Timeline
After almost two decades, Operation Genesis holds a plenty of history behind its back, and all that is shown here, in the Timeline section of the Site! This Timeline shows an overview of major events related to JPOG, from it's announcement, to the release date of this Site.
Operation Genesis Timeline
A simple look into the events of Operation Genesis, since it's announcement, the development delays, the major modding events, and creation of this site! Beginning, middle and end, all in one place:
2001-2003: Creation, Development & Delays
Someday on May of 2001, a new Jurassic Park Project is suggested and approved to start development by Universal Interactive and Amblin. After the cancellation of "Jurassic Park: Survival", a new IP was created to go alongside Jurassic Park III, expected to release around July of 2001, the game would come around a year later the movie.
The Development lasted 22 Months in total, with the release on March of 2003. The Game was only officially announced to the public on 19 February of 2002, with the name of "Jurassic Park Project Genesis", planned to release on the $th Quarter of 2002. It was only 3 Months later that the very first Gameplay Footage was revealed during the 2002 E3 Event. There, the game was showcased as "Jurassic Park The Game", with the Spinosaurus on the logo and a brief view of in-game gameplay.
During an interview with GamersPulse, which you can read here, on that interview, the Game was renamed back as Project Genesis instead of "The Game". On that same interview the Game was delayed to Christmas of 2002. Despite it already originally going for Q4 of 2002, it seems it was originally sometime between October and November.
Around October of 2002, close to the expected release, the Game was delayed yet once again, instead, this time they were aiming for Q1 of 2003. During that announcement, the game was renamed once again as Jurassic Park Operation Genesis. It's mentioned in a couple interviews that "Project Genesis" and "The Game" were never truly final names for the Title, but instead Placeholders while they were still deciding which one to go.
It was then in May of 2003 that JPOG finally saw the light of day, on the 10th to be specific, Operation Genesis was first released in North America for Windows.
2003: Release, Reception & GameCube Version
Around a week after the release for PC, Gamasutra interviewed the Blue Tongue Developers into the process of creating Operation Genesis, on that Interview, a plenty of information came to the public, in particular certain cut features from the game, due Time Constrains and Console Limitations. We also discuss better those features in the Cut Content section of the Site. The Interview of course talks aswell in-depth about the creation of the game as a whole, you can read the Interview here.
Shortly after that, around April, Blue Tongue made the announcement that the GameCube version of JPOG was sadly cancelled and scrapped all together. It's unknown why exactly it was cut but a possible factor may be the mixed reception of the game. Various sites described the game "Mixed or Average".
It's quite interesting how history repeats itself, one particular review of JPOG had the following:
"[...] may be too complex for some [...] getting e-mail notices and warnings every 10 seconds doesn't help [...] you can see the long-term fun is doomed for extinction. Sure, you get a lot to do, but not many ways to do it. You raise all the dinos the same way; you have the same limited park amenities and research options game after game; and you won't experience anything new after playing through an open-ended game once."
~Electronic Gaming Monthly
Meanwhile, nearly 15 Years later, Jurassic World Evolution gets a similar review by many people, pointing how limited and same-ish your Parks and Dinosaurs can end up looking like.
Around the Third Quarter of 2003, the GameCube version of JPOG was originally supposed to release.
On July and October to be specific, the Japanese Versions of JPOG were released, for Windows and PlayStation 2, respectivelly.
2003-2007: Modding Finds a Way
Modding was and still is something that lives alongside Operation Genesis since the very beginning, literally! Right after the game release on PC, people already started creating Forums for the Game itself and eventually for the Mods they were going to create.
This egg that is Modding, was still trying to hatch, with small cracks trying to reveal itself. What we're trying to say here is that, when Modding first started, all that was around were .Ini Files edits. Things like Money changing, Dinosaur Age changing, and of course, our beloved Removal of Twisters mod!
Modding slowly found its way into the Community, specially with the creation of the now closed Modding Genesis Forum.
Around the years of 2004 and 2007, Modding started to grow surprisingly fast in advancement and such, with Behavioral tweaks and even Skin edits, mods like the Community Expansion Project [CEP] or Genesis Expansion Pack [GEP] start to spread out as must-have for some players. Only around 2007 that Film Canon and Novel Canon mods popped up as an attempt to recreate the Dinosaurs seen in the Movies and the Novels. After all, despite being a Jurassic Park Game, the JPOG Dinos still lacked certain movie accuracy.
Despite our listing of "2003-2007", Modding still holds a place on the small community of JPOG, in particular the Modding Site "ModDB", with a variety of Mods from all complexities and styles. You can visit the JPOG's ModDB Page clicking here.
2008-2014: The Slow Death & The Forgotten
Around these years, JPOG reached the surprising goal of 400.000 copies sold Worldwide, with nearly 100.000 of those being solely from the United Kingdom. Despite having a great achievement, Operation Genesis was already nearly 5 Years Old, without post-release Support, and with the Expansions scrapped, the only thing holding JPOG up was itself and Modding.
Exactly around the end of that period, The Forgotten was released on ModDB and other Forums, developed by the Modder EchoGreen, the general idea behind it was the include the Cut Dinosaurs that were first mentioned in the Gamasutra Interview, and the others found in the Game Files. The Forgotten still holds a landmark on JPOG History, being one of the largest Content Packs created so far, alongside the Expansion Packs that came shortly after.
2015-2017: The Jurassic World Era & JW Evolution
The year is 2015, around the month of June a new Blockbuster movie is about to release, it's the long expected Jurassic World. Directed by Colin Trevorrow.
There's no way to talk about JPOG or anything Jurassic without mentioning Jurassic World, the major event that revived the Jurassic Franchise once again, after its slow death with Jurassic Park III and the bizarre scripts of Jurassic Park IV.
After its success, the inevitable happened, JW Mods started to pop up on Operation Genesis, but one Expansion Pack in particular holds a special place in this. Jurassic World Expansion Pack added nearly 80 Dinosaurs in total, using a creative trick with the Feeders. The Pack was created by a group of Brazilian Modders, [same country as this Site's creators!] and held a quite long reputation of decent mod throughout some months.
Things started to slowly decay more and more with the inevitable abandonment of the Community, but one particular thing did the last strike: Jurassic World Evolution.
With the announcement of a new Jurassic Park Builder Game, many people from the Fanbase started to call that the Death of JPOG, the spiritual successor of JPOG, and so on. The interest for the 2003 Game started to decay even more, until something happened...
2017-2019: Modding breaks free
Around December of 2017, a specific Modder and Coder started to show off a new tool of his, his name was Equinox, the tool was called the Repacker. The basic deal with the Repacker was the importing and exporting of JPOG Models into the 3D Modelling Software "Blender". For some people this might not sound big at all, but it was a HUGE breakthrough the modding of Operation Genesis. Being able to modify precisely the Game Models, instead of the earlier used Hex Editing Methods.
Around the year of 2018 and 2019 the Repacker started to get various improvements and additions such as Better Resolution for Textures or Rig and Animation editing. In result, a plenty of complex and quite well made mods started to be made, one in particular that probably takes the spot of best visual mods is Advanced Operation Genesis, developed by Jagged Fang Designs, AOG had paleontological accurate recreations of various Dinosaurs into the game. The Mod itself though, never went public due the limitations of the game itself, most of the designs were later on moved to Jurassic World Evolution or held until another Game with more freedom came in.
2021-???: The Genesis Archives & The Beyond
Since the Repacker release and various Mod Projects being made, but also various being cancelled, the popularity of JPOG started to decay more and more since then, specially with Jurassic World Evolution taking the crown of Park Builder for this Franchise.
It was only around the ending of 2020 that a Concept for a JPOG Encyclopedia came in my mind, to make sure this wonderful and nostalgic game could be forever preserved in a way. The main factor behind it was exploring and exposing all the Cut Content the Game could've had, but the ida expanded into grouping everything regarding it together in here.
The Genesis Archives took exact 2 months to be developed on the Free Site Designing Site Wix. Despite the use of "we" in various parts, it was entirely made by one person, with other people collaborating with medias and information.
By now, it's been a couple years since a new Discovery of JPOG's History was made, and who knows what else could appear in the next months or years. What i do hope though, is to keep this Site online as long as it can, to keep it immortalized for everyone who enjoyed and still enjoys Dinosaurs and Jurassic Park!
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"Creation, is an act of sheer will. The next time, it will be flawless.."
~John Hammond