February 22, 2010
The Reason Why Earthworm Jim PSP
was Canceled
We discover why the plug got
pulled on the highly-anticipated portable entry to the franchise.
Do you remember the good ol’ days
when platformers were the most popular genre? If you do, then you undoubtedly
should remember Shiny Entertainment’s Earthworm Jim that made a name for itself
with cunning and tongue-in-cheek humor.
Well, back in 2006, Shiny
Entertainment and Atari announced that they were developing a PSP title of the
original Earthworm Jim. Soon after, Atari sold off Shiny Entertainment to
Foundation 9, which then merged them with The Collective to form Double Helix
Games. Thus, the formerly announced Earthworm Jim PSP was “put on hold” by
Atari, even though it was said to be 80 percent complete. So where has the title
gone?
According to a former Shiny
Entertainment developer that we spoke to at a recent press event, the Earthworm
Jim PSP never got past getting the team back together for another go-around. You
see, David Perry, one of the original founders of Shiny Entertainment, was ready
to get everything off the ground and revive the lovable worm, but there’s one
underlying problem that caused it to reach its inevitable cancellation:
royalties.
Earthworm Jim was originally
published by Interplay, the often money-troubled company that sold off the
entire Fallout franchise to Bethesda Softworks to help combat their debt
problems. Back in 2006 though, before the sale of the entire Fallout
intellectual property, it was reported that they needed $75 million to complete
their Fallout MMO project and just by chance, this Earthworm Jim project was set
to start around the same time frame.
So as luck would have it, Interplay
was in dire need of money and had no way of paying off owed royalties from years
past to Shiny Entertainment that included the television show, toys and much
more that sent the worm into the stratosphere of superstardom.
Thus, Interplay, Atari and Shiny
Entertainment went to bat and struck out. It’s a sad realization, but Perry and
crew were this close to getting the gang back together and were met with a harsh
reality that it was never meant to be.
We pray that Earthworm Jim 4,
published and developed by a refocused Interplay with the creator of Earthworm
Jim, Douglas TenNapel, on the team doesn’t suffer the same fate.
