Jane Jensen opens herself to the public

[AndreaDraco]

Rudy knows something we don't know!

Yes, he does... Uhm...

Quick, catch him!

[UPtimist]

Well, clearly this is a GK with vampires again, only this time the vampires are more in line with the new trend of brooding teenage vampires. Also, they're going to redo GK2, only this time all the werevolves will be shirtless hunky teenagers. Maybe just swap the clips in GK2 with well-edited scenes from Twilight.

And that'll change the quote from GK3 too - from "No thanks, the last time I went poking around in a cave I ended up with hair on my arms" to " "No thanks, the last time I went poking around in a cave I ended up with a waxed chest". Much spookier too.

[DeadPoolX]

Even if Jane wants to make a new GK, she has to get the go-ahead from Activision. In addition, she'd have to convince them to give her the reigns as well.

The reigns are not the problem. The price tag is...

Well, that's not much better; in fact, it might be worse. When it comes to money, few companies are willing to take a gamble nowadays.

[Collector]

Of course that is the point of the Kickstarter trend.

[UPtimist]

But could they seriously make enough money through Kickstarter to make a good enough Gabriel Knight? (I don't know if that's what you were suggesting, but I've been wondering that in general too) After all, unlike this new Tim Shafer game which was basically "let's do this with what we'll get", a new GK would have some very serious expectations that might not be doable without a rather decent budget.

I have no idea how big such budgets are nowadays... (Or how much it would be alone to get the license from Activision)

[Shakar]

I'm trying my best to not get my hopes up here for GK. I will gladly be proven wrong. Until then...I'm going with Gray Matter.

Did we ever get any info on how well it did in sales?

[Collector]

There was some discussion on that on Adventure Gamers, but no one found much besides preliminary sales on initial release. I am sure that it was less than what it might have been, given the screwed up North American release. As bad as it was for the US, Canada got screwed even more, with no retail stores of note stocking it and I guess not even Amazon.ca not offering it. There was some localization involved, but not that much, but not enough to justify the long wait after the European release. It would have also helped if there had been some kind of digital distribution, such as Steam.

In other words, whatever the final sales figures were, they ended up being much lower than what it should have been, mostly because of distribution screw ups and bad handling.

[DeadPoolX]

I am sure that it was less than what it might have been, given the screwed up North American release. As bad as it was for the US, Canada got screwed even more, with no retail stores of note stocking it and I guess not even Amazon.ca not offering it.

Yeah, Maia and I had to buy it from Amazon.com, which meant a higher price due to shipping and importation fees.

It would have also helped if there had been some kind of digital distribution, such as Steam.

I was really surprised it wasn't on Steam. Even if Jane was against Steam's built-in DRM, she could've offered it on GOG. Sure, it's not an old game, but neither is The Witcher series and that's on there.

[Collector]

There has been talk of GOG offering some new games. It is not a bad idea, just as long as they continue to add classics. As far as DRM, since the NA DVD had none, it may not matter if a digital distribution didn't, either.

[UPtimist]

Wasn't GK4 supposed to involve ghosts in an English Manor?

Yes. That was the little easter egg in the SIDney search engine.

Sorry to insist, but I'm still wondering where the location of the English manor comes from? I remember only stuff about ghosts in that Sydney article... I remember somebody in Adventure Gamers hypothesizing about Tibet based on the ending of GK3 but that was just his own hypothesis.

Ghosts in an English manor does have a lot in common with Gray Matter though. Wonder if that'd change her plans in regards to the storyline of GK4.

And I'm not in a place to launch GK3 again

[AndreaDraco]

Sorry to insist, but I'm still wondering where the location of the English manor comes from?

If I'm not mistaken, Jane herself said something along these lines. About an English setting, at least. Since the information has been around for so long, though, I could be wrong.

[Collector]

If I'm not mistaken, Jane herself said something along these lines. About an English setting, at least. Since the information has been around for so long, though, I could be wrong.

This is my memory, too. However as you say, it has been a while and memories can be faulty and I may be remembering someone else's speculation, but I think she said it in an interview

[Tawmis]

Because I am awesome... From here:

GameSpy: Was there supposed to be a Gabriel Knight 4?

Jane Jensen: There was supposed to be - at least in my mind. There was never a GK4 in development. The storyline was going to be about ghosts and probably would have been set in England or Scotland.

[UPtimist]

Researched like Grace herself! Thanks

Actually, I remember reading that article (and the info) now.

Now, back to being twitchy with expectation abut this picture...

[Shakar]

Twitching along with you