Adventure Gamers - Forums
You are here: Home → Forum Home → Gaming → Adventure → Thread
New posts
No new postsDiscussion about the State of HerInteractive
Hey all,
For those of you who don’t know, Herinteractive is the game that makes the Nancy Drew series of adventure games, and the company has been…in flux, to put it politely, for a while. After delaying their last game for over a year now, the formerly forthright company has refused to answer questions about the state of the game and has also let almost all of their company staff go, as well as shifted their focus to a mobile series that bears little to no resemblance to the main series and has, reportedly, bombed. Now fans have just received confirmation that the game is being “outsourced” and developed by a third party company.
For those of you who play the games or are interested in AG industry news, I’m wondering what your thoughts are on all of this. I’m also very curious if anyone knows of a similar situation happening at any other company in past (concerning adventure games or another genre) and how that was handled and how it turned out in the end.
-DC
The easy answer is “of course that has happened before.” Although to be fair, I have never seen this happen with a company that was devoted to a single franchise such as Nancy Drew adventure games.
The people who bought Sierra knew nothing about games. They managed to cobble together enough people to finish GK3, and then, for all intents and purposes turned off the lights and locked the doors.
While more a publisher/producer/distributor than a game creator. The Adventure Company, which seemed to put more games on the street than any other for a time, disappeared almost overnight.
I’m not sure what your question actually is. Are you asking if this type of activity is common. Regrettably, yes. If you are asking if any of us know what is going on with this specific company, I don’t know. Perhaps somebody else does.
Edit: I am sure you have probably already read this, but this article was the only thing I could find on the current situation.
For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.
Not good news. Herinteractive used to do at least 2 games a year. Off-loading development won’t destroy them, I can think of many Eastern European developers who would do this series justice.
However, not releasing a game for as long as they have not released one is very bad for whatever reason.
Last I heard the delays were for switching to the unity engine. Oh, well.
I enjoy playing adventure games on my Alienware M17 r4 and my Nintendo Switch OLED.
I’ve just about given up on a new Nancy Drew game…
The real problem with reality is the lack of background music.
Knightette of the Order of the Caption
Music is what feelings sound like…
Sierra was victim of a hostile takeover. You can read a about it in interviews with Al Lowe
http://www.nodontdie.com/al-lowe/
http://www.brainlazy.com/article/this-week/al-lowe-interview/
Al Lowe: Yeah. If somebody wants a fascinating read, google for Cendant, CUC, trial, Forbes – like the magazine – and you’ll read about a guy named Walter Forbes, who was a board member at Sierra and then one morning called up and told Ken he was going to do a hostile take over of not only his company, but also of Davidson Software, which owned Blizzard. And the same morning he executed a hostile takeover, took away those two companies, and then later turned out to have been lying and deceitful, and was arrested and tried several times, and finally convicted and sent to jail for the rest of his life. And his buddies who did it with him, all of them are in a federal penitentiary right now. So it was an ugly story. For a company that was started on a young couple’s kitchen table and nurtured into a billion dollar market capitalization company, it was a really sad ending.
The Adventure Company/Dreamcatcher at some point stopped paying the companies that developed games for them. They weren’t the only publisher that did this and several developers were put out of business by not being paid for years of work. These publishers got away with it for years. I suspect embezzlement by the people in charge, but I’ve never seen any article explaining exactly when and why The Adventure Company went bad. They did a good job covering it up. There are articles like this one, about other cheating publishers.
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JakubDvorsky/20130211/186420/Indies_vs_Mamba_Games_and_Lace_Mamba_Global.php
Most victim developers didn’t post anything about it in forums, so gamers assumed they were supporting developers when they purchased a game. But “wael”, the CEO of Frogwares, was more outspoken. You can see some of his posts in this archived thread
http://archive.adventuregamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10959
The Adventure Company was bought by JoWood which was bought by Nordic Games
https://web.archive.org/web/20120118023226/http://www.nordicgames.se/index.php?/article/nordic_games_holding_ab_group_acquires_jowood_the_adventure_company
I suspect what happened with HerInteractive is more the result of ignorance and greed than deliberately doing anything illegal. Some suit decided a 3D game engine was ‘necessary’ in order to be ‘modern’ and that they could cut costs by firing their development team and farming development out overseas to the lowest bidder. Never mind that the bulk of casual games are 2D and outsell other genres. Never mind that the core audience for Nancy Drew may not be able to afford a new computer that meets requirements for a 3D game. HerInteractive released a video (‘Unity Preview’) comparing how a room in ‘Labyrinth of Lies’ plays in their current game engine as opposed to their new Unity-based game engine.
The parts of the video showing the room in Unity were terribly jerky. You’d have thought they’d have optimized that small demo section and smoothed out the movement before offering it as a shining example of what was to come. I suspect inability is the reason they didn’t.
Their excuse for the change was a poll at HerInteractive.
http://www.herinteractive.com/about-us/news/august-letter-from-her-interactive-2/
The poll was probably created after the decision to switch to Unity was made. The results of a poll with leading questions aren’t accurate, especially when the answers are deliberately misinterpreted to suit someone’s agenda.
‘Would you like a more compelling story line and more expansive environments?’
Worded that way, sure. But if they were really interested in their audience’s opinions, they should have worded the questions to consider the downsides of a change to a new 3D game engine—would you like more expansive environments at the cost of higher system requirements that require a new computer? Would you like more expansive environments with games being released at a far slower rate than the previous 2 games a year? HerInteractive could have put out 3 games using the old engine in the time we’re still waiting for any solid evidence of progress in ‘Midnight in Salem’. Their most recent game, ‘Sea of Darkness’, was released May 2015.
The lack of any concrete examples showing progress in the new game makes me think HerInteractive farmed out development to a company that was inexperienced with Unity and incapable of doing the work they claimed they could. I’ll be very surprised if they ever come up with a finished game, and even moreso if they come up with a game that is not a broken POS thing in beta state.
After 31 games, it’s not surprising that Her Interactive would want to try to change things up a bit. (Even though it’s always tricky to do that when you have an established fan base that might not want things to change.)
I get the impression that the company has always wanted to reach young girls to get them interested in software and coding and maybe someday these young girls would aim for careers in the computer industry. I wonder if they found that their fan base was aging—that the people playing the Nancy Drew series weren’t the 9 to 18-year-olds, but ages 25 and up. And maybe, though they appreciated the older demographic, it wasn’t what they considered their prime audience. So they wanted changes that would appeal to the younger set, and somehow that was a lot harder than they thought.
All this is sheer speculation, of course. I don’t think we have enough info to know for sure what is going on at Her. I’m curious too, if anyone ever finds out more.
@Becky: sounds like valid theory to me. You could be on to something.
The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka
After 31 games, it’s not surprising that Her Interactive would want to try to change things up a bit. (Even though it’s always tricky to do that when you have an established fan base that might not want things to change.)
They made gradual updates to the game engine over time, increasing resolution, making the viewing area larger, and changing some minor elements of the interface.
(I found the following requirements listed on pictures of the back of game cases at Mobygames and eBay)
#4 Royal Tower required a 166MHz computer with 16-bit color (no video memory requirement).
#7 Ghost Dogs required a 200MHz computer with 16-bit color (also with no video memory requirement).
#9 Deception Island was the last one with minimum processor requirements of 200MHz and the last one not to require video memory.
#10 Shadow Ranch, #11 Blackmoor Manor, and # 12 Secret of the Old Clock required a 400MHz computer with 16MB video card.
Then there was a jump with # 13 Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon, which required a 1 GHz computer with 32MB video card.
#16 White Wolf also required a 1 GHz computer with 32MB video card and these requirements remained the same up through #23 Shadow at Water’s Edge.
#24 Captive Curse and #25 Alibi in Ashes required 1.5 GHz computer with a 64 MB video card.
#26 Lost Queen required a 1.5 GHz computer with 128MB video card and requirements stayed the same up through #32 Sea of Darkness.
So its not like they’ve never changed anything. But until now it’s always been incremental and without major changes to the game interface. They were always careful to keep system requirements low enough that younger players with a hand-me-down computer were able to play, and those who couldn’t afford (or whose parents couldn’t afford) what’s usually considered as a “gaming computer” could still play.
The switch to the Unity 3D engine is a huge jump in requirements, which will leave some of their audience unable to play.
Even worse, if they never finish Midnight in Salem (which looks like a possibility at this point), no one will be able to play. It appears that those in charge had no idea what was required switching from a 2D to a 3D game engine, and didn’t like the answers their developers gave them so they fired their developers and farmed development out overseas to a company that was happy to lie to them about what was possible.
I get the impression that the company has always wanted to reach young girls to get them interested in software and coding and maybe someday these young girls would aim for careers in the computer industry.
Because firing your development team and farming development out overseas is such a wonderful way to convince anyone (or their parents) that software development is a good job.
I wonder if they found that their fan base was aging—that the people playing the Nancy Drew series weren’t the 9 to 18-year-olds, but ages 25 and up. And maybe, though they appreciated the older demographic, it wasn’t what they considered their prime audience. So they wanted changes that would appeal to the younger set, and somehow that was a lot harder than they thought.
All this is sheer speculation, of course. I don’t think we have enough info to know for sure what is going on at Her. I’m curious too, if anyone ever finds out more.
We don’t know anything for sure, but the lack of information combined with the long wait makes everyone suspect the worst.
Especially since they used to put out two games a year and it’s been over a year and a half without even any screenshot updates.
If you want speculation…
They won’t even reveal what overseas company they’re dealing with, which makes me think there are two possibilities:
1. That they did something really stupid—sending out development money overseas without vetting the company they sent it to, and now they’re too embarrassed to admit they misspent the development money.
2. That I’m wrong in assuming there’s nothing illegal going on, that there was never any development company working on Midnight in Salem, overseas or otherwise, and what’s going on now is all about covering up development money being embezzled away for as long as possible.
Clearly there’s a mystery here well worth solving. Can we get Ms. Drew on the case? 
Nancy Drew: The Her Interactive Enigma.
It sounds as though some soft of official PR work on the part of Her would be helpful right about now. Dare to explain!
Clearly there’s a mystery here well worth solving. Can we get Ms. Drew on the case?
It sounds as though some soft of official PR work on the part of Her would be helpful right about now. Dare to explain!
Becky
We need Nancy to infiltrate HerInteractive and find out what’s really going on. 
January 23rd,
At the insistence of fellow forum members, you decide to investigate the state of HeR Interactive. Are the rumor of their demise been exaggerated? Will Midnight in Salem ever come out? It’s your job to find out.
After an uneventful flight, you arrive at the headquarters of HeR Interactive in Bellevue Washington. You look around the parking lot and see only a few cars. To the west is the path of the headquarters.
>
Sorry wrong style of game 
January 23rd,
At the insistence of fellow forum members, you decide to investigate the state of HeR Interactive. Are the rumor of their demise been exaggerated? Will Midnight in Salem ever come out? It’s your job to find out.
After an uneventful flight, you arrive at the headquarters of HeR Interactive in Bellevue Washington. You look around the parking lot and see only a few cars. To the west is the path of the headquarters.
>
Sorry wrong style of game
Turning to the west you walk down the abandoned path. A small outbuilding looms to the right. Curiously you peek through the grimy window next to the door to the outbuilding, but other than a weakly flickering light you can’t see anything. You check the door, and are confounded by a slider. After fiddling with it for a couple of minutes, you give it a good kick. The door slowly opens.
You enter the outbuilding. To the left are piles of electronics – monitors, harddrives, keyboards—which surround an old clock, still ticking. In front of you is a table with a lit candle and a crystal skull atop a round, gold stand. A woman with dark hair sits at the table. She is wearing a purple robe and a shattered medallion. At her side is a white wolf.
“Would you like me to gaze into the future for you? Or perhaps the future of Her Interactive?” says the woman. She gives the crystal skull a spin.
“Shouldn’t that be a crystal ball?” you ask.
Well of course it’s a crystal ball replies the woman “If that’s not what you see you must be feeling the power of The Captive Curse. At that point you notice that the woman is wearing just the one red glove & ask her about it. “Ah…. you want to know about the Secret of the Scarlet Hand ....are you sure? as Secrets Can Kill” You decline to know the answer but gaze into the crystal ‘ball’ (it still looks like a skull to you ) to see nothing - just a Sea of Darkness.
Finding nothing enlightening in the crystal, your gaze returns to the woman.
“Who are you?” you ask. “Do you work for Her? Why are you here instead of in the main building?”
“Once…” the woman begins. Her voice trails off into nothingness.
Suddenly she is beset by a fit of rage. “You ask the wrong questions! My time here is limited!”
Startled by the woman’s sudden change in demeanor and not wishing to antagonize her further, you grope for words. “Ummm… OK…”
“Did you really come all this way to ask me where I work?” she shrieks.
“I usually ask questions in the order they’re listed,” you stammer. “Doesn’t everyone?”
The wolf starts to whine.
With a horrid gasp, the woman’s body stiffens. Her eyes grow distant and empty as her head slumps to the table.
At that moment an ominous purple light begins to dance in the crystal.
You hear a noise behind you. At the same moment that the light appeared in the crystal, the monitors heaped on the floor begin flashing an image of a phantom-like character in a green mask. Under his face the words scroll: I AM THE PHANTOM HACKER.
Your cell phone rings. Picking it up, you are astonished to see that you must now enter a code in order to access your own phone! Looking about wildly, you realize that the monitors and the light in the crystal skull are flashing in a pattern. 3 flashes, pause. 5 flashes, pause. 2 flashes, pause. 4 flashes, pause. Then the pattern resumes. You enter the code 3524. Who is calling you?
You are here: Home → Forum Home → Gaming → Adventure → Thread
