A Myst-erious Business

Editor's Note: Here's one I prepared in late August. --PS3D

Cyan Worlds (formerly Cyan) is a fairly mysterious company. We talked about Cosmic Osmo months ago, but Cyan Worlds is still an intriguing company.

1. The Mysterious Color Cosmic Osmo
I'm still wondering about the real "color" Cosmic Osmo. A full page is what I remember, and oddly enough, some of the most vivid things (like Queen Osmo, the radio tower) later resurfaced years later when I finally managed to get my hands on a Cosmic Osmo and the Worlds Beyond the Mackerel disk image. I tried visiting the 1997 version of Cyan to get my hands on that elusive page, but the links to the Site Map and Other Worlds was down.

2. Sunsoft
Sunsoft, a Japanese company, helped finance Myst, but Sunsoft's intent was to gain the exclusive rights for consoles. Specifically, the SNES CD-ROM add-on. No real screenshots of what the SNES CD would've looked like, but it's likely that it would look more like the grotesquely underpowered Sega CD. However, while we never saw Myst or Cosmic Osmo on the Super Nintendo, years later, Sunsoft helped bring Myst (and later, "The Manhole: Masterpiece Edition") to the iOS. Was Sunsoft always with Cyan, or did they re-join forces? And if it was the latter, why?

3. Three and Four
We know why Ubisoft is the publisher of the latter Myst series. A deal was inked with Brøderbund, but Brøderbund changed hands, as The Learning Company bought it, Mattel bought The Learning Company, Mattel sold The Learning Company to Gores Technology Group, and the entertainment holdings were sold to Ubisoft...but that doesn't explain why Myst III: Exile and Myst IV: Revelations were not developed by Cyan Worlds. The answer supposedly was that they were working on Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, but that ran into delays, cutbacks, cancellations, and reopenings. Not exactly as intended.

4. That Bad, Huh?
In 2005, Cyan laid off almost everyone and appeared like they would totally die, and was only saved after a deal with Turner Broadcasting and GameTap. But how did Cyan get to that position, anyway? Did they burn through all the cash reserves of original Myst and Riven sales, as well as later Myst licensing that fast? One theory is the changing of hands of Brøderbund's entertainment holdings caused losses for Cyan (Mattel Interactive was a big money-loser) but that's pretty vague. You'd think that the changing hands would allow them to bail out.

Comment Discussion: What are your memories of playing Cyan games?