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** Despite being aware of the Starforce anti-piracy software causing the game to become unwinnable, Vidis refused to disable the software and fix the issues for fear of piracy. And upon the game's poor sales, Vidis slashed the budget from 60 euros to 30, then used the price drop as an excuse to deny payment to Nuclearvision, which resulted in a lawsuit.
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** Despite being aware of the Starforce anti-piracy software causing making the game to become unwinnable, Vidis refused to disable the software and fix the issues for fear of piracy. And upon the game's poor sales, Vidis slashed the budget from 60 euros to 30, then used the price drop as an excuse to deny payment to Nuclearvision, which resulted in a lawsuit.
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* ScrewedByTheNetwork: The ultimate reason for the game's infamy lies in the poor business decisions of original publisher CDV Software and Vidis.
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* ScrewedByTheNetwork: The ultimate reason for the game's infamy lies in the poor business decisions of original publisher CDV Software Software, Vidis, and Vidis.Whiptail Interactive.
Changed line(s) 7 (click to see context) from:
** Despite being aware of the Starforce anti-piracy software causing the game to become unwindable, Vidis refused to disable the software and fix the issues for fear of piracy. And upon the game's poor sales, Vidis slashed the budget from 60 euros to 30, then used the price drop as an excuse to deny payment to Nuclearvision, which resulted in a lawsuit.
to:
** Despite being aware of the Starforce anti-piracy software causing the game to become unwindable, unwinnable, Vidis refused to disable the software and fix the issues for fear of piracy. And upon the game's poor sales, Vidis slashed the budget from 60 euros to 30, then used the price drop as an excuse to deny payment to Nuclearvision, which resulted in a lawsuit.lawsuit.
** Whiptail denied Nuclearvision the final third of their contractual payment under the assumption that ''Psychotoxic'' would make a ton of money, and that the profits earned would be used to pay the studio back. But once the game proved to be a bomb, Whiptail, who didn't even have enough money to market the game, filed for bankruptcy months after.
** Whiptail denied Nuclearvision the final third of their contractual payment under the assumption that ''Psychotoxic'' would make a ton of money, and that the profits earned would be used to pay the studio back. But once the game proved to be a bomb, Whiptail, who didn't even have enough money to market the game, filed for bankruptcy months after.
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** Vidis lost ''a ton'' of money from ''Psychotoxic'', as this was the last game they would publish before returning to production gaming accessories.
** Whiptail Interactive, the game's American publisher, assumed that they could use the money gained from ''Psychotoxic'' to pay Nuclearvision the final third of their contractual payment. But because Whiptail didn't even have the money to market the game, the company went insolvent, then bankrupt months later.
** Whiptail Interactive, the game's American publisher, assumed that they could use the money gained from ''Psychotoxic'' to pay Nuclearvision the final third of their contractual payment. But because Whiptail didn't even have the money to market the game, the company went insolvent, then bankrupt months later.
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** Vidis lost ''a ton'' of money from ''Psychotoxic'', as this was the last game they would publish before returning to production producing gaming accessories.
** Whiptail Interactive, the game's American publisher, assumed that they could use the money gained from ''Psychotoxic'' to pay Nuclearvision the final third of their contractual payment. But because Whiptail didn't even have the money to market the game, months after the game's release, the company went insolvent, thenbankrupt months later.filed for bankruptcy.
** Whiptail Interactive, the game's American publisher, assumed that they could use the money gained from ''Psychotoxic'' to pay Nuclearvision the final third of their contractual payment. But because Whiptail didn't even have the money to market the game, months after the game's release, the company went insolvent, then
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* CreatorKiller: The game's financial failure left a bloodbath of casualties.
** Vidis lost ''a ton'' of money from ''Psychotoxic'', as this was the last game they would publish before returning to production gaming accessories.
** Whiptail Interactive, the game's American publisher, assumed that they could use the money gained from ''Psychotoxic'' to pay Nuclearvision the final third of their contractual payment. But because Whiptail didn't even have the money to market the game, the company went insolvent, then bankrupt months later.
** And finally, ''Psychotoxic'' proved to be Nuclearvision's final game, with the company disbanding years later.
** Vidis lost ''a ton'' of money from ''Psychotoxic'', as this was the last game they would publish before returning to production gaming accessories.
** Whiptail Interactive, the game's American publisher, assumed that they could use the money gained from ''Psychotoxic'' to pay Nuclearvision the final third of their contractual payment. But because Whiptail didn't even have the money to market the game, the company went insolvent, then bankrupt months later.
** And finally, ''Psychotoxic'' proved to be Nuclearvision's final game, with the company disbanding years later.
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* ScrewedByTheNetwork: The ultimate reason for the game's infamy lies in the poor business decisions of original publisher CDV Software and Vidis.
** CDV, despite being a well-respected publisher in the German game industry, gave Fitzner and his team a pathetically small budget of 1.5 million Deutsch Marks (1.1 million short of what Fitzner would've used to make the game how he wanted), then almost cancelled the game due to the company suffering from financial peril, only to instead slash the game's minuscule budget in half as a compromise.
** Despite being aware of the Starforce anti-piracy software causing the game to become unwindable, Vidis refused to disable the software and fix the issues for fear of piracy. And upon the game's poor sales, Vidis slashed the budget from 60 euros to 30, then used the price drop as an excuse to deny payment to Nuclearvision, which resulted in a lawsuit.
** CDV, despite being a well-respected publisher in the German game industry, gave Fitzner and his team a pathetically small budget of 1.5 million Deutsch Marks (1.1 million short of what Fitzner would've used to make the game how he wanted), then almost cancelled the game due to the company suffering from financial peril, only to instead slash the game's minuscule budget in half as a compromise.
** Despite being aware of the Starforce anti-piracy software causing the game to become unwindable, Vidis refused to disable the software and fix the issues for fear of piracy. And upon the game's poor sales, Vidis slashed the budget from 60 euros to 30, then used the price drop as an excuse to deny payment to Nuclearvision, which resulted in a lawsuit.
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** Nuclear Vision closed its doors the following year. Fitzner left video game development to become a graphic designer before suddenly passing away, while the other developers went to work for other companies.
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** Nuclear Vision closed its doors the following year. Fitzner left video game development to become a graphic designer before suddenly passing away, while the other developers went to work for other companies.companies.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** A large chunk of the game's content was cut due to time and money, which would've included more weapons, power ups, multiplayer, and more.
** At one point the Unreal Engine was to be used due to the Vision engine falling behind in updates.
** Had things gone smoothly, Creator/{{Ubisoft}} would've published the game instead of Vidis.
** The game's title was originally ''Psychotoxic: The 4th Horseman''.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** A large chunk of the game's content was cut due to time and money, which would've included more weapons, power ups, multiplayer, and more.
** At one point the Unreal Engine was to be used due to the Vision engine falling behind in updates.
** Had things gone smoothly, Creator/{{Ubisoft}} would've published the game instead of Vidis.
** The game's title was originally ''Psychotoxic: The 4th Horseman''.
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* TroubledProduction: The game took six years to make and shipped in an ObviousBeta state, as elaborated upon in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC9FSW-uC3c this video]] from [=DXFan619=], who refers to it as "The Craziest Game Ever Made".
** The game got its start in 1998 when Frank Fitzner, a German game designer who had made a number of {{edutainment game}}s before then, recruited a number of people from the ''VideoGame/HalfLife'' modding community to form Nuclear Vision Entertainment and begin work on what was then called ''Psychotoxic: The 4th Horseman''. The first levels they made for the game were originally created as tech demos for Vulpine 3D Technologies' Vision game engine, with an eye towards later using them for their game to attract the attention of publishers. It worked, and they were picked up by CDV Software, one of Germany's largest game publishers.
** CDV, unfortunately, would only spend 1.5 million Deutsch Marks on the game, enough to recruit a team of six people and one part-time freelancer, far less than the 2.6 million Marks (enough to hire eleven people) that Fitzner felt was necessary to bring the project to fruition. That said, Fitzner took the deal, and sure enough, the lack of budget forced Nuclear Vision to cut many corners, leaving multiplayer, a number of the protagonist's angelic powers, and numerous other features on the cutting room floor. Furthermore, Vulpine's planned update for the Vision engine fell far behind, delaying production to such a degree that CDV at one point asked Nuclear Vision to inquire about what it would cost to license the Unreal Engine.
** Work started in earnest in late 2001, and went smoothly through 2002 and early 2003 despite the prior problems. In August 2003, however, things began to fall apart virtually overnight as Nuclear Vision realized that CDV, having expanded far too quickly in the last several years, was in a perilous financial state. ''Psychotoxic'' only avoided the waves of cancellation and firings that befell CDV's other games and staff by virtue of the fact that Nuclear Vision had met all of its milestones for the game's development, but that didn't stop CDV from cutting the game's budget in order to stave off bankruptcy.
** By September, Fitzner, seeing the writing on the wall, was searching for a new publisher, and seemed to have found one in Creator/{{Ubisoft}}. However, this led to a breach-of-contract lawsuit from CDV, forcing Nuclear Vision to pay 30,000 Marks to get out of its old contract, a bill that was paid for by Fitzner and other project leaders going for three months without pay while borrowing from family and friends in order to keep the studio running. Worse, the lawsuit also killed the deal with Ubisoft due to how long it dragged on for, causing Ubisoft to lose interest and move on. The only thing that stopped the game from getting canceled outright was when Vidis, a gaming accessories company that mostly published smaller titles before then, agreed to publish the game.
** ''Psychotoxic'' finally staggered into stores on September 3, 2004... just in time to get run over by ''VideoGame/Doom3'', which had come out a month prior. Its behind-the-scenes woes and shoestring budget were evident in the amount of {{Game Breaking Bug}}s that it shipped with, the worst of the bunch caused by a faulty batch of [=DVDs=] that made the Starforce copy protection system go haywire. Fitzner was willing to make a patch to disable Starforce, but Vidis, [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil afraid of piracy]], wouldn't let him do so. Furthermore, due to the game's lousy sales, Vidis cut the price to 30 euros (which Fitzner had originally wanted) -- and used that as an excuse to deny Nuclear Vision the rest of the money promised to them in their contract, as Nuclear Vision had agreed to the price change. This led to another lawsuit.
** Nuclear Vision closed its doors the following year. Fitzner left video game development to become a graphic designer before suddenly passing away, while the other developers went to work for other companies.
** The game got its start in 1998 when Frank Fitzner, a German game designer who had made a number of {{edutainment game}}s before then, recruited a number of people from the ''VideoGame/HalfLife'' modding community to form Nuclear Vision Entertainment and begin work on what was then called ''Psychotoxic: The 4th Horseman''. The first levels they made for the game were originally created as tech demos for Vulpine 3D Technologies' Vision game engine, with an eye towards later using them for their game to attract the attention of publishers. It worked, and they were picked up by CDV Software, one of Germany's largest game publishers.
** CDV, unfortunately, would only spend 1.5 million Deutsch Marks on the game, enough to recruit a team of six people and one part-time freelancer, far less than the 2.6 million Marks (enough to hire eleven people) that Fitzner felt was necessary to bring the project to fruition. That said, Fitzner took the deal, and sure enough, the lack of budget forced Nuclear Vision to cut many corners, leaving multiplayer, a number of the protagonist's angelic powers, and numerous other features on the cutting room floor. Furthermore, Vulpine's planned update for the Vision engine fell far behind, delaying production to such a degree that CDV at one point asked Nuclear Vision to inquire about what it would cost to license the Unreal Engine.
** Work started in earnest in late 2001, and went smoothly through 2002 and early 2003 despite the prior problems. In August 2003, however, things began to fall apart virtually overnight as Nuclear Vision realized that CDV, having expanded far too quickly in the last several years, was in a perilous financial state. ''Psychotoxic'' only avoided the waves of cancellation and firings that befell CDV's other games and staff by virtue of the fact that Nuclear Vision had met all of its milestones for the game's development, but that didn't stop CDV from cutting the game's budget in order to stave off bankruptcy.
** By September, Fitzner, seeing the writing on the wall, was searching for a new publisher, and seemed to have found one in Creator/{{Ubisoft}}. However, this led to a breach-of-contract lawsuit from CDV, forcing Nuclear Vision to pay 30,000 Marks to get out of its old contract, a bill that was paid for by Fitzner and other project leaders going for three months without pay while borrowing from family and friends in order to keep the studio running. Worse, the lawsuit also killed the deal with Ubisoft due to how long it dragged on for, causing Ubisoft to lose interest and move on. The only thing that stopped the game from getting canceled outright was when Vidis, a gaming accessories company that mostly published smaller titles before then, agreed to publish the game.
** ''Psychotoxic'' finally staggered into stores on September 3, 2004... just in time to get run over by ''VideoGame/Doom3'', which had come out a month prior. Its behind-the-scenes woes and shoestring budget were evident in the amount of {{Game Breaking Bug}}s that it shipped with, the worst of the bunch caused by a faulty batch of [=DVDs=] that made the Starforce copy protection system go haywire. Fitzner was willing to make a patch to disable Starforce, but Vidis, [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil afraid of piracy]], wouldn't let him do so. Furthermore, due to the game's lousy sales, Vidis cut the price to 30 euros (which Fitzner had originally wanted) -- and used that as an excuse to deny Nuclear Vision the rest of the money promised to them in their contract, as Nuclear Vision had agreed to the price change. This led to another lawsuit.
** Nuclear Vision closed its doors the following year. Fitzner left video game development to become a graphic designer before suddenly passing away, while the other developers went to work for other companies.
