Babylon 5: Reader Response

Yesterday's announcement of Sierra's reorganization of its business units, and subsequent cancellation of a number of anticipated games, came as a shock to gamers worldwide. Since we first posted news about this story, we've been literally flooded by hundreds of e-mails from concerned gamers. The nature of their letters varies from utter disbelief to outright anger.

"The cancellation of this project is a sad day for all the thousands of fans who have been eagerly anticipating the release of this game", says Dirk Loedding. "Count me as a gamer who is very unhappy with Sierra".

"Sierra has done a great injustice here", states Mark Greteman. "It will be a great long time before I ever trust them again."

Dan Crone says "All Sierra will hear now is a thunderous cacophony of angry voices. Mine will be amongst them."

"Given the tremendous interest in this product, I would hope that Sierra might reconsider their decision. If they are unwilling to continue to develop the game themselves then perhaps they would allow others to finish the development work. A game of this caliber is just too important to allow it to disappear in this way," says Greg Lovett.

In their anger, some gamers have even gone so far as to threaten boycotts of Sierra games. "Fans want to punish the company for the waste of their money and the betrayal of a product they care about. Further, it's easy to do. With several companies sporting full product lines, it's easy to buy a similar game from someone else," claims Alan Chaplain." I know I will."

Nathan Crine says that "consumers have been ignored by yet another corporation. This time though I have seen people who have sworn NEVER to buy another Sierra game".

The future of Babylon 5: Into the Fire is pretty bleak. Sierra spoke with GameSpot's Micheal Mullen late last afternoon and revealed that the company didn't expect to make enough return on its investment to warrant further development, especially considering that the game was still a solid 12 months away from completion (according to Sierra). Additionally, since Sierra still owns the rights to the Babylon 5 license, prospective publishers that might be interested in picking up the game will have to deal with Sierra as well as with Warner Brothers.

As usual, if we learn of anything further, we'll let you know.