• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Any Successful Returns of Franchises Made After IP Purchase?

NoKisum

NoKisum

Member
Earlier today on my social media rounds, I saw a friend post something on the line of ”Capcom should sell Mega Man to Sega". Obviously, this statement was stemmed off the fact that Capcom hasn't made a new game in the series in several years after the departure of Inafune. Over the years, I've heard plenty of statements like this, like the infamous ”Sega should sell Sonic to Nintendo." And this got me thinking...

Has a game franchise ever been completely sold to another company, only for it to turn around and become a success?

And by this, I don't mean series that were attached to companies that went out of business, and were picked up after liquidation (South Park: The Stick of Truth's move from THQ to Ubisoft immediately comes to mind). I'm talking a full purchase of the series and its ownership rights from one company to another in the hopes the series would be brought back to prosperity.
 
K

Keinning

Member
Fallout? I'm not the biggest fan of what bethesda turned the series into but its undeniable that it became a huge hit
EDIT: Just saw the last part of your post. Guess it doesnt apply then.
 
G

Gorocketcat

Member
Red Dead? Not sure if it was an IP sale, but wasn't the first game made by Capcom? And a relative failure?

That franchise did ok.
 
C

Cess007

Member
Red Dead. Redemption was a hit after Revolver.

Tho, I can't remember if the IP was sold during before or after Revolver was released.

Edit. Searching, it seems it was before. So RDR wouldn't count.
 
P

privitsan02

Member
Deus-Ex had it pretty good under Square Enix. Same with Tomb Raider, which got a very relevant revival, despite the initial sales disappointment. All down the drain with the sequel though.

Best wishes.
 
C

CertifiedFP

Member
Fallout is the big one.

Let's be blunt, without Fallout 3 - People would not be talking about the first two, beyond it being something that pops up in Ross's Game Dungeon or other shows covering obscure ancient games. They'd be in that bin next to games like Armed And Delirious or Baldies.

People like to forget that Fallout 2 was a what, 100k-seller by a publisher that had 2,000,000-sellers under their belt. There was never going to be a serious attempt at a Fallout 3 at Black Isle under those financial realities.

Keinning said:
Fallout? I'm not the biggest fan of what bethesda turned the series into but its undeniable that it became a huge hit
EDIT: Just saw the last part of your post. Guess it doesnt apply then.
Click to expand...

Interplay was still around for another few years or so after Fallout was sold to Bethesda, so yes, it counts.
 
T

True Fire

Member
Crash Bandicoot?

Mind you, Activision were the ones who killed it in the first place, and its successful return was a remake, and for all we know the franchise is still dead. 🤷🏻

(I’m aware of the Universal/Vivendi fuckery)
 
M

Mass Effect

Member
Gorocketcat said:
Red Dead? Not sure if it was an IP sale, but wasn't the first game made by Capcom? And a relative failure?

That franchise did ok.
Click to expand...

Not quite. It was initially being developed by Capcom, but Rockstsr bought the rights to the game and the studio making it during development.
 
Z

zeitgeist

Member
Tomb Raider feels like a big one.

Does South Park count if the game technically was pretty much done before Ubisoft picked it up?
 
R

Ridley327

Member
theHFIC said:
Mortal Kombat series to NetherRealm?
Click to expand...

Ed Boon and company have always made the Mortal Kombat games. The only things that changed was the name of the developer and the the guys who publish it.

That being said, that franchise probably does count since it's prospered since MK9 and really hasn't enjoyed this much acclaim and mainstream success since the original trilogy.
 
F

Forsaken82

Member
Doom?

Doesn't exactly fall under your restriction... id still developed the title, but it was after being bought out by Bethesda obviously.

If this doesn't count then you should really reword your OP as this was a legit "purchase between two living companies"
 
Z

Zubz

Banned
Forsaken82 said:
Doom?

Doesn't exactly fall under your restriction... id still developed the title, but it was after being bought out by Bethesda obviously.

If this doesn't count then you should really reword your OP
Click to expand...

Yup. Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein all count to me.
 
C

Chev

Member
CertifiedFP said:
Fallout is the big one.

Let's be blunt, without Fallout 3 - People would not be talking about the first two, beyond it being something that pops up in Ross's Game Dungeon or other shows covering obscure ancient games. They'd be in that bin next to games like Armed And Delirious or Baldies.
Click to expand...
Nah, people were still talking about Fallout in the same way they were talking about Torment. That just manes it wouldn't be relevant to the same people as it is now.
 
F

FiveSide

Banned
This is going to be hard to answer because pure IP purchases are very rare. Usually a studio acquires IPs through purchasing another studio. Not through a la carte transfers of rights.
 
NoKisum

NoKisum

Member
Forsaken82 said:
Doom?

Doesn't exactly fall under your restriction... id still developed the title, but it was after being bought out by Bethesda obviously.

If this doesn't count then you should really reword your OP as this was a legit "purchase between two living companies"
Click to expand...

Yeah, I wasn't sure if I had worded that correctly.

Basically I'm saying the hypothetical scenario of Developer/Publisher X fully purchasing the rights of not-so-successful IP from Developer/Publisher Y, in the hopes to make the franchise a critical and/or commercial success in contrast in what it was prior (or at least within its last years in the hands of Dev/Pub Y).

I swear my English is better than this. I'm just tired as fuck.
 
K

Keinning

Member
CertifiedFP said:
Fallout is the big one.

Let's be blunt, without Fallout 3 - People would not be talking about the first two, beyond it being something that pops up in Ross's Game Dungeon or other shows covering obscure ancient games. They'd be in that bin next to games like Armed And Delirious or Baldies.

People like to forget that Fallout 2 was a what, 100k-seller by a publisher that had 2,000,000-sellers under their belt. There was never going to be a serious attempt at a Fallout 3 at Black Isle under those financial realities.



Interplay was still around for another few years or so after Fallout was sold to Bethesda, so yes, it counts.
Click to expand...

Not only fallout already had cult status before bethesda bought the IP but Van Buren would be a thing sooner or later
 
M

Mr_Antimatter

Member
Max Payne and Prey were both originally 3D Realms games, sold off to other companies to fund Duke Forever.

Not sure if that really counts though.
 
MrCunningham

MrCunningham

Member
theHFIC said:
Mortal Kombat series to NetherRealm?
Click to expand...

You could say Mortal Kombat to Warner Bros. But it certainly helped having Ed Boon at the helm of NetherRealm's to make sure that they got the franchise right.

Warner Bros. has a whole bunch of Midway/ Atari Games franchises in their possession that I would like to see get a reboot.
 
dr_rus

dr_rus

Member
PleaseDontBanMe said:
Halo
Click to expand...

giphy.gif
 
T

Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!

Member
Keinning said:
Fallout? I'm not the biggest fan of what bethesda turned the series into but its undeniable that it became a huge hit
EDIT: Just saw the last part of your post. Guess it doesnt apply then.
Click to expand...

I think it applies. Didn't Bethesda technically buy fallout before interplay went out of business? It even included a clause that interplay could still make a fallout mmo iirc
 
C

CertifiedFP

Member
PleaseDontBanMe said:
Halo
Click to expand...

Uh, Bungie was bankrupt and sold the IP to Microsoft as a matter of actually surviving as a studio. I think that falls under the last paragraph of the OP.

MrCunningham said:
Yeah this is actually true. iD Software purchased the rights to Castle Wolfenstein from some copyright holder and made a successful franchise out of it.
Click to expand...

They didn't buy the IP. The copyright lapsed following Muse Software's dissolution with noone claiming to hold it, and they just took the name.
 
MrCunningham

MrCunningham

Member
CertifiedFP said:
Uh, Bungie was bankrupt and sold the IP to Microsoft as a matter of actually surviving as a studio. I think that falls under the last paragraph of the OP.



They didn't buy the IP. The copyright lapsed following Muse Software's dissolution with noone claiming to hold it, and they just took the name.
Click to expand...

Ah, I see. For some reason I thought they purchased it from some holdings company or something.
 
dr_rus

dr_rus

Member
CertifiedFP said:
Uh, Bungie was bankrupt and sold the IP to Microsoft as a matter of actually surviving as a studio. I think that falls under the last paragraph of the OP.
Click to expand...

Bungie wasn't bankrupt and it didn't sell anything to MS as it was MS who bought out the whole studio only after they agreed with this. No solid reasons were given but according to Marty O'Donnell, there were no pressing financial issues at the time.

I still wonder sometimes what would have become of Halo if MS didn't buy out Bungie back then.
 
@

@MUWANdo

Banned
Okay, so, this is a personal and somewhat complex web of nonsense involving a highly unstable individual I was friends and briefly FWBs with, but I can only assume there will be a never-ending clusterfuck on gaf now until the end of time, which inevitably involves you guys and gals on the mod team in some way, so I'm an open book here. The woman in question ended up being completely psychotic and held a grudge against me after a bizarre love triangle situation developed a few years ago between me, her, and another girl (the other girl I ended up in a long-term relationship with shortly thereafter). This NOLA story she apparently just put up on social media is a delusion of a deeply disturbed person who had a total psychological breakdown as a result of me and the other girl getting together, because she (phew, yeah...) became obsessively infatuated with the other girl (she's bi) on sight when the three of us met up. I wanted to just stay friends with the girl making the accusation and made it super super clear ahead of time that me and the other girl were interested in each other romantically and that could play out as such when we met up. Supposedly this was not a problem for her from accusation, but in reality she uhhh wanted me to die painfully after seeing me and the other girl interact. Plus she became infatuated with the other girl simultaneously to this (she's bi), which created the aforementioned bizarre love triangle that ended up causing her to implode and have an apparently very intense and long-lasting grudge. The whole story about how that love triangle thing played out is, frankly, nuts and scary, and involves this girl bringing us to a compound of dangerous scientology spinoff cultists on that same trip, who roofied us, attempted to recruit/scam me and attempted to abduct/rape the girl I ended up dating, in what was a fucking scary situation that resulted in me and the other girl and the rest of my friend circle never speaking to this girl from the accusation again.
 
K

Kill3r7

Member
dr_rus said:
Bungie wasn't bankrupt and it didn't sell anything to MS as it was MS who bought out the whole studio only after they agreed with this. No solid reasons were given but according to Marty O'Donnell, there were no pressing financial issues at the time.

I still wonder sometimes what would have become of Halo if MS didn't buy out Bungie back then.
Click to expand...

Probably on hiatus after Halo 3.
 
W

wrestleman

Member
True Fire said:
Crash Bandicoot?

Mind you, Activision were the ones who killed it in the first place, and its successful return was a remake, and for all we know the franchise is still dead. 🤷🏻

(I’m aware of the Universal/Vivendi fuckery)
Click to expand...

If the bolded is true, then you would know that there has never been a sale or purchase of Crash Bandicoot, making this discussion moot -- you also should be aware that the only Crash game released under Activision that was started and finished post-merger, pre-remake (as in, produced entirely post-merger) was a mobile racer that was fairly well received. Activision's only announced, published, entirely self-produced Crash Bandicoot game was and is Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy. Mind Over Mutant had "Activision" on the box but was entirely done under the Sierra banner, and released very shortly after the merger; Activision's logo doesn't even feature inside the game's start up.
 
dr_rus

dr_rus

Member
Kill3r7 said:
Probably on hiatus after Halo 3.
Click to expand...

That's assuming they would even make it to 3 and not go with Destiny like GaaS in 2 ten years ago. Halo which we got was radically different from Halo which they've announced back in 1999.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Phil Spencer says most publishers take advantage of the success of old franchises over risking something new
Game Dev 2 3
120
7K
Mephisto40 replied
Capcom suggests it could release more $70 games after Dragon’s Dogma 2
Business
39
2K
SmokedMeat replied
After Sonic movie success, Sega says it could adapt other IPs for the big screen
Opinion Business Game Dev
14
815
Ar¢tos replied
[Insider Gaming] Inside Ubisoft – From Low Morale To Internal Tensions
Game Dev
26
2K
BacklashWave534 replied
Teyon Wants To Work On More IPs After RoboCop: Rogue City
Game Dev 2
74
3K
AGRacing replied
Top Bottom