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The reputation of Apple's Macintosh, CyberFlix's corporate religion, was in steep decline. For years, Apple's and the IBM-cloners' philosophies had diverged. Though some found PC's more dependable, Macintosh was the intuitive genius of the two, always better for graphics.
Though most of CyberFlix's games were available in both Mac and PC versions, the company's allegiance and reputation were solidly with Macintosh. CyberFlix found themselves the stars of several MacWorld trade shows, where a CyberFlix T-shirt made anyone a celebrity. But they were only an impressive oddity at the larger E3 trade shows.
By the mid-'90s, Microsoft's Windows was matching Macintosh in graphics, overwhelming Mac in sales. Clouse and others think this national phenomenon may have been a decisive factor in CyberFlix's struggles after Titanic.
Nevins says it was becoming more and more difficult to produce their own titles without their own distribution system. "It was getting riskier and riskier to do," he says. "Each time, we had to find a distributor to market our game."
Hume thinks Appleton was not ready for the Internet phenomenon, which de-emphasized CD-ROM technology and made things you buy in boxes seem like the old kid on the block. "They could have become a rich dot-com company," she says. "They just didn't do it."
In spite of his pride in Titanic, Kennedy, a self-confessed "gamer" before and after CyberFlix, was less impressed with CyberFlix's handle on new technology than some more casual observers. DreamFactory did allow some real innovations, he says, but "CyberFlix didn't stay current. We didn't stay on the cutting edge of things." Even on Titanic, he says, "it hadn't been pushed as far as it could have been." (He sounds as if he's still smarting from one critic's observation that some of the "puppet" animation was "Monty-Pythonesque.")
Divisions developed in the company between those who wanted to make computer games with conventional subject matter and others, including Scheinbaum and Nelson, who were looking for the next Titanic. "We went to Bill and said, 'We've got this historical-fiction genre nailed. We have this new audience of people who never had a computer, never played a computer game. Why don't we do The Hindenburg?"
Appleton's answer was vague. "What we'll do is going to be incredible, just wait and see."
In April, 1997, Andrew Nelson became the first of the original founders to leave. Most recall him as the loser in a fight over company philosophy. Nelson wanted to stick to historical-adventure titles, like Titanic, and proposed two more projects: one would be an Anne-Rice-style story about vampires in Charleston; the other which would be based on the story of Anastasia, would be set in the Romanovs' palace. This time, he wasn't able to convince his colleagues.
Recalling Nelson's departure on long distance from his Atlanta office, Cabus sighs audibly. "Andrew wanted to come up with another title to publish, but they just weren't that exciting," Cabus says. "That's all Andrew wanted to do. He wanted to find another Titanic. But Titanic was one of those things we couldn't duplicate. We were just in the right place at the right time. Lightning doesn't strike twice."
Nelson became one of the first signees with the new cyber-oriented arm of the prestigious talent agency, International Creative Management. At a going-away party at the brewpub downtown, Nelson surprised several of his friends with dark prognostications about the future of CyberFlix. He said the company would produce only one more interactive movie: the pirate yarn RedJack, which had been on the drawing board for years. After that, Nelson said, CyberFlix might do plenty of impressive technical work, but wouldn't ever make any more games.
Today, Nelson's old colleagues don't know where he might have come up with that insight. For 18 months after Nelson's departure, CyberFlix programmers worked in anticipation of launching more games.
Today, working in Chicago for Encyclopedia Britannica's on-line service, Nelson politely declines comment on his four years at CyberFlix.
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