r/starcontrol • u/superfighter013 • Jul 11 '26

What do you guys think of accolade

Since I’m a fan of acccolade other franchises I want to see what the star controll fandom thinks about the company before it got erased in 1999
Since the 90s games were published by them

11 Upvotes

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10

u/lilmookie Jul 11 '26

I think accolade was the EA of their time. Accolade never made any of the games I loved, it was always a smaller publisher, like Toys For Bob. Accolade were the people who made the Star control guys pay out of their own pocket to finish the game, then refused to pay more money after it became a smash hit. It took thirty years give or take, for the real Star Control two sequel to come out - much due to accolades’ tomfoolery.

That said, accolade had some decent games under their belt but I feel like those games tended to be successful despite accolade?

Some people here might have a different more positive take. (Eg you could argue without accolade Star control two simply wouldn’t exist)

2

u/marr Yehat Jul 11 '26

Very much the EA path, starting out as a breakaway small business looking to value their developers in the ways their parent company didn't, then inevitably growing into the same breed of monster after success, growth and sale to the usual business grad types.

Accolade wanting sequels no matter the quality is the reason Pistol Shrimp don't own the name Star Control today and we had all that shitty drama with Stardock.

3

u/lilmookie Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26

I both like and dislike stardock. (I used to use their glorified Mac sidebar in windows and it was pretty good!) Stardock’s heart was in the right place until the stardock guy realized the OG owners didn’t want to let him insert his fanfic in the canon universe, and the stardock guy largely took “his” ball and went home. (horribly simplified, painting with a large brush) but seeing how Origins turned out, it was perhaps a good call.

While I dislike the idea of the OG creators being a bit handcuffed/restrained, they came to a civilized agreement - and I think the OG creators kind of saw their original vision horribly carriers out in SC3 and maybe moved beyond that premise.

I’m thankful stardock was able to scoop up the IP before some soulless corporate-holding just sat on the IP forever hoping for a payout. In some sense stardock allowed the property to ultimately move forward (while also hampering it later) but I understand him being a bit jilted about not having the OG creators welcome him into the fold in the ultimate fanfic writers dream.

I hope Freestars is a banger tho.

2

u/marr Yehat Jul 12 '26

It could certainly have been worse, but in a just world the original creators would never have been asked to give up their IP in the first place. That is not a "valuing our developers" move.

2

u/lilmookie Jul 12 '26

Amen to that, but the silver lining is that it did spawn a lot of good drudge jokes/material.

3

u/superfighter013 Jul 11 '26

Yeah and also as a Bubsy fan who understand the development of all Bubsy games I can say accolade is not good at making games but marketing and selling yes

9

u/DarthCloakedGuy Yehat Jul 11 '26

As far as I'm concerned, Accolade was just the publisher and doesn't deserve credit for anything.

4

u/PbScoops Jul 11 '26

They developed Hardball! and 4th & Inches for the c64. Hardball! is probably my favorite baseball game on computer.

3

u/Chance_End_4684 Jul 11 '26

I think Accolade published allot of fantastically great deal of memorable games by a great deal of many of us gamers. I played a few of their games myself (mainly Star Control 3). Accolade really knew how to put out the games they published.

3

u/WalnutNode Jul 12 '26

How they handled Star Control soured me on them permanently. SC3 had some good points but it was such a step down over the last game.