3DO ZONE Forums

This has been bugging me for months, ever since I first saw it: What is Who Shot Johnny Rock doing in Crystal Dynamics's 3DO commercial? I thought American Laser Games developed, ported, and published the game. How is Crystal Dynamics (one of my all-time favorite game publishers) involved?

Martin III wrote:This has been bugging me for months, ever since I first saw it: What is Who Shot Johnny Rock doing in Crystal Dynamics's 3DO commercial? I thought American Laser Games developed, ported, and published the game. How is Crystal Dynamics (one of my all-time favorite game publishers) involved?

That's a good question. PaTaank is another game that doesn't have an obvious Crystal connection, yet it's on their Sample This! demo disc (along w/the Johnny Rock footage) I'm not really sure myself, but am also curious.

Yeah, PaTaank is another one I'm curious about. I'd begun to wonder if it actually was developed by them, since unlike Who Shot Johnny Rock it at least looks like the sort of thing that would be up their alley.

They were both distributed by Crystal Dynamics.

CRV wrote:They were both distributed by Crystal Dynamics.

That seems odd ... ALG had a bunch of other 3DO projects they released, why would they have need to use Crystal for a sole game? Also, Who Shot Johnny Rock came out in arcades a year before Crystal Dynamics even existed. So why would they be linked to a single port? I don't get it.

According to the Wikipedia article, they also published other companies' games. I wasn't aware of this until now. Anyway, if that's the case, it's as simple as that. No need to overthink it, Trev.

I also didn't know that Crystal Dynamics barely made any money in the '90s. I never would have guessed considering how well known some of its franchises were back then (Gex, for example).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Dynamics

Austin wrote:According to the Wikipedia article, they also published other companies' games. I wasn't aware of this until now. Anyway, if that's the case, it's as simple as that. No need to overthink it, Trev.

I also didn't know that Crystal Dynamics barely made any money in the '90s. I never would have guessed considering how well known some of its franchises were back then (Gex, for example).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Dynamics

Publishing other companies' games means games like The Horde and Pandemonium!; so far as the packaging indicates, Pataank and Who Shot Johnny Rock were published by American Laser Games.

I'm doubtful as to the reliability of the Wikipedia article, as the information in question is conspicuously lacking in sources. And they even list Titan Wars as a PlayStation exclusive - listing it with the release year of the Saturn version, bizarrely enough!

Martin III wrote:I'm doubtful as to the reliability of the Wikipedia article, as the information in question is conspicuously lacking in sources. And they even list Titan Wars as a PlayStation exclusive - listing it with the release year of the Saturn version, bizarrely enough!

Yeah, I noticed that too. I edited a few things in and out about an hour ago, like adding Off-World Interceptor Extreme on the Saturn (it wasn't listed), as well as removing The Horde for the SNES (Doesn't exist. Was this actually planned?).

Austin wrote:According to the Wikipedia article, they also published other companies' games. I wasn't aware of this until now. Anyway, if that's the case, it's as simple as that. No need to overthink it, Trev.

Other video game specific sites like Moby Games, IGN, etc ... list ALG as the publisher of Who Shot Johnny Rock on the 3DO. Again I wonder, why did ALG publish all their other 3DO games except Johhny Rock?

Can't blame me for overthinking Austin ... I have been playing a bunch of Sherlock Holmes afterall.

ALG published Johnny Rock, Crystal Dynamics distributed.

And The Horde was planned for the Super NES and was being developed by Lobotomy Software (founder's LinkedIn).

CRV wrote:And The Horde was planned for the Super NES and was being developed by Lobotomy Software (founder's LinkedIn).

Interesting. Did not know that.

I did a quick search and the only other thing I can find referring to it is a thread on the Assembler forums asking if the game exists. Someone stated that it was apparently completed, but no one could point to screenshots. Hm.

Bringing up yet another dead topic but I'm really really bored at work.

Anyway, doesn't Crystal Dynamics have a distribution credit on the box for Mad Dog McCree? I swear that it's there.