Petroglyph's 2010 Christmas Card

[Sonic 295]

Even though I'm not actively involved in the Petroglyph community any more, haven't been since closing down the old Petro-Gamers site a while ago, the guys at Petroglyph in Las Vegas are still nice enough to send me their Christmas card each year. Here's this years card. Just quick photos, scanner is not plugged in right now.

 

 

 

I still regret closing Petro-Gamers. Really dissapointed how that site came crashing down. Oh well, at least Petro-Gamers can still be seen in archived form here http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.petro-gamers.com.

[RainXc 0]

Why what happened to it?

[Sonic 295]

The sad end to Petro-Gamers is explained here.

[RainXc 0]

Oh, you founded Petro-Gamers? So you knew all the guys at Petro? What did they say about the closing?

[PurpleGaga27 40]

I didn't know you hosted a Petroglyph fanbase website, Sonic.

 

So far, Petrolgyph has done a few board games and still hasn't finished their "End of Nations" game yet. Sure that MMORTS is a first but it probably might not be epic enough.

Edited December 22, 2010 by purplescrin

[Luk3us 63]

Cool, that you get an Xmas card from a games developer.

[Guest Stevie_K]

Yes that is awesome.

[Sonic 295]

Oh, you founded Petro-Gamers? So you knew all the guys at Petro? What did they say about the closing?

Yes Petro-Gamers was my creation. Originally it started as Empire-At-War.com, once Petroglyph began began speaking about Universe at War I relaunched Empire-At-War.com as Petro-Gamers with big plans to build it up into a site and keep it going for as long as CNCNZ.com has. For a time a felt I would close CNCNZ.com well before Petro-Gamers. But things never worked out.

 

I knew some the guys at Petroglyph. They said nothing when I closed down the site, but I never expected them to.

 

I didn't know you hosted a Petroglyph fanbase website, Sonic.

Really, we mentioned many times on CNCNZ.com. As I said above we had an Empire at War fan site. Years before that I did Emperor Battle for Dune site as well http://web.archive.org/web/20030806125129/...or-network.com/.

[rSquar3d 0]

I remember that was once part of CNCNZ. At least, when their only game was Empire at War, we had a sub-forum for the game. Hehe.

 

But seriously, I'm quite disappointed, the way that Petrolyph has turned out. And more so that they seem to care little for the community sites that want to support them. Well, it ain't the old Westwood.

[Saracen 16]

I got mine through the post last week. Quite like this one, simple, yet elegant.

 

The best one was the very first they sent out. The Universe at War "Universe at Peace" card. With the military dressed up as elves throwing snowballs at the Hierarchy Walker with the giant Santa hat on. I still have that one somewhere.

 

I should catch up with Kevin Yu actually, see how he's getting on. Blizzard sent him on a Starcraft tour of Asia recently, touring South Korea to get the down-low on the national sport at the SC2 Open, before going to China and spending time in Shanghai, cos they're pretty big on SC2 as well.

 

Do kinda miss that community. Not been there for donkey's years, but it was almost pretty alien to me when I poked my head around the door about a year ago. Dunno what it'd be like now.

[RainXc 0]

Why did Kevin Yu leave anyway?

[Nyerguds 100]

Might be the wrong question. If stuff started to decline around the time he left, then maybe he left because internally it was already declining.

[Saracen 16]

Why did Kevin Yu leave anyway?

 

The Petroglyph Studio was in Las Vegas. His entire Family was in California. When a position came along at Blizzard Entertainment for an RTS Community Manager (Where he'd pretty much manage the entire world bar South Korea).... He jumped at the chance, since Blizzard's HQ was just down the road from the family home. So, he left on good terms, with a gleeming reference from the petroglyph team.

 

So it wasn't about bad blood or the need to get out. Kevin had genuine reason to move on. Plus Blizzard offered him a massive Salary raise, improved career prospects and extended benefits package, being the huge corporation that they are. So he couldn't really turn it down.

 

On the Subject. The 2nd Community manager Chris "Driph" Ainsworth is doing well. After leaving Petroglyph, he pottered around with Adam "Ishmael" Isgreen for a bit, and became a games designer for Jet Set Games. Under which they developed the iPhone strategy Game of the year "Highborn"... after that, Chris left to pursue futher design development with Instant Action Studios... which shortly after joining.. collapsed.

 

Now Chris has founded his own independant games studio with a small team of his Instant Action work colleagues. It's called Flying Mongoose Labs... So now Las Vegas is upto a good several Games development Companies such as Petroglyph, Jet Set Games, Sucker Punch Studios, as well as Chris' FML.

 

As you can probably tell. I still stick close with these guys

[Berek 0]

Hey everyone, saw the post here and thought to show my presence . I can't speak much about the history of Petroglyph before I came on board, but I certainly can about it afterward if you guys have any questions.

 

Also, I'm completely open to helping you get a site going again if that's something you want to do. Or we can work with you on current sites, even CNCNZ.com . Toss around some ideas and I'll promise to at least hear them!

[Sonic 295]

Also, I'm completely open to helping you get a site going again if that's something you want to do.

I'm sad to say my days of covering the Petroglyph community are over. Once Universe at War was released my interested faded and none of the more recent Petroglyph games have sparked my interest. If I were to get a site going again it would be Petro-Gamers, but someone else owns the domain now I think.

 

Or we can work with you on current sites, even CNCNZ.com

CNCNZ.com is strictly about Command & Conquer.

 

Are there no major fan sites in the Petroglyph community these days? I no longer follow it.