1: What if Broderbund managed to keep making hits after Prince of Persia, so that it never had to spin off Adobe, and then go broke anyway?
2: What if David Rosen stays more involved with Sega after 1987 and his heirs don't sell their stock in the company in the open market?
3: What if LucasArts continued to make non-Lucasfilm property games even after the release of the Star Wars Prequels?
4: What if the LucasArts name had lived in the Disney purchase of Lucasfilm and the Buena Vista Software name was thrown into the trash instead?
5: What if Id Software had bought up more of the old Apogee Software assets and Duke Nukem 3D, Forever, and a hypothetical Commander Keen game (say, based on the originally planned "The Universe Is Toast" storyline) were made with the Quake or Doom 3 engines, in a more timely manner?
6: Bioware and Bungie merge in 1997-98, resulting in much cleaner ports of the Baldur's Gate games and MDK to the Mac, and the Marathon series, with updated graphics and sound, coming to Windows 95/98. How does this influence the development of Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, Halo, and Mass Effect? Will there be any further Myst sequels?
7: When Interplay starts going down the tubes in 2005, Square-Enix is Bioware's savior rather than Electronic Arts. What Happens to Mass Effect, Dragon Age, And the Final Fantasy "Fabula Nova Chrystalis?"
8: Interplay manages to regain the Fallout property from Bethesda, say, by proving court that the latter had deliberately and severely underreported royalties due, and the court demands Bethesda shoulder a substantial portion of Interplay's debt from the resulting losses, thus saving the company, and forcing Bethesda to stick to Orange Box properties and The Elder Scrolls. What happens next for both companies? Can they get back the D&D and Star Wars RPG Licenses, or would they want to, with the moves to 4th Edition, Saga Edition, and then the fragmentation of the Star Wars license between Decipher and Fantasy Flight? Will they keep Black Isle Studios? Will they publish Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age? What will the next few Fallout and System Shock games look like? Will they do another Descent?
9: How long would Microprose, Maxis, Bullfrog, Origin Systems, New World Computing, the original Cinemaware, or Sir-Tech software have lasted if Electronic Arts hadn't gobbled them up?
2: What if David Rosen stays more involved with Sega after 1987 and his heirs don't sell their stock in the company in the open market?
3: What if LucasArts continued to make non-Lucasfilm property games even after the release of the Star Wars Prequels?
4: What if the LucasArts name had lived in the Disney purchase of Lucasfilm and the Buena Vista Software name was thrown into the trash instead?
5: What if Id Software had bought up more of the old Apogee Software assets and Duke Nukem 3D, Forever, and a hypothetical Commander Keen game (say, based on the originally planned "The Universe Is Toast" storyline) were made with the Quake or Doom 3 engines, in a more timely manner?
6: Bioware and Bungie merge in 1997-98, resulting in much cleaner ports of the Baldur's Gate games and MDK to the Mac, and the Marathon series, with updated graphics and sound, coming to Windows 95/98. How does this influence the development of Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, Halo, and Mass Effect? Will there be any further Myst sequels?
7: When Interplay starts going down the tubes in 2005, Square-Enix is Bioware's savior rather than Electronic Arts. What Happens to Mass Effect, Dragon Age, And the Final Fantasy "Fabula Nova Chrystalis?"
8: Interplay manages to regain the Fallout property from Bethesda, say, by proving court that the latter had deliberately and severely underreported royalties due, and the court demands Bethesda shoulder a substantial portion of Interplay's debt from the resulting losses, thus saving the company, and forcing Bethesda to stick to Orange Box properties and The Elder Scrolls. What happens next for both companies? Can they get back the D&D and Star Wars RPG Licenses, or would they want to, with the moves to 4th Edition, Saga Edition, and then the fragmentation of the Star Wars license between Decipher and Fantasy Flight? Will they keep Black Isle Studios? Will they publish Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age? What will the next few Fallout and System Shock games look like? Will they do another Descent?
9: How long would Microprose, Maxis, Bullfrog, Origin Systems, New World Computing, the original Cinemaware, or Sir-Tech software have lasted if Electronic Arts hadn't gobbled them up?
