Riven: out of the Myst
Retailers are already placing new orders for Myst successor Riven, and its developer, Broderbund Software Inc., has gone on a 24-hour production schedule to meet demand.
Not bad for a product that officially has been selling for less than a week.
Unofficially, Riven has been available since Wednesday in some retail chains, and those sellers are already placing new orders, said Broderbund product marketing manager Eric Winkler today.
"It's really a unique situation that we're already going to a 24-hour shift in our manufacturing site to meet the second wave of demand for this product," Winkler said.
But some analysts are skeptical that Riven will be another Myst. "I think it will be more successful than the average product because of its reputation, but it won't exceed or repeat the phenomenal sales of Myst. Lightning doesn't strike twice," said Johnny Wilson, editor in chief of Computer Gaming World magazine.
Broderbund's Eric Winkler discusses early demand for Riven.
Broderbund could use another phenomenon, however. In its most recent quarter, the company lost $18.9 million on sales of $45.7 million. The loss included restructuring and other charges. One reason for the loss was heavier-than-expected marketing costs to support Riven, executives said at the time.
The game cost in the neighborhood of $10 million to develop, and at least $5 million is being spent on marketing and advertising -- both spending figures extremely high for the CD-ROM game business.
The first wave of nationally broadcast commercials debuted Thursday night.
Early reviews have been encouraging. "Let's cut straight to the chase. Riven, the sequel to Myst, is as good as -- perhaps even better than -- the original," wrote Denny Arar in PC World magazine.
San Francisco Chronicle reviewer Laura Evenson was enthralled, too. "Playing Riven is like opening an elaborate Chinese puzzle box, or unraveling a John LeCarre spy thriller. It's absorbing, it's intricate, and every clue counts."
Critics, however, are bothered by the game's formlessness and long periods of inaction. "It has a slide show with some cool animated sequences between islands, and some cool animated characters ... but it feels like a largely empty environment," complained Wilson. "We don't get it."
Myst painted a magical world of levers, domes, puzzles, and handwritten manuscripts. Introduced in 1993, it became the Elvis Presley of the CD-ROM business, selling to date some 3.5 million units. One reason: its beautiful graphics and sound showed off the multimedia capabilities of the PC of the time brilliantly.
Riven's plot essentially takes up where Myst left off. Players are enlisted to help find the wife of Atrus -- played by game co-designer Rand Miller -- in a fantasy world called Riven.
Myst vaulted its creators, brothers Rand and Robyn Miller, into software celebrity status. But at this point, there are no plans on the drawing board for a Myst III, Winkler said.
Broderbund this morning posted the first patch for the game, correcting problems with how the game performs on some computers.
Riven won't run on just any old box. Your PC needs Windows 95, a 100MHz or faster Pentium, 16MB of memory, a 4x CD-ROM drive, 75MB of available hard-disk space, a 640x480 monitor, and a sound card that supports DirectX.