If you want to grow your first party quickly, then acquiring studios is the only way. It could take years to fully staff up from scratch the number of studios Microsoft needed.
These random indies with not great track records would be easier and quicker to nurture Than straight up employing hundreds of people per studio.
As I am sure that you would already be aware of that, I wonder why you keep posting the same things.
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Acquiring studios is fine as part of your growth strategy but again my point was instead of
this acquisition
and going forward I think that they should form new studios (assuming that they want to grow still). They already acquired several studios and the organization is substantial larger than when they started. But now I think that if they want to grow, take a different kind of risk and create studios where you can poach good talent from the super strong ones that you can't acquire (already owned by other big companies). Instead of settling for companies with not so-great track records and then leaving the main leadership in-tact. There's risk involved in both situations. But going forward maybe instead of trying to "grow first party"quickly", take some risk and to grow first-party to try and give you potentially better results.
They explicitly said their strategy is to let them do what they want and support them. You can pump money into bad leaders and teams and that won't necessarily make them good. My argument is that if you start from scratch you have the opportunity to find a new leader you can pump money into instead buying a companies who have not been consistently super successful (or at all). Other companies often purchase independently owned studios that they have a good relationship with and shipped a successful game or two with in the past. Microsoft acquired studios that have neglected them and are in the middle of creating games that ended up not doing so well. Google is currently doing what I'm suggesting and building new studios by poaching/acquiring top talent from other studios to run them.
In regards to how long it takes to hire a bunch of employees. For a company like Microsoft, it's probably not going to take as long as you think. Large companies can hire very fast, existing Microsoft studios already leverage Microsoft HR hiring system. Microsoft like most big companies have a bunch of deals with recruiting companies to go out and find talented who have or don't have a job already to get them to come interview. Sure it takes more time then starting at X employees than 0; but you shouldn't be basing your growth decisions on how fast you can get X random employees. You should want to ensure you are trying to get the best employees you can.
Also, It's pretty clear why I'm posting the same things. I'm was replying to someone directly quoting me, misunderstanding what I say and making silly arguments because he's overly defense over his favorite game console.
Hard disagree. No point of starting new studios when they are trying to see positive results sooner rather than later. It’s less risk and less difficult to manage with pre existing experienced studios.
Looking at 343 and just how much they struggled with the past few halo games, it’s evident you need studios with background and experience, if anything trying to create multitudes of new studios sounds more like throwing money at a problem than smart acquisitions
That’s not to say I am against new studios, they have done so with 343, the coalition, and the initiative. But the initiative is still very far from releasing a game (still very small team and outsourcing), 343 finally getting into second gear (I like what I’m hearing from infinite), and the coalition still waiting to create that breakthrough game from them after 2 very safe games.
Microsoft acquired a bunch of studios in the middle of third-party distribution contracts with publishers. They don't even get to fully utilize them to get results. They already have several studios at this point. They should take a bit more risk and try and build new ones using strong talent from studios that aren't independently owned. The point of creating studios is about taking a bit of risk to get potentially better results.
Acquiring studios is arguably more throwing money at the problem than what I'm suggesting. Microsoft is buying a bunch of indie studios with worst track records than 343 , letting them do what they want and then giving them a bunch of money hoping that because they have a bunch more money they are going to suddenly have better track records in the future. The strategy I suggested was to build studios using top talent from other studios which is using people who have arguably proven that they know what they are doing instead of hoping the leadership and devs of these random indie studios do better with more money. My suggestion might cost more money but it's not about throwing money it's about taking the risk to create something great using people who have a great track-record; opposed to hopping the leaders of these studios are great leaders/visionaries who were held back by money.
The initiative is not a traditional development studio, they have been deliberately trying to stay small and experiment in their development methodology. Even if they went full-force and took a traditional approach to gave development you probably shouldn't have expect anything from them only 2ish years since their conception. Just like you probably shouldn't expect a big budget AAA game from any of Microsoft acquisitions from 1-2 years ago because most of their team were/are pre-occupied with other multi-platform projects and brand new big budget AAA games typically takes 3-5 years to make..