haven't made a good game, as far as I can tell, ever. I've never played a good 3DO game. I would happily shell out 15 or 16 dollars to buy the Army Men license just so nobody ever makes another Army Men game ever.

Maybe if this happens enough, companies will stop cutting corners with QA and start making sure their games are actually good. Hopefully.