'NHL Eastside Hockey Manager 2007' Canned Due To Piracy
Developer Blames Torrents For Lack of Sales
http://community.sigames.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/6461934525/m/8602070492
from 
Stardock Forums
Stardock Forums
Sports Interactive has announced, via their forums, the halt of future development to NHL Eastside Hockey Manager 2007 effective as of the just released v3.0.3 patch. According to SI, the stoppage will be across the board, which includes any possibility of a sequel, as well as future patches, for the foreseeable future.
Miles Jacobson and the team at SI Games has blamed the lack of purchases on the acts of piraters, stating that "despite great review scores and decent pre-orders, the sales in Scandinavia, that had pretty much kept the game going, dropped heavily, from our analysis of the situation, mainly due to the game getting hacked before release, and pirated."
He continued stating that "The orders came in a drizzle, rather than a flood. We scratched our heads trying to work out what had gone wrong. And then someone pointed out that the game was being pirated, and was available as a torrent from lots of different pirating sites. Then sat there and watched as the claimed amount of downloads on those sites went up and up, as sales stayed static."
In the end, Jacobson admitted that the failure was due to what most aspiring franchises fail to generate, money. "Basically, the game did not bring in enough money to cover the development costs, let alone the license fees on top of that. So we've had to make the decision to stop development on the game for now - it doesn't mean that it'll never come back, but for the foreseeable future, there will not be another version of Eastside Hockey Manager."
On the not so dark side, Jacobson did state that the people from the Eastside team have decided to stay with SI and are being rolled into the Football Manager franchise or into the firm's R&D sector "to work on developing a new idea forward, which we'll be announcing later in the year."
Miles Jacobson and the team at SI Games has blamed the lack of purchases on the acts of piraters, stating that "despite great review scores and decent pre-orders, the sales in Scandinavia, that had pretty much kept the game going, dropped heavily, from our analysis of the situation, mainly due to the game getting hacked before release, and pirated."
He continued stating that "The orders came in a drizzle, rather than a flood. We scratched our heads trying to work out what had gone wrong. And then someone pointed out that the game was being pirated, and was available as a torrent from lots of different pirating sites. Then sat there and watched as the claimed amount of downloads on those sites went up and up, as sales stayed static."
In the end, Jacobson admitted that the failure was due to what most aspiring franchises fail to generate, money. "Basically, the game did not bring in enough money to cover the development costs, let alone the license fees on top of that. So we've had to make the decision to stop development on the game for now - it doesn't mean that it'll never come back, but for the foreseeable future, there will not be another version of Eastside Hockey Manager."
On the not so dark side, Jacobson did state that the people from the Eastside team have decided to stay with SI and are being rolled into the Football Manager franchise or into the firm's R&D sector "to work on developing a new idea forward, which we'll be announcing later in the year."