CrunchinJelly
formerly cjelly
Always sad looking through old games and realising the studios aren't around any more.
CiNG... ;_;
Their first one was Southern Island. It features jet ski racing.
The difference is studios use to be able to handle a few flops before going under. Now they can't. It's blockbuster sales or bankruptcy, and that is not a sign of a healthy business model.
Ah, I completely forgot about that.
Now that you've mentioned it, I remember that thread where Onq compared it to Wave Race or something, haha.
Well, who knows they could make Pachislot games forever...
Lots of great talent there. There should be a list of studios opened since 2006, just so we don't feel so depressed
IREM isn't listed? They're dead.
Gaia is also missing.
Only made Sword and Poker, so no one noticed except me and Wario because no one plays excellent iOS games.
That's an issue with the Western market. You really don't see many Japanese developers attempting to compete with that model. They develop low or mid-range console titles (in terms of budget) and they also develop handheld titles. The lack of handheld titles from Western studios is something that really sticks out. When they do develop the titles they often just come across as being something that they really don't care about. Just look at most of UBI's titles from their major franchises.
That's an issue with the Western market. You really don't see many Japanese developers attempting to compete with that model. They develop low or mid-range console titles (in terms of budget) and they also develop handheld titles. The lack of handheld titles from Western studios is something that really sticks out. When they do develop the titles they often just come across as being something that they really don't care about. Just look at most of UBI's titles from their major franchises.
Shouldn't more Midway studios be listed on here? Or just Midway in general?
Shouldn't more Midway studios be listed on here? Or just Midway in general?
Much of this talent has been reconstituted in to social/portable gaming. I'd be more interested in knowing if there are more or less game development staff now than there was in 2006.
In other words, I can imagine that there are legitimately less people making games today, but I can also imagine that much of this is simply evidence of a slow migration away from consoles and towards other types of platforms.
Need anymore evidence that the current developer/publisher model is broken?
Shocked that KMM closed so quickly after becoming Krome's new home.
What's left of Australia aside from the Fruit Ninja dev? Big Ant and Wicked Witch?
Wasn't Core Design shut down back in 2006, before release of Tomb Raider Legend?
Yeah, it's not uncommon that a traditional dev goes under and 4-5 splinter devs form from them.
Two examples:
GRiN -> Fatshark, Might and Delight, Trinity QA Studio, BitSquid engine
Ensemble -> Robot, Bonfire -> Zynga, Windstorm, Newtoy -> Zynga
As of 2009, Incognito is considered defunct as most of its team members have already left the company forming mainly Eat Sleep Play and LightBox Interactive.
While these are always nice to see, it's also goes the other way too: a company closes shop, and 5 splinter small indie startup happens, but it's highly doubtful that everyone gets back into these smaller groups either.Another one:
Pandemic -> Blendo Games (after checking this one, its foundation predates Pandemic demise. It was always a personal, one man project of Brendon Chung), Downsized Games, Seismic Games, Ntro (not really a game endeavour but a new social network project)
When discussing the Japanese market at large, I totally agree. It is much easier for the majority of lower-tier publishers and developers to stay alive with the usual low sales and staying at a lower tech level.
But let's not ignore the fact that climbing the tech ladder does impact several major Japanese developers (and their publishers). We're looking at reduced sales at the sales ceiling for each generation in Japan for all the major tech driven systems. The PSP has no million sellers other than the Monster Hunter Portable series. The PS3 has no million sellers other than FFXIII. Current Vita games are not even breaking 100k. Yet at the top end of the spectrum those games aren't costing less to make, but more.