Talk:Access Software

Fixed information

This article stated that when Microsoft acquired Access, they became known as "Indie Built." That is not correct. When they were acquired by Microsoft, they were known as Microsoft, part of Microsoft Game Studios. I have several friends who work at this location, but they never say they work for Indie Built. They always say they work for Take Two. But looking at the company's website, I guess they're officially known as Indie Built, but that name hasn't really caught on. Anyway, they couldn't have been Indie Built until after Microsoft sold them. — Frecklefoot | Talk 14:31, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

I just refered to the information given at their official website: "In 1999, Access was acquired by Microsoft and became known as Indie. Indie participated in the launch of Xbox in Holiday 2001 with the critically acclaimed Amped snowboarding title." [1] and Gamespot also states that they were known as "Indie" when they were sold to T2: "Microsoft Game Studios Group PR manager Genevieve Waldman confirmed that the sale signified the end of internal sports-game development at Microsoft. However, she said the transaction has an upside for all parties, including Indie Built employees. 'The reaction at Indie Built is positive,' Waldman said. 'They all became Take-Two employees.'" [2] so I think my changes at Indie Built and Amped are correct. the only mistake I made is at Microsoft Game Studios, but I've corrected it now (Indie assisted P&M in working on TopSpin).
if I worked for a game developer, I would also not say "I work for any small not so famous developer" ("Who? I don't know."), but "I work for a much bigger well known publisher" ("That's great!"). see the difference? ;o) –jello ¿? 22:28, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

If that's what is says on their website, it's legit I guess. I still think it's suspicious, though. I even interviewed there and they were all Microsoft, I never saw one piece of literature or sign that said "Indie Built." You'd think that if they were officially known as that, they'd have some sort of indication of it. There was an enormous "Microsoft" sign over the entrance to the building too, but NO indication of Indie Built.

Why in the world would they even want to be known as that? The name implies that they were an independant game developer, which they certainly weren't (Microsoft is a publisher). I don't know why MS would want to imply one of their studios was actually indie... I just don't get it: no indication of "Indie Built" at the studio, no reasonable motivation for MS to want to imply their studio was actually independant. Actually, all my contacts said they were Microsoft: Salt Lake. The only thing I can think of is that they changed the name of the studio shortly before the sale to T2.

However, the credits for Amped say it was developed by Microsoft Game Studios, not Indie Built. So I'd leave those as is. — Frecklefoot | Talk 23:21, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

I can live with this consensus. :o) –jello ¿? 22:20, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

I worked there for many years, let me give you the full story of the name...

When Microsoft bought Access software they became simply Microsoft Salt Lake Games Group, later Microsoft re-branded it's internal games division as Microsoft Game Studios but the group in Salt Lake had no official external name and titles were published as simply Microsoft Game Studios (unlike some other MGS groups like Bungie and FASA who kept their pre-MS names).

After a few years with MS and shortly after shipping an MGS re-org (including some well publicised layoffs) the Salt Lake group decided they wanted their own identity to brand their games. After many discussions one of the senior management chose the name "Indie Games", the indie component was intended to suggent the indie nature of snowboarding games as opposed to the game development community. The name was largely hated by the staff for many reasons but it stuck and the one good thing that came out of it was the Indie Head logo (the round faced guy with sharp teeth).

Before any games could ship with the MGS/Indie Games branding Microsoft sold the studio to Take 2, as part of the sale the group formed a subsidiary company which needed a name, somebody declined to take the opportunity to ditch the loathed name and went with "Indie Built Inc." which became a subsidiary of Take 2 and was the name that graced the labels of Amped 3, Top Spin PS2 and Top Spin 2.

During this entire time the sign outside the building said Microsoft (there was still a small Microsoft sales office in the same building), only a few weeks before the studio closed down Take 2 paid for a large "Indie Built" sign to replace the MS sign on the building. It's still there but Indie Built is not :(

There were a lot of talented people working there that were treated poorly by sucessively incompetent layers of management and beurocracy. A shame, let's hope publishers think twice in the future before buying a studio only to take it apart in less than a year. Sometimes I wish the studio had been independent as the name suggsted. - June 22nd 2006

Fair use rationale for Image:Logo indiebuilt.gif

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BetacommandBot (talk) 13:33, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Source

• https://archive.org/details/pcgamer199907/page/n49
• https://web.archive.org/web/19990508014313/http://pc.ign.com:80/news/7781.html
• https://web.archive.org/web/20000901023857/http://pc.ign.com:80/news/7751.html
• https://web.archive.org/web/20010630102149/http://www.adventuregamer.com/cgi/news/news.cgi?v=archive&c=Adventure_News&id=04229982113

Requested move 1 April 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved. (non-admin closure) – Ammarpad (talk) 07:41, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

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Indie Built → Access Software – Per a discussion at Talk:WPVG, this defunct company's primary name is "Access Software"—the Indie Built moniker was used for only a few years near the end of Access's almost 25-year history, most of which was spent under the Access Software label. All of Access's most notable and widely-covered titles, including Beach Head, the Tex Murphy series and the bulk of the Links series, we developed under the company's original name. Its name changed three times during the last seven years of its existence, as ownership passed between other companies. None of these other names has a solid claim to being the company's primary name in the sources, especially in comparison to the almost two-decade run that Access's original title maintained until around 1999. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 05:21, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

• Support per nom and my comments on WT:VG. Lordtobi (✉) 05:32, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
• Support per WP:COMMONNAME and nom's rationale. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 09:47, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

IceWelder - as per this discussion here, it seems more logical - and decided - that Access Software is the primary term. The article starts with Access Software, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Founded in November 1982 by Bruce Carver and Chris Jones... - given that neither Access nor Indie Built are operational, it makes sense to use the original logo and parameters in the infobox when the article itself is called "Access Software". Can you provide precedent or policy where the article is called topic "A" but the infobox refers to topic "B"?

Incidentally - we now have two non-free images in the article, which was why I removed Indie Built. Chaheel Riens (talk) 07:35, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

The above discussion is about the title of the article, which conforms to WP:COMMONNAME. Infoboxes, on the other hand, do not fall under this guideline. There are viable arguments for your position, but I believe that Infoboxes are not designed to show data from a historical point of of view looking forward. The liberal usage of |successor= is also quite misleading. "Access Software" is the first word in the Infobox after the title and image, so I don't think this will lead to massive confusion, much less since this has been the status quo for more than five years. Regarding the images, the Indie Built logo is surely a free-use simple text logo and should be transferred to Commons. IceWelder [✉] 12:28, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

True, but I think that WP:COMMONSENSE also applies here. My main arguments still apply - the article is called Access Software, and the article starts off with the term "Access software..." - it seems sensible that the infobox should match the article. Have you found any policies or precedents that support having different companies in the infobox to the article itself? I admit that I found one - Melbourne House, which in fact only makes things even more confusing: The article is called "Beam Software", the infobox calls itself "Krome Studios Melbourne" - but uses the Melbourne House logo - and the article starts off with "Krome Studios Melbourne, originally Beam Software..." I think that for conformity and the path of simplest logic, the article, lede and infobox should all reference the same named topic. Chaheel Riens (talk) 16:32, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

I doubt that there are any guidelines that support either position. I maintain that this is largely a design issue, with our infobox simply not designed to represent an intermediate state with subsequent information. I don't think COMMONSENSE applies here as it argues to ignore rules where these rules objectively make little sense, whereas there are no guidelines that really affect this discussion. There also aren't that many instaces that we could use as precedent -- the Melbourne House/Beam Software article was moved to the current name without discussion in October 2021. Feel free to elevate this to a better forum. IceWelder [✉] 17:36, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Indie Games Redirect

Just wondering why Indie Games redirects here instead of Indie game. I can understand the fact that it's because the company worked under the moniker for a year, but it seems more appropriate to link to the Indie Game article than here. Maybe an Indie_Games(Company) redirect would be better. GreenSixSided (talk) 13:19, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

I suppose primarily because of the capitalization. Thus far, this hasn't created any issues, as Indie games has the correct target. Creating more redirects should not be the solution as it would need to be piped anyway. IceWelder [✉] 13:25, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

I guess so. Although it does get a little confusing. GreenSixSided (talk) 19:07, 16 September 2022 (UTC)