In recent news ( ref ) in order to survive a studios is looking for a publisher to buy them out. For obvious reasons, people around here weren’t too happy to hear that Ubisoft might be interested in acquiring them. This got me thinking: when a former AAA studio goes indie, it stops really being what it was; best of luck to them, but the studio they once were is effectively gone. I strongly prefer indie studios, yet it makes me wonder what publisher would be decent one to have both money power to acquiring and maintaining AAA studios while still being decent on (ie: I doubt Annapurna and alike have such kind of money). After all, not everyone can be Hideo Kojima, essentially operating as an indie-AAA hybrid where the studio educates its own publishers.
People make games not companies, if your sitting on such a huge gaming endowment hire good people and make original games.
Buying a studio is just a name, especially a older studio with many years since it’s last success, people turn over, move around…
I’m in favour of letting those studios, and basically AAA, die the death they so obviously want.
In due course something will rise from the ashes. I hope for something along the lines of developer shared ownership, it’s mostly clueless C-Suite dickheads and shareholder profits ruining things. In the meantime indies can thrive.
The developers.
I’m less worried about the companies at that point and more worried about the IP.
