Talk:Bullfrog Productions/Archive 1

The end of Bullfrog Productions
How did this videogame manufacturer go belly-up? If it last released a game in '01, there had to have been news relating to this company going out of business. --68.102.193.78 00:22, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It's something I've always wondered as well. It's a fairly "recent" event in terms of the internet, and yet there's next to no official word on what actually happened to Bullfrog that I've been able to find. - Darric 16:29, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Overall History Section
It's awful, awful, awful on so many levels. Until it gets sourced, spellchecked, verified and... well, to be honest, rewritten entirely, I'm going to remove it. At the moment it's only an illegible eyesore. - Darric 16:29, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Creation
Back then in 1997 there was a game in development called Creation, had some big developers diary feature in a german computer magazin, never got released, not sure on the details, anyway, might be worth to mention, here a link:


 * http://www.thecomputershow.com/computershow/previews/creation.htm

-- Grumbel 14:19, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Bullfrog Productions. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20081205001756/http://www.allbusiness.com:80/electronics/computer-equipment-personal-computers/7089474-1.html to http://www.allbusiness.com/electronics/computer-equipment-personal-computers/7089474-1.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 08:25, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Reassessment
I have promoted it to B-class from the originally start class. Here are some brief comments after a brief read through. — AdrianGamer (talk) 15:15, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * The history section looks very great. It is quite detailed and covered all parts of the company's history.
 * the god genre was "misunderstood by everyone" - should mention who give this quote.
 * For the legacy section, instead of using point form, I would personally prefer you to describe it in prose.
 * The key figures section is completely redundant. The importance of these people should have been already established in the history section already.
 * Some sources doesn't look reliable, like this and this
 * Did the studio had some sort of unique culture or any philosophy when they were making their games.
 * Bullfrog, I think.
 * Yes, I wondered about that too, but didn't want to just get rid of it.
 * bit-tech is a reliable source according to WikiProject_Video_games/Sources. For the second one, what I'll say is that Alex Trowers used to work for Bullfrog.
 * Well, the article does say they focused on multiplayer, but I'm not sure that counts as a philosophy. But I think they may well have had a culture; I need to check. Adam9007 (talk) 16:00, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, the article does say they focused on multiplayer, but I'm not sure that counts as a philosophy. But I think they may well have had a culture; I need to check. Adam9007 (talk) 16:00, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Disestablishment date?
This may seem strange, but I now have 2 sources that say 2004: this source, and Retro Gamer's Company Profile source. However, the Retro Gamer source also says that it was founded in 1985, which is wrong (it also explicitly says 2001 as the year Bullfrog was absorbed into EA and ceased existing, contradicting itself). I find 2004 unlikely for a variety of reasons including the lack of updates to the website (the latest archived info page on the website says the company is in its twelfth year, which would be about 1999/2000), the Retro Gamer source basically saying that the last thing Bullfrog ever did was the PS2 port of Quake 3, and that if it really was as late as 2004, what were they doing since then? For a company this well known, there should be something about it, but I've never seen anything. Could either source have got their info from Wikipedia I wonder? Thoughts? Adam9007 (talk) 02:05, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
 * In fact, the thing is not easy. Retro Gamer's Company Profile source is clearly wrong: not only there are sources that EA has absorbed Bullfrog in 1995, but plans for an acquisition were already in motion in 1993. We are not talking about a few years of difference, 1995-2001 is a too big margin. I would not trust.


 * On the other hand, however... last game developed, does not coincide with "closure" or merging of the company itself. Three years is a considerable slice of time, it's true. The last words in the section "Post-Molyneux, final years and closure (1998-2001)" say The final title released under the Bullfrog brand, Theme Park Inc., was published in 2001. By the time the game was in development, most of the Bullfrog teams had become part of EA UK, and much of the development was handled by another company. What remained of Bullfrog Productions was then incorporated and merged into EA UK, effectively closing the study. If it took them three years to incorporate the whole and remnant softwarehouse, 2004 might also make sense. VG247 is a reliable source, and the other years cited in the source (1987, 1989, 1995) coincide with the other sources. It's possible that they took info from Wiki (news is from March 22, 2014, this was the article on March 3 same year), but we will never be sure about it. Lone Internaut (talk) 16:31, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
 * 1995 was the year Bullfrog was acquired by EA, but Bullfrog still existed as a separate company, albeit as a subsidiary of EA. It wasn't "absorbed" (that is, totally merged) into EA until the 2000s. The Retro Gamer profile at one point says "Bullfrog was disbanded in 2004 when EA combined it with its other UK studios to form EA UK", but later on says "In 2001, the remains of Bullfrog were absorbed into EA and ceased to exist". Clearly, one of these is wrong, and my money's actually on 2004. Adam9007 (talk) 22:56, 7 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I don't speak natively English and by answering I understood and said one thing for another. Of course, acquired in 1995, and absorbed in the 2000s.


 * At this point, VG247 seems a more viable alternative. It's true it may have taken the information from Wiki, but we're not sure. Afterall one of RetroGamer's claims is wrong and as far as I'm concerned, such a contradiction makes RetroGamer practically unreliable. It's really about betting at the end, because one does not have a certainty. Will it worth it? It's a jump in the dark, but if you feel so sure 2004 is wrong, I will approve. Lone Internaut (talk) 01:45, 8 July 2018 (UTC)