SNAFU: “Situation Normal All F^%*ed Up”, originally a military term now used to denote when something has gone horribly wrong.
John Romero’s about to make you his bitch. At least that’s what early advertisements for Ion Storm’s upcoming shooter Daikatana said. John Romero is one of the co-founders of iD Software and had worked on games like Doom and Quake. Eventually he co-founded another studio called Ion Storm. It is there that he began the development of Daikatana.
Revolution in just 7 months
The studio was financed by Eidos. At the top floor of a Dallas, Texas skyscraper the studio was lavishly furnished and filled with a rookie team. The plan was to create a revolutionary first person shooter, and do so in just seven months. Immediately upon hearing such promises some smart people at Eidos should have realized that this just couldn’t happen without an experienced team. Instead Eidos invested tens of millions of dollars into the studio and rode the hype bandwagon.
Revolution gets an upgrade
As the game developed, iD Software had released Quake 2, making Daikatana immediately technologically inferior. So Ion Storm purchased the Quake 2 engine thinking it would only take a few short weeks to transfer what they had currently done to the new code. Those few weeks turned into another year as the game had to be essentially redone for the new engine. In the meantime the games hype combined with its delays and promises were turning into a bad mix. Gamers were being promised something stellar and unless Ion Storm could deliver the masses would undoubtedly tar and feather them.
Revolution in just 3 years
Many delays later Eidos finally got fed up spending millions without results and took over majority control of Ion Storm. This already had SNAFU written all over it and the game hadn’t shipped yet. At this point the project was in development for over two years with no end in sight. Part of the problem was that the goals of the game were set very highly. John Romero wanted 24 levels, 25 weapons and 64 monsters. The character would also not play alone and would be accompanied by AI controlled sidekicks. That’s a lot of work even for an experienced team to manage. Work on the game continued with more delays until finally after three long years of promises the game finally released.
Revolution is expensive!
It’s not that the game was that bad, it just simply wasn’t anything more than average, certainly not stellar or worthy of all the hype and attention it had received. The sidekicks were poorly implemented and caused a lot of problems. It also did not help that the use of sidekicks simply made the game more complex than regular shooters and therefore less appealing to the masses. The press came down on the game hard as did the criticism from the community. Eidos had spent at least $25 million on the project with the game managing just 200k sales.
This was a painful lesson for all parties involved. Romero certainly had the skills and talent, but the studio itself just wasn’t capable of meeting his lofty goals and Eidos willingness to finance them lead to one very expensive SNAFU.
Sylvester "Annex" Rozylo
Executive Editor
