Support NeoGAF

[Tschumi]

Game development studios are being bought out by both sides of the Microsoft vs. Sony console war. It seems to have become a standard practice now. Bethesda, id., Arkane today, Rockstar tomorrow? Maybe not rockstar, but maybe everything but?

It occurs to me that this might not turn out to be particularly good for game diversity going forward. Ten years from now there might not be any independent AAA, or AA if i may, studios in the wild.

What would the consequences of that be? Every game using one of two engines? IPs cynically rebooted ad infinitum? Independent games becoming an artificial aesthetic, rather than a genuine phenomenon? A dearth of certain genres? PC standing alone as the only platform where you can still find games not developed by committee at Microsoft or Sony?

Or might that result in a welcome consistency of quality and performance? A surge of exclusive titles to be proud of? Better optimised consoles?

Maybe Obsidian's crowdfunded Pillars series, to name one instance, stands as an example of a future in which massive corporate funding is not the only path towards making games?

 

[Zannegan]

Developers with talent can always leave, start their own studios, build up from small games to big successes. There's no guarantee of success of course, but neither is there in AAA development (just look at the Avengers game, which everyone thought was too big a property to fail). The only real loss is that they'll have to leave the IPs behind.

Don't forget that most devs already operate under a handful of large publishers, so I imagine that going first party isn't too much of a switch in terms of someone hampering your creative vision. It may even be less in some cases.

I guess I'm in the wait and see camp, though I will get salty any time a game maker I really like gets bought out or moneyhatted for hardware I wasn't planning to buy yet. Then I'll get over it and find something else to play.

 

[LordBlodgett]

The thing is, this isn't new. You can look back to the 80's and 90's and see consolidation and buyouts. What often happens is a studio is bought, mismanaged, and employees leave and start a new studio. Rinse & repeat. I think back to the 90's and the games I was playing, and where are some of those studios today? Where is Sierra, LucasArts, Maxis, Origin, Naughty Dog (People forget they were independent), Westwood, 3d Realms, etc.......

 

[FranXico]

Game development studios are being bought out by both sides of the Microsoft vs. Sony console war. It seems to have become a standard practice now.

Microsoft has already bought more than a dozen studios by now. In the last 5 years or so, Sony only bought one (that already worked almost exclusively with them for decades).
The fact that it is so one-sided makes the aituation even worse. It's beyond consolidation and already moving towards a monopoly.

People really are underestimating its impact. It affects everything, from development economics to consumer choice in the long term.

 

[FranXico]

The thing is, this isn't new. You can look back to the 80's and 90's and see consolidation and buyouts. What often happens is a studio is bought, mismanaged, and employees leave and start a new studio. Rinse & repeat. I think back to the 90's and the games I was playing, and where are some of those studios today? Where is Sierra, LucasArts, Maxis, Origin, Naughty Dog (People forget they were independent), Westwood, 3d Realms, etc.......

Yes, acquisitions always happened, but never before on this scale.

 

[reksveks]

Damn those embracer group people

 

[Raekwon26]

You mention Sony, but not Embracer group or Tencent?

Weird.

 

[Tschumi]

You mention Sony, but not Embracer group or Tencent?

Weird.

The whole post was about those two competing consoles, if there is anything to add to the shortlist of companies doing this i guess it would only add to my point

 

[bitbydeath]

Nah, this is all overblown if anything.
New studios are formed all the time.

 

[Raekwon26]

The whole post was about those two competing consoles, if there is anything to add to the shortlist of companies doing this i guess it would only add to my point

Well no offense but, you really need to look at and research what Embracer group and Tencent have been doing. I mean, Sony have bought 2 studios in a decade (Sucker Punch and Insomniac), that pales in comparisons to what's actually going on in the industry in regards to acquisitions.

 

[Zeroing]

One ring to rule them all!!

For those optimistic, let’s see what happens when
A. Studios and IPs you love are at the mercy of a big cooperations who might be out of touch with gamers

B. the need to make the acquisition justified, implementation of anything to make profit.

C. Fight for control disrupts everything, with the balance gone, no competition. No need to innovate

D. New studios reply too much on marketing deals, exposure, advertising.

 

[Tschumi]

Well no offense but, you really need to look at and research what Embracer group and Tencent have been doing. I mean, Sony have bought 2 studios in a decade (Sucker Punch and Insomniac), that pales in comparisons to what's actually going on in the industry in regards to acquisitions.

I kind of think you are "signalling" that you know about them, i mean, they don't detract from my point here, there absence isn't felt, i didn't need to research them because the thread is about Sony and Microsoft.

So, like, yeah, you are clue'd in, congrats..

Now that you mention it i do remember that Tencent in particular were pretty notorious for this, i remember them being a bit deal in some threads i saw a few years ago, so yeah i see where you're coming from yeah, it's an industry wide phenomenon~

 

[Jokerevo]

Err is it just me or do we have more variety and diversity than ever before in terms of genres?

 

[Graciaus]

Developers operate under a publisher already. Cutting out the Activisions from the world and letting Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo handle it sounds much better.

 

[TaylorSwiftFan]

Err is it just me or do we have more variety and diversity than ever before in terms of genres?

I feel that we have less original AAA games compared to before.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

Only one console maker is in a rush to buy studios, and it's to compensate for their hitorical failure to build up successful dev studios and IPs.

 

[reksveks]

I feel that we have less original AAA games compared to before.

AAA games have become more expensive to make and Indies games have become cheaper and more easy to make at the same time, it's more a tech movement. This might change in the future with stuff like MetaHuman.

Not related to the quoted post, the amount of salt in this thread is kinda funny.

 

[TransTrender]

It's a problem because Microsoft will need a bigger graveyard than EA.

 

[420bits]

Developers with talent can always leave, start their own studios, build up from small games to big successes. There's no guarantee of success of course, but neither is there in AAA development (just look at the Avengers game, which everyone thought was too big a property to fail). The only real loss is that they'll have to leave the IPs behind.

Don't forget that most devs already operate under a handful of large publishers, so I imagine that going first party isn't too much of a switch in terms of someone hampering your creative vision. It may even be less in some cases.

I guess I'm in the wait and see camp, though I will get salty any time a game maker I really like gets bought out or moneyhatted for hardware I wasn't planning to buy yet. Then I'll get over it and find something else to play.

Yup, this is what happens. All the MONSTERSTUDIOS who once were great lost the people who made them great and now they are just an empty shell of what they used to be.
So in my world it doesn't matter if X buys a 100 studios, new ones will pop up with the "right people" and the old studio just goes down into the grinder and its like it never happened or they are stuck shoveling out the same game over and over again.

 

[Greggy]

Only one console maker is in a rush to buy studios, and it's to compensate for their hitorical failure to build up successful dev studios and IPs.

You’re right. They bought Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Guerilla, moneyhatted SF5, FF16, FF7, Deathloop, Ghostwire, and so on
All because of their incompetence.

 

[nikolino840]

Let see.....what's their name? Diversion? How much are indipendent to put that new ip announced yesterday on Xbox?

 

[Corndog]

No. So far Xbox has given them their autonomy. The moment that stops those people will walk and form new studios.

 

[Zeroing]

No. So far Xbox has given them their autonomy. The moment that stops those people will walk and form new studios.

It’s not easy to make new studios! I mean why can’t MS do it then?

 

[ToTTenTranz]

You’re right. They bought Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Guerilla, moneyhatted SF5, FF16, FF7, Deathloop, Ghostwire, and so on
All because of their incompetence.

Naughty Dog was 20 years ago, Guerrilla was 16 years ago. Deathloop's and Ghostwire's studios were purchased b Microsoft this year, along with the whole publisher full of high profile studios for >$7B because they couldn't even manage to get a single exclusive ready for launch other than token-racing-game-of-the-year.

I get that my comment hurt, but I advise lotion instead of whinning about Sony buying Naughty Dog in 2001.

I'm not worried about MS buying studios. Bethesda is better off under Microsoft than Zenimax and I'm a PCg gamer too so I'll get those games regardless.
Let's just not pretend that Bethesda's acquisition is anything other than a bailout because Microsoft couldn't compete in 1st parties.

 

[Coolwhhip]

Depends on the publisher. Activision killed Blizzard and MS killed Rare. Someone here said MS has plans to change their way of managing studios though, so who knows.

 

[yurinka]

Even if MS decides to stop publishing stuff on PS tomorrow, some people in places like Neogaf would be pissed off but Sony and most of the PS players won't give a fuck.

Minecraft, Double Fine and Zenimax, etc combined were only a tiny portion of the over 1500 million games sold on PS4 (and counting), so the impact of all these MS purchases is going to be almost zero in their PS vs Xbox battle.

In the same way that Sony purchasing Insomniac and Sucker Punch in the last decade didn't change anything, Sony will continue winning MS every generation and MS will continue being the 3rd.

AAA games every generation become more expensive, and every year there are more developers and games in the markets and the competition gets harder, so they become riskier projects. This means devs need bigger financial support so need to have a bigger company behind them. But in a faster pace than some get acquired new ones get created.

 

[ZywyPL]

No opinion. I have yet to see the long term outcome. Insomniac for example, one of the most creative devs out there, but if under Sony's umbrella they'll make nothing but Ratchet s and Spider-Mans, then that's a wasted talent for me. The Coalition, same deal, let them do something new than Gears. SSM with new GoW proved they are able to make something different, now imagine if it wasn't GoW at all but something not restrained to an old franchise. And so on. EA is the best example how milking a franchise can kill all the dev's creativity, and as a result the studio itself.

 

[Griffon]

MS will quickly find the operating costs to be a bit too much for their blood.

Some of those studios will be toast in a few years.

It's not exactly a huge issue, studio owners got big moneybags for their trouble, some of them can just go and create new independent studios. Same for talented employees, if MS management is has dumb as they were with Rare, they will easily quit and move to better studios.

The only thing that's at risk here are the IPs, but creating new similar IPs works just as well.

 

[Shut0wen]

I really dont see a problem with it at all, if anything it'll create more opportunities for new developers to start making games which are multiplatform, main problem with indie developers is when they make a hit game they never seem to expand there company and keep chasing the same dream they had with said hit game, personally they need to go back to the old days slowly expanding there business and employing more people instead of the trend we have now which is triple A or go bust

 

[Shut0wen]

MS will quickly find the operating costs to be a bit too much for their blood.

Some of those studios will be toast in a few years.

It's not exactly a huge issue, studio owners got big moneybags for their trouble, some of them can just go and create new independent studios. Same for talented employees, if MS management is has dumb as they were with Rare, they will easily quit and move to better studios.

The only thing that's at risk here are the IPs, but creating new similar IPs works just as well.

Maybe but maybe not, ms has made a killing with there exclusives now being on pc, it wont be long until gamepass is out on playstation and switch and with xcloud coming out soon theree even more money to be made

 

[prinz_valium]

Studios being bought is the best that can happen for independent studios because it gives them leverage.

The worst is many independent studios that struggle and no one wants.

 

[ZehDon]

"Xbox is a joke - they can't compete with Sony and the Naughty Gods! They have no games!"
*Microsoft buys more first party studios to better compete*
"Microsoft is becoming a monopoly!!"

So much concern...

 

[Nezzeroth]

The thing is AAA game development is incredibly expensive these days. These mid size studios had to basically beg for funding. Being under a bigger company should be easier for them in that sense.

Bethesda is a completely different story though, it's not like they were struggling or anything.

 

[Jubenhimer]

It's understandable for developers who need more backing for AAA development. But if it keeps going at this rate, then we'll get to a point where all game development is centralized around a select handful of conglomerates. That's not a scenario anybody should want. Which is why if they can, many developers should stay independent.

 

[Clear]

You can buy IP and facilities but you can't buy the people who actually make the games. They will move on if they find themselves in a position they don't like.

As I've said before the problem with consolidation is that inevitably everyone gets caught in the Sauron's gaze of corporate governance. They aren't going to spare underperforming units regardless of the success or lack thereof of the enterprise as a whole, fiscal logic and strategic planning will see them merged or shut down.

Phil loves playing Willy Wonka, handing out golden tickets to all and sundry. But in the end, they are all just oompa-loompas to the bean counters within the MS hierarchy!

 

[Greggy]

Naughty Dog was 20 years ago, Guerrilla was 16 years ago. Deathloop's and Ghostwire's studios were purchased b Microsoft this year, along with the whole publisher full of high profile studios for >$7B because them couldn't even manage to get a single exclusive ready for launch other than token-racing-game-of-the-year.

I get that my comment hurt, but I advise lotion instead of whinning about Sony buying Naughty Dog in 2001.

I'm not worried about MS buying studios. Bethesda is better off under Microsoft than Zenimax and I'm a PCg gamer too so I'll get those games regardless.
Let's just not pretend that Bethesda's acquisition is anything other than a bailout because Microsoft couldn't compete in 1st parties.

3 of the exclusives released by Sony so far are from Insomniac which they purchased 3 years ago. I don’t see a post from you saying how bad that was for gaming. While Sony was moneyhatting Bethesda and MS purchased the whole Zenimax umbrella. Same ambition, different wallets. I leave you to fight the good fight.

 

[lh032]

its all about choices, tbh its up to them to sell their studio, its not a hostile takeover

 

[oldergamer]

Consolidation happens at the start of every console generation. The only difference is there are more players this time around

 

[Spidey Fan]

This site is continuing to surprise, with how much people are in love with their box.

1: Xbox has no games, PlayStation better. this was the meme of xbox console.

2: Xbox always comes out 3rd. been seeing this alot here.

3: Bethesda are not talented anymore. they make meh games. Then, why do you guys scream about them.

4: Xbox cant make their own studios. they did, they made initiative in 2018, and is working on perfect dark.

5: PlayStation is better, because its continuing to make great games. Explain the money hat for timed exclusive. deathloope. ghost wire tokyo, all final fantasy since ff7 remake, new upcoming square game, which is 2 year timed exclusive. 5 year street fighter. If their games were awesome, why would they need to do this.

6: Microsoft is creating monopoly. While ignoring the monopoly PlayStation is creating with their numbers (Atlus), most games going to PlayStation, because of their hardware numbers alone, which doesn't trigger any concern over monopoly here. as a certain user said. Bethesda games are minuscule what is on PlayStation. isnt that a monopoly for them? or is it only, on microsoft, who are just trying to build a library for their console, just like how playstation did for ps1, ps2, ps3, ps4.

7: Completely ignoring PlayStation tactic when they joined the console sphere. Buying most of their studios (Nobody cares if they work with them). The fact they bought their studios and not make them, should just make you shut up. Did they build naughty dog? did they build insomniac? did they build sucker punch. Then, why did they purchase them? Why Microsoft shouldn't do the same as them?

8: Making developers pay for cross play. No matter how good business is for PlayStation, they have no right to ask developers to pay for cross play. they can refuse the service like what Microsoft did in xbox 360.

9: Microsoft kills their studios. Then explain, why did microsoft allowed bungie to go. Why did they let rare do sea of theives, and not banjo kazooie, perfect dark reboot, cunker? Why didnt they milk halo series, Hire other studios to do halo spins offs. The fact they event let platinumgames do scale bound for a long time, before cancelling it, should make you a fool. They gave them time, and money, and platinum couldnt deliver it.

When Xbox tried to do the same as PlayStation to build their console library, people act, as if their first born child got kicked in the stomach. Why cant they do what playstation did in the past? Bethesda are just tiny compared to what is in the market. Those games wont make much dent on playstation, lets be honest. There are alot of japanese games, that playstation has, and xbox doesnt have. Prime example is atlus games. Sony doesnt own them, but most of their games are on playstation.

Its perfectly fine to love your prefered console. I have no issues with that. But when you give your console a pass, and criticize the other console, then that is when i have an issue with you. You are acting as a bad faith. I am a pc guy, and i dont have what both consoles have in my pc world. I am not gonna scream about it. its the nature of this industry. Pc world is like a console now. its why call of duty games sales are bad there. You can get them on activision launcher, and not on steam. EA had their games sold on their site. Ubisoft same. and any purchase they make, will be exclusive to those launchers. But we dont scream about it. we just accept and let it go. Recently, Epic had borderland 3 exclusive on their store, same as kingdom heart.

The market now is getting buy out by big companies. Google, Amazon, and Apple are watching. While embracer, and tencent are doing either hostile takeover (Epic, Activision, Blizzard), or mass buy out (Embracer are closer to their 150 studios). Sony and Microsoft need to buy studios now, to take hands of these guys. Imagine if google bought zenimax for their stadia. Mods for zenimax games would have been dead, since that one would be exclusive to their store, and consoles maybe. WB games are now for sale (ATT is putting on discovery, but we have no idea if they will keep their gaming division). What if tencent buys those studios? Wouldnt that kill those studios, since they have different rule in their home world.

All I will say is open your eyes, and dont worship your device. Neither companies are saints. Both company operate in secret. Without epic document, we wouldnt have seen this cross play fees from sony. We have no idea what other skeletons are in the closets.

 

[jhjfss]

 

[Killer Sakoman]

This is not exclusive to gaming, it's happening in all businesses since mid 2000s but reaching its prime now.

 

[sublimit]

It's only a problem if Sony does it.

Remember how Sony exclusives used to be a "problem" and "anti-consumer" by some people before MS started buying studios?

 

[SteelCurtain 59]

It's better for a studio to become acquired by Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo than to die off, I don't think any of the 1st party acquisitions so far have been bad for the industry. If Microsoft bought like EA or Ubisoft then that wouldn't be good imo, but Bethesda wasn't that big, and was really being carried (financially) by BGS and ID, even devs like Arkane and Tango were probably 1-2 poor selling games from being "restructured". In an ideal world there are no exclusives and every dev can be independent, but that's not possible, so I'd rather a studio become permanently exclusive to another platform than have a studio die off, or make much smaller games, or resort to hardcore GaaS/microtransaction heavy games to earn profit. Acquisitions help devs make better games, having way more time and resources is extremely beneficial to games.

And as for fears of consolidation, gaming is growing, there are more indie devs than there ever were before, we're nowhere near a point where Microsoft has some monopoly or mass market consolidation, if there's any issue of that it's way more Embracer or Tencent, and even then there are so many indie devs, and here's the thing, if the talent doesn't like it there or wants out, they can leave and form another indie studio.


Also a large chunk of the people who are worried about consolidation aren't actually worried about consolidation, they're just worried about Xbox being the one consolidating, Embracer/Tencent is more than fine

 

[Varteras]

Locations and properties might funnel into specific portfolios but talent is very fluid. Very much "here today, gone tomorrow". Just look at what's happening lately. Blizzard is losing key staff left, right, and center. Quite a few new studios have popped up with former Blizzard staff among them or nearly entirely comprised of them. Second Dinner, Lightforge Games, One More Game, Frost Giant, and a new publisher Dreamhaven with its two studios Moonshot and Secret Door. These are all heavily made up of ex-Blizzard devs. Dreamhaven was started by Mike Morhaime who was a co-founder of Blizzard and one of the most recognizable faces of the company.

CDPR is looking to increase its footprint in the industry. It wants to become a big publisher. It is not only expanding its own internal development but is now acquiring companies. Kojima Productions is made up of former Konami devs including the man himself. Raid Base is made up of mostly former Riot devs. Haven is made up of a lot of former Ubisoft staff. Firewalk is made up of developers from different studios, not the least of which is Bungie. Deviation has some old Treyarch staff and the director of their next game worked for Blizzard, too. Cloud Imperium Games, which is now a big company with multiple studios around the world and I think over 600 people with former Crytek and Sony staff among them, started off 9 years ago as a handful of people being led by an industry pro who started a crowd funding campaign and ended up getting hundreds of millions of dollars thrown at them. They're currently making the most ambitious game project ever.

There will always be new teams, new studios, and even new publishers from time to time. As long as plenty of money is flowing into the industry to allow the room, that room exists for new companies. There will also be companies not previously associated with games who will try their hand at it. They'll bring cash from outside the industry. Game development doesn't require owning a huge location. It doesn't require owning prohibitively expensive machinery. It doesn't require operating licenses. It doesn't require a ton of middle men. It doesn't require contracts with a bunch of suppliers. Many of the road blocks that exist in other industries are just not there or not as prevalent in gaming. It really only takes a group of people with talent and time. And if you're already known in the industry you can secure funding to make your project even bigger without the need to be owned by a big company.

The thing is AAA game development is incredibly expensive these days. These mid size studios had to basically beg for funding. Being under a bigger company should be easier for them in that sense.

Bethesda is a completely different story though, it's not like they were struggling or anything.

From what Jeff Grubb was saying, it sounds like that was indeed the issue with Zenimax. A lot of their projects weren't going well. Alpha Dog, Roundhouse, Tango, Arkane, and Machine weren't bringing home the money. Their games were underperforming commercially and in the case of Roundhouse they haven't even put out a game yet under Zenimax. They were Human Head previously and they were... not the best studio. Fallout 76 was a disaster. More recently it was Id and Zenimax Online bringing the money in but it just wasn't enough. Even their collaborations like with Avalanche on Rage 2 didn't go well. The owners wanted to sell. They were staring at a rough future where they would probably have to make cuts. Microsoft wanted a lot of studios, Zenimax had a great relationship with them, they had spoken of acquisition before, so they sold at a point where they could probably ask for the most.

Most, if not all, of Microsoft's acquisitions up to this point have been with companies that were either financially shaky and sought out the stability offered by an acquisition or they were already largely exclusive to Xbox anyways and just felt it was a natural progression of the relationship.

 

[Tschumi]

I've always wanted to create a thread that generated this much thoughtful input, thank you to all of you ... Bit busy to reply to individuals just now but yeah this is fantastic.

 

[martino]

For now it hurts mostly closed box fan communities and in the grand scheme of thing we are confusing popularity with number here.
Studios count in multiple hundred, ips too. studio are "dying" and being created every day.
if it really goes too far and become a problem in a distant future developper vision will find a way (my vote)
(open platform being strong is good guarantee it will stay possible)

 

[Hitchyhero]

It's only a problem when it's MS buying them

 

[Kuranghi]

OP, is your name an onomatopeia? It makes me think of chewing gold bears everytime I read it.

 

[Tschumi]

OP, is your name an onomatopeia? It makes me think of chewing gold bears everytime I read it.

He's one of my favourite architects ahemahem

 

[Stuart360]

Over recent years, we have seen many studios go under just from having a average selling game, not even a flop. Being bought does bring some security, which is why so many studios are desperate to be bought in the first place.
As long as they are allowed to make whatever games they want to (within reason obviously), then sure go for it.