*Sees Hiver's post*
It's not the full story you mention. Vampire: Bloodlines was hit VERY HARD by the leaking of Half Life 2's Source Engine source code. Since they didn't allow any games to be released before Half Life 2 using that engine, they had to delay the game despite not having the financial situation to do so. And they went belly-up, unable to patch their mess of a game due to having an old Source version.
If they could release when they planned, and didn't get delayed due to Half Life 2, it might have been an entirely different situation for them. They weren't forced to release due to Activision, but due to money. But too late... and only due to an external factor they couldn't control.
And that... was the lesson of my post. Delays can be deadly. And then your game can't be fixed. And you get the Bloodlines situation.
In short - none of that is true. You should check the relevant articles and info about it better. Wiki article about the game should serve as a good start.
It was Activision that forced the game out early - on the same bloody day as Half Life 2, which is instant suicide. Activision was financing the game, not Troika. They wanted it out so they can cut the "losses" and ride on the hype of HL2 - which was an utterly idiotic logic and decision.
Valve, on other hand did not provide several updates parts of the engine to Troika, resulting in whole parts of the game being very, very buggy.
All these are old truths that are very well known and you cant just claim differently because it would suit your argument better. Because you want the game out sooner.
That game and Troika with it went down because it was released too soon, with a lot of bugs.
Thats a fact.
It got very bad reviews - especially when compared with HL2 that released on the same day and was largely bug free - while being done on the SAME ENGINE - which immediately made everyone think how bad and incompetent the Troika devs are - all of that made it sell very badly - which was the direct final reason for Troika going out of business!
Other reasons were previous games like Arcanum and ToEE which were also released to early because of the pressure of the publishers - and were also quite buggy on release. ToEE was almost unplayable on most computers when it came out!
Which was the reason they also got bad press and SOLD BADLY.
Bloodlines was the final big stake through the heart.
...
now, go do your homework, get properly informed and dont make me remember old traumas again.
I trust i dont need to mention Obsidian and all the flak they get for their buggy releases and how much it hurts them as a company.
They are back on their feet now but there was a time not so long ago when massive layoffs were being served around there.
