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Bloober Team (Observer, Blair Witch, The Medium) has backed away from acquisition talks

Bloober Team, the Polish studio behind Xbox Series X and S exclusive The Medium, has decided not to go through with an acquisition or merger with any other company.

As reported by Bankier.pl, the studio issued a press release stating that it planned to enter into talks “on strategic cooperation with one of the industry’s entities” rather than allowing one to buy a majority share in the company.

It was revealed last June that Bloober Team was in the second round of merger and acquisition talks with “a dozen or so” companies, including three from the United States, two from Poland and one from the UK.

According to the new press release, these talks have fallen through because Bloober Team doesn’t want its future plans to be affected.

“The company has decided not to continue discussions with potential financial and industry investors interested in acquiring a majority stake due to the high risk of losing its overriding strategic objectives,” the release states.

“At this stage it would be incompatible with the culture of the organisation, and would significantly limit the potential growth of the company’s value in the coming years, especially taking into account the projects implemented and planned.”

Instead, Bloober Team states that it may now actually have enough money to make its own investments in other companies to improve its games.

“Moreover, the company, having spare financial resources, has the possibility of making investments aimed at increasing its fundamental value,” it explains.

“In connection with this, the management board of the company considers making investments in companies complementing the issuer’s operations in order to increase its production and sales capabilities.”

Bloober is an established horror game developer, having previously released the well-received Observer (2017) and 2019’s Blair Witch game.

The Medium, released in January, was relatively well-received by critics. VGC’s review said it “won’t give you any sleepless nights, but treat it as a paranormal thriller rather than an all-out horror game and you’ll find an interesting story (albeit a disturbing one at times) that will encourage you to push through its slightly repetitive split-screen gimmick to find out how it all ends.”

Last month, the studio revealed that its next title will be an existing horror IP from “a very famous gaming publisher”, fuelling speculation it could be reviving Konami‘s Silent Hill.

 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Who knew Bloober was in such hot pursuit.

Looking at their game catalog, the majority of their early games are no-name crud and their latest games are ~70 scoring walking sim suspense games.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Medium bomba'd 🤷‍♂️

They'll need a better shop window title I guess. There is a good and perhaps even great game in that studio somewhere - Observer had some really nice elements and atmospherics but all tied to a ponderous walking sim.

Hope they can make the breakthrough (y)

hmm?
 
They didn't like the amount of money being offered and are hoping a couple years and another game release will help them reach a higher valuation. Could work out well or be a colossal mistake, it all depends on the reception/sales of the next game they are making.
 

MiguelItUp

Member
Yeah, I bet. Shame for them. The Medium really didn't do too well as far as I know. A lot of people were expecting something completely different.
 

Kuranghi

Member
I think they need more gameplay and technical "wizards". The art is great, the overarching ideas could be great but it really falls down in these two areas.

Unless its the engine's limitation their games have weird perrformance issues that need to be fixed, they're cinematic games you don't want bullshit like stuttering or framerate crashes getting in the way of experiencing that. Even average gamers expect good performance these days and even if they don't understand on a technical level whats wrong they still feel the difference between The Medium and say, Spiderman, as an example of a game with great frame-pacing and no fps issues.

Gameplay wise I mean they need someone to develop systems that are engaging and varied, just because they are making games in an older genre doesn't mean they can't have modern gameplay that isn't so rigid.
 

Astral Dog

Member
Woah, thats bold! I wish them luck and im happy to see some developers choosing to remain independent and grow by themselves. Bloober clearly have plenty of creative ambition.

Obviously this strategy won't work for everyone, but they know what they doing works for them
 
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raduque

Member
I've enjoyed all their games I've played so far. Layers of Fear, Blair Witch, Medium.

I just hope they get their technical prowess up, cause performance in their games is always awful.
 

Astral Dog

Member
I think they need more gameplay and technical "wizards". The art is great, the overarching ideas could be great but it really falls down in these two areas.

Unless its the engine's limitation their games have weird perrformance issues that need to be fixed, they're cinematic games you don't want bullshit like stuttering or framerate crashes getting in the way of experiencing that. Even average gamers expect good performance these days and even if they don't understand on a technical level whats wrong they still feel the difference between The Medium and say, Spiderman, as an example of a game with great frame-pacing and no fps issues.

Gameplay wise I mean they need someone to develop systems that are engaging and varied, just because they are making games in an older genre doesn't mean they can't have modern gameplay that isn't so rigid.
I agree, yet its their games, they focus too much on the presentation over the gameplay, but nothing stops them from making a game with engaging gameplay as they are, may not be as polished as AAA budget, but they CAN try, instead chose to focus on atmosphere shock factor and writting(the last one sometimes mediocre).

Its like the chinese factory, they could do a better 'game' but thats not the experience they want to make
 

Astral Dog

Member
I've enjoyed all their games I've played so far. Layers of Fear, Blair Witch, Medium.

I just hope they get their technical prowess up, cause performance in their games is always awful.
Thats weird their games i have (Layers of Fear 1 and 2 on consoles) work well enough
 

Astral Dog

Member

demigod

Member
They didn't like the amount of money being offered and are hoping a couple years and another game release will help them reach a higher valuation. Could work out well or be a colossal mistake, it all depends on the reception/sales of the next game they are making.
Yup. And lol at “well received” when the game got a 71 metacritic. Their valuation has gone down, they should’ve sold when they had the chance.
 

fart town usa

Gold Member
Good for Bloober. I think they're super exciting to watch, especially for someone like me who was super hyped on 'Sadness' back during the early years of the Wii and the Nibris Team. Bloober Team, based on what I know, were the few people at Nibris who actually knew what they were doing. I think it's cool to see their rise from vaporware to a studio who has been making a name for themselves. I wish them continued success in their future.
 

Kuranghi

Member
They need advice from people who make other genres of games, ones that are focused purely on gameplay, rather than story/dialogue/tone. Then try to apply that design methodology to their type of game, I'm not saying it will be easy but you can still keep your fanbase and at least try to cater to the mainstream crowd a bit more.

I'm talking like how Capcom made RE appeal to modern players with the remakes and 7, it still has the heart of survival horror but just tweaking a few things made it have way more mass appeal, like removing ink ribbons and adding autosaves. I'd tell anyone who just starting games to play the remakes, as long as you have some patience you can easily work out anything in the game, including boss strategies. Its not like other genres where casual players just get stuck permanently because they haven't played enough games to know game tropes, you can always brute force through it.

I didn't get the feeling that was the case with The Medium from what I've seen of it, I know big fans of genre that got stuck replaying some of the run away sections and couldn't work out what they were doing wrong before or what they did right when it worked, thats just bad game design imo.
 
Good for Bloober. I think they're super exciting to watch, especially for someone like me who was super hyped on 'Sadness' back during the early years of the Wii and the Nibris Team. Bloober Team, based on what I know, were the few people at Nibris who actually knew what they were doing. I think it's cool to see their rise from vaporware to a studio who has been making a name for themselves. I wish them continued success in their future.
I had completely forgotten about Sadness until I read more recently there were some similarities between it and The Medium. But yeah it's good to see they are around making games.

That they might be working on a Silent Hill or another famous horror game IP is interesting to think about.
 
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fart town usa

Gold Member
I had completely forgotten about Sadness until I read more recently there were some similarities between it and The Medium. But yeah it's good to see they are around making games.

That they might be working on a Silent Hill or another famous horror game IP is interesting to think about.
Blair Witch reminded me too of Sadness when I read about it (never played it). Layers of Fear definitely seemed to retain some of the Sadness art style as well. I should have bought the Observer when it was on PS4. I don't think it's up there anymore. I've actually never played anything by Bloober but it's one of those studios I google every few months to see what they're up to.
 

Fredrik

Member
I enjoyed The Medium, it was slow and clunky but at times it managed to scare me like few other games I’ve played, they absolutely nailed the atmosphere as far as I’m concerned.
That said, I still wouldn’t be surprised if big investors backed out after the release and Bloober simply didn’t want to sell to the ones that were left.
 

kuncol02

Banned
Medium bomba'd 🤷‍♂️

They'll need a better shop window title I guess. There is a good and perhaps even great game in that studio somewhere - Observer had some really nice elements and atmospherics but all tied to a ponderous walking sim.

Hope they can make the breakthrough (y)

Crazy Rich Asians Disconnect GIF by The Gentlemen
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not

raduque

Member
Thats weird their games i have (Layers of Fear 1 and 2 on consoles) work well enough
They *work* ok, but performance just doesn't seem to be there. LoF both run at 60 fps on my PC, but the movement seems weird, like it's actually running at 30 fps or something. Blair Witch and Medium both have awful frame rates for their graphics.
 

KungFucius

King Snowflake
The Medium was OK. Great type of Gamepass game. Can get through it in a weekend or so. It ran fine for me with a few oddities with HDR that could be due to my PC. I don't know why people expect high framerate in a game that is basically the controller driven equivalent to the Old school PC adventure game.
 

ksdixon

Member
Interesting. I didn't catch this the first time around, but I guess we now know this is Square Enix Konami (I'm tired)
 
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reksveks

Member
If Konami was going to give out "S____ ___L" to me, i am not sure I would get acquired beforehand maybe afterwards.
 

Max_Po

Banned
Failed so hard they made their investment back in days.....it should have been hours like......like.....like....


Bro, it launched on GamePASS, it was developed in Poland (much cheaper labour) and they received a cheque from MS....

They didn't recover shit from sales... it was not in any sales chart. ....
 

jaysius

Banned
Whatever these guys are on, I hope it they have more for when it drops them back into reality.

They were lucky AF some poor bastards were thinking of buying them.

Blair Witch was awful, the medium is boring and awful.

Observer suffered from the same shitty "creep around the unkillable enemy" lazy gimmick that they threw into the medium, without providing good stealth mechanics, which is why that bullshit always feels shoehorned into their games. These guys just don't get it.

These guys need serious help.
 
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Cravis

Member
Whatever these guys are on, I hope it they have more for when it drops them back into reality.

They were lucky AF some poor bastards were thinking of buying them.

Blair Witch was awful, the medium is boring and awful.

Observer suffered from the same shitty "creep around the unkillable enemy" lazy gimmick that they threw into the medium, without providing good stealth mechanics, which is why that bullshit always feels shoehorned into their games. These guys just don't get it.

These guys need serious help.
tell me how you really feel fox tv GIF by Kicking & Screaming
 

ay91

Banned
Why the fuck were there so many companies interested in buying them in the first place? Is this some sort of a money laundering scheme?
 

JLB

Banned
The Medium was OK. Great type of Gamepass game. Can get through it in a weekend or so. It ran fine for me with a few oddities with HDR that could be due to my PC. I don't know why people expect high framerate in a game that is basically the controller driven equivalent to the Old school PC adventure game.

What is a gamepass game? You mean for the duration? I see plenty of high quality super long games.
 

Shubh_C63

Member
If I was the CEO, I would make Silent Hill, increasing my market cap and then re-negotiate.

Of course this hangs on the fact that Silent Hill wouldn't be a mediocre game.
 
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