On top of the constant flow of “<Company X> has announced they’re laying off <Quantity Y> people by <Date Z>”, there has been unrelenting stream of announcements of companies we all know (and sometimes love) purchasing other companies and/or being purchased themselves. Just today, for example, we’ve learned that… GameFly is buying ShackNews and that Crytek is buying Free Radical. I was just talking with one of my coworkers today asking “What happens when the economy recovers?” There are so many lay-offs, closures, mergers, acquisitions, etc. When the dust settles on everything, I think a very small group of people will have ended up making small fortunes from the investments they were prepared to make while the vast majority of us will be no better off at all.
Back to the GameFly/ShackNews deal… that’s a really odd one. At least with CryTek buying Free Radical, you could see that they’re both developers, they both specialize in FPS games… one has console experience while the other wants to publish on consoles (we think.) I “get” that deal… but GameFly rents and sells games while ShackNews reports on gaming news. I see potential for (at least speculated) conflict of interest there. The announcement as posted on ShackNews itself seemed to paint the picture of GameFly simply wanting to expand their horizons, promising not to “twist and turn” ShackNews into something it’s not and to devote more resources to it.
I think we’re far from the end of this string of oddball (and often somewhat depressing) news reports. Let’s have some fun here… I want you to take a couple minutes and think about your most and least wanted acquisitions and leave them in the comments to this post. I’ll go first.
Most Wanted Acquisition: Rockstar Games acquired by Insomniac Games – I’m not even addressing the fact that Insomniac is PS3-exclusive, but imagine the creativity and attention to detail these two companies could put out if they were working together and if Insomniac was involved, we’d see regular and substantial updates instead of the “too little, too late” I’ve gotten from Rockstar after the initial purchase.
Least Wanted Acquisition: Naughty Dog by EA/Activision/Ubisoft – Naughty Dog has fairly consistently been one of those platform-specific developers that waits until their game is ready before releasing it. It would be a shame to see them swallowed up into an “every platform released on a scheduled date” organization where budgets dictate release dates.
Bonus “What would happen?” Acquisition: Id acquired by Valve – At one time these two were the PC megaforces to be reckoned with. Valve is great but slow (although they did PC gamers right with Steam) and Id seems to get the tech right but somehow manages to hose up their games in some way that I end up not caring for them that much.
Bonus “What did happen?” Acquisition: Rare acquired by Microsoft – I mean really, do I have to explain this one? Rare kicked ass… Rare got bought by Microsoft… Rare has had a string of “should’ve been better than they were received” games. It’s not that Kameo, Perfect Dark Zero, and Viva Pinata are horrible games, they’re absolutely not… but they’ve all underperformed in some way or another. Rare lost their mojo when Microsoft bought them… at least that’s the best I can come up with.
Let’s hear your thoughts and picks!
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i wonder what this means for time splitters 4, if it is saved, i doubt it will be a ps3 exclusive like it was going to be.
one dream acquisition i would like to see, would be valve bought by sony, so that the ps3 wont be ignored by my fave developer
or how about if apple acquired a bunch of developers to work on titles for there new apple console to rival the ps3 and xbox. (not that crazy if you think about it, imagine Microsoft before the xbox, now think about which one would be more likely to make a awesome gaming console)
I have one very interesting thought on this… If Crytek are really buying out Free Radical, that’s the best frikkin news I’ve heard all year. I was crushed when Free Radical were closed because I’d been looking forward to Timesplitters 4 for so long (we’ll forget about Haze for now). Now if Crytek keep those staff who’ve been developing TS4, and add a few of their own raw talents, it could be one hell of a great addition to the franchise and to the ps3. That is of course IF they decide to renew the IP.
In fact, thinking about it now, if Crytek buy Free Radical that would make them a third party developer. Potentially widening the platform options for Timesplitters 4. Could be very interesting.
@Krelith: Free Radical was _always_ a third party developer… also, it’s been confirmed that Crytek is buying Free Radical and 40+ jobs were saved in the process. Time Splitters 4’s future is still unclear, but I’m betting unless someone other than Free Radical owned the rights to the Time Splitters series, we’ll eventually see it released (most likely multi-platform too)
It would be awesome if Valve bought out Id. I reckon they could make one hell of a Quake 5. The franchise has been kinda dead to me since Quake 2…
Wouldn’t mind seeing a Valve/Epic merger either. I doubt either one could flat out buy the other, but a merger could present a sleugh of interesting new IPs and could even create a sequel I’ve been waiting for a decade for (almost), Unreal 3. I loved Unreal 2 and suddenly they just turned their attentions to UT and Gears. Wasted opportunity if you ask me.
I think the ultimate merger in all things gamer would be Sony’s gaming dept merging with Nintendo or visa versa.
It wouldn’t be a monopoly anymore because of Microsoft’s third wheel and a decent part of the gaming pie.
But if in some weird, alternate universe, where the stars align and the two Japanese gaming giants unite, I think that would be the best to happen to gamers since Undertow 3: Low Tide was announced for the N-Gage.
bethesda and bioware
just think of the possibilities….
Most wanted: Sony acquires newgrounds. Sony then improves the flash support for the PS3 and adapts the games to make sure they work well with the controller. Providing a steady stream of free games onto the PSN.
Least wanted: Toyota aquires Polyphony Digitial. Unable to generate extra sales of its cars via the Yaris game, Toyota aquires Polyphony Digital and removes all other car makers from Gran Turismo. Although, we might actually get GT5 this year if they did – so it is not all bad.
I am so happy Free Radical didn’t go under. They are a great developer. @Keith They have been multiplat since Timesplitters 2. As far as I know they own the rights to the series as it has been published by two different companies. Maybe they will use the Crytek’s engine for TS4.
Most Wanted: Sony buying Konami
Reasons are obvious.
Least Wanted: EA buying Square Enix (Squenix)
They would kill all imagination at Squenix. But we might get a remake of VII.
I’m also happy that Free Radical got saved. If not for TimeSpiltters 4, but for those people and their jobs.
Personally I want to see all the people you have recently been laid off soar our of the woodwork, and make an amazing company. That I find would be truly exciting.
@bowie: interesting idea about newgrounds
and I can just see Yaris 2 being a PSN exclusive… LOL!