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[SolidSnakex]

quite the opposite according to people in the industry but we'll see.

Really? I guess that distribution network plays a major role with that.

Creative freedom.

Tell creative people you will fund the game they've always wanted to make and they will come.

That's understandable, but i'm talking about it form a financial standpoint. Haven't they been in rough shape for some time now? You'd hear negative reports about how they were doing and then the next month they'd announce that they signed Itagaki, del Toro or Patrice to a game deal. They'd also announce that those projects would be released for 3+ years. I've honestly never seen a game company operate like that before.

 

[SlipperySlope]

My guess is that THQ is not saying anything because they are still talking to people who would want to buy them up.

If I were a purchaser, I'd just buy some parts of THQ, not the whole company. Who needs all that debt and failed business model...

I'd just buy a studio or two. Or an IP.

 

[TheOddOne]

Their policy was that if you were a developer with a proven track record, you could make any game you wanted as long as you gave THQ the IP, and then they would try and figure out how to market it.

Unsurprisingly this strategy failed.

If Ubi went to snatch him up with the whole new studio, it will be hilarious.

If I were a purchaser, I'd just buy some parts of THQ, not the whole company. Who needs all that debt and failed business model...

I'd just buy a studio or two. Or an IP.

Yeah ofcource, they are still in talking stages so they are gonna go for the party that want the whole of THQ. After that fails, then they will discuss selling off the studios one by one.

 

[BY2K]

How many majorly marketed titles have they done this for in the past five years?

...

Does Disaster counts?

 

[Jocchan]

WB sounds like a good fit for Vigil and Darksiders.

Agreed.

Nintendo buys Vigil.

That's all I want. Either merge them with Retro or let them do more of their stuff. But another western dev for Nintendo wouldn't hurt.

Nintendo won't buy Vigil, but if they did I wouldn't be surprised by a merger with Retro (with both companies being based in Austin).

 

[wrowa]

How many majorly marketed titles have they done this for in the past five years?

That doesn't even matter. Nintendo made it pretty clear that they see the lack of western games as a weakness the Wii had that they don't want to repeat with the Wii U. The Wii suffered from the lack of support by western developers that also appeal to the core audience, so they'll give them that.

 

[Nirolak]

...

Does Disaster counts?

I feel Disaster was notably less bloody (in that first shot I linked War has torn off both of that creature's arms), and not especially marketed, but it is about the closest thing.

It's also notable that Monolith went in a way different direction afterwards though, and Disaster was on the tail end of their GameCube experiments with the M rating.

 

[Nirolak]

That doesn't even matter. Nintendo made it pretty clear that they see the lack of western games as a weakness the Wii had that they don't want to repeat with the Wii U. The Wii suffered from the lack of support by western developers that also appeal to the core audience, so they'll give them that.

They said we would see things relating to this at E3, and their solution seemed to be third party Western publishers instead of Nintendo itself.

 

[Takao]

GAF should buy THQ.

 

[Hot Coldman]

It seems we're right back to a developer or publisher closing every week it seems.

This has been a long time coming for THQ. Something will happen with them (bankruptcy/getting acquired/saved by Warren Buffet/etc), and then we should have a period of relative peace. Hopefully.

 

[SlipperySlope]

I feel Disaster was notably less bloody (in that first shot I linked War has torn off both of that creature's arms), and not especially marketed, but it is about the closest thing.

It's also notable that Monolith went in a way different direction afterwards though, and Disaster was on the tail end of their GameCube experiments with the M rating.

For me, I need to think alll the way back to Conker's Bad Fur Day to come up with a violent/crude Nintendo title.

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

We should make a list of all the studio closures, consolidations, or posting consecutive losses, for this generation.

 

[AlphaTwo00]

GAF should buy THQ.

Wouldn't GAF just make the games THQ made before, with all those studios that got canned?

Well, I guess we wouldn't fuck up with not marketing them.

 

[BY2K]

For me, I need to think alll the way back to Conker's Bad Fur Day to come up with a violent/crude Nintendo title.

Dude, Eternal Darkness, c'mon.

 

[wrowa]

They said we would see things relating to this at E3, and their solution seemed to be third party Western publishers instead of Nintendo itself.

Nintendo hasn't announced a single Wii U game. According to your logic that means that Nintendo won't develop any games at all?

The trailer reel has shown Nintendo's ambitions, and those ambitions have been made pretty clear: "We also want to appeal to the 'core gamers'". That having some ports available isn't enough to achieve that is obvious.

 

[MesserWolf]

Their policy was that if you were a developer with a proven track record, you could make any game you wanted as long as you gave THQ the IP, and then they would try and figure out how to market it.

Unsurprisingly this strategy failed.

I don't know if I would give the fault of their situation to their strategy in handling Devs.

In the end we are discussing that they do have very good IP / brands /games in their portfolio- and that is not small thing. So perhaps the problem lies somewhere else, and it is for sure a combination of factors. Not to mention the fact that the environment is very tough and the competition extremely harsh

I would rather say that they mostly needed a better risk management, a better marketing strategy.

 

[elrechazado]

Wouldn't GAF just make the games THQ made before, with all those studios that got canned?

Well, I guess we wouldn't fuck up with not marketing them.

Gaf would make worse games

 

[KevinCow]

For me, I need to think alll the way back to Conker's Bad Fur Day to come up with a violent/crude Nintendo title.

That wasn't even Nintendo. Rare published it themselves.

 

[Technosteve]

is this a room full of gaf caring?

 

[[Nintex]]

They said we would see things relating to this at E3, and their solution seemed to be third party Western publishers instead of Nintendo itself.

Their solution was John Riccitiello on stage, the biggest western third party company pledging support. For their Japanese board of directors it was probably equal to getting Square Enix on their side. As long as they don't squander their new deals with Team Ninja, Capcom, Namco and others they won't run into insane software droughts again.

 

[Kifimbo]

Note: Patrice Désilets did a short interview this week in French, and he was leaving for Europe (London), probably to do some research on his next game. If all this is true, he wasn't aware of anything.

 

[Servizio]

We should make a list of all the studio closures, consolidations, or posting consecutive losses, for this generation.

Who has that kind of free time?

 

[consoul]

kthqbye?

 

[Nirolak]

Nintendo hasn't announced a single Wii U game. According to your logic that means that Nintendo won't develop any games at all?

They announced Smash Bros and exclusive deals for Lego City Stories (Warner) and Killer Freaks From Space (Ubisoft).

The trailer reel has shown Nintendo's ambitions, and those ambitions have been made pretty clear: "We also want to appeal to the 'core gamers'". That having some ports available isn't enough to achieve that is obvious.

They showed a bunch of Nintendo tech demo games (none of which were notably violent or un-Nintendo like at all I felt), a totally non violent graphics tech demo, and a reel of third party games which did feature some notable violence.

I don't see anything in their messaging that implies they intend to address the Western core market outside of having third party games and whatever current games they have that have appeal there as well.

 

[Alrus]

For me, I need to think alll the way back to Conker's Bad Fur Day to come up with a violent/crude Nintendo title.

Geist, Eternal Darkness?

 

[Shiggy]

That wasn't even Nintendo. Rare published it themselves.

It was still distributed by Nintendo as Rare did not have anything ready for publishing. The Nintendo logo even appeared before the Rare logo did.


And there's probably one M-rated Wii title by Nintendo:
Zero: A Japanese Ghost Story / Fatal Frame 4 (hahahaha)

 

[Jocchan]

I can only tell you how many such titles were cancelled in the past five years (by Nintendo).

Please do.

How many majorly marketed titles have they done this for in the past five years?

If you're talking about "mature" games in general, and not just games with lots of red bodily fluids, the Fatal Frame series comes to mind.
They also published Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles in Australia (if that counts) and Reginleiv in Japan (CERO D).

 

[TouchMyBox]

Well this is shitty, THQ owns some really great studios.

All the best to them.

 

[Nirolak]

If you're talking about "mature" games in general, and not just games with lots of red bodily fluids, the Fatal Frame series comes to mind.
They also published Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles in Australia (if that counts) and Reginleiv in Japan (CERO D).

That's the biggest note for me, since it's the most objectionable thing I see with them regarding Darksiders.

Reginleiv is an interesting note, but that it was never localized outside Japan is an even more interesting note I feel.

For publishing third party games though, I don't think people associate a brand like Resident Evil with Nintendo even if they're doing regional publishing on it.

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

Who has that kind of free time?

If someone can make Star Wars in ascii, someone can do this

 

[Mario]

We should make a list of all the studio closures, consolidations, or posting consecutive losses, for this generation.

Here you go

Another to add to the list of recent casualties with entries I think are correct from 2007 (if any are incorrect let me know)

Backbone Vancouver
Bizarre Creations (Activision)
Blue Tongue (THQ)
BottleRocket
Castaway Entertainment
EA Chicago (EA)
Ensemble (MS)
Factor 5 US
FASA (MS)
Fizz Factor (Foundation 9 group)
Flagship Studios
FuzzyEyes - not sure on this one
Gamelab
GRiN
Humannature Studio (Nexon)
Ironlore
Krome Studios (might still be operating on skeleton crew)
Kush Games (Take 2)
Locomotive Games (THQ)
Nexon Vancouver (Nexon)
PAM Development France (Take 2)
Pandemic Australia (EA)
Pandemic LA (EA)
Paradigm Entertainment (THQ)
Pivotal Games
Pseudo Interactive
Red Tibe
Sandblast Games (THQ)
Shaba Games (Activision)
Stormfront Studios
Straylight Studios
Team Bondi (assets/staff rolled into KMM Sydney)
THQ Studio Australia
Transmission Games
Venom Games (Take 2)
Vicarious Visions California (Activision)


Auran and 3D Realms I think have all been reduced to holding companies with just a skeleton crew and sales staff.

Publisher closures include Brash, Empire, Red Mile Entertainment, and Midway (the latter closed Aces Game Studio, Blacksite Studio and Midway Austin in late 2008 through early 2009).

Nuclear Muffin suggested some additions, and even called THQ going down in a follow up to that post here.

You're missing Free Radical (yeah yeah I know most of the staff were folded into Crytek UK)

You're also missing Artoon, Cavia, Cing and Hudson (I'm sure there's plenty more but I'll have to do some research)

Irem and THQ will be next. They're teetering on the edge and THQ have a guaranteed big budget bomba lined up for November (Saints Row 3)

 

[Jocchan]

That's the biggest note for me, since it's the most objectionable thing I see with them regarding Darksiders.

Reginleiv is an interesting note, but that it was never localized outside Japan is an even more interesting note I feel.

For publishing third party games though, I don't think people associate a brand like Resident Evil with Nintendo even if they're doing regional publishing on it.

Oh, sure. Your post just got me curious so I looked up a list of games published by them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_products_published_by_Nintendo

 

[Nemo]

Gaf would make worse games

We'd make a Zelda/Skyrim hybrid and put all the money we have into marketing it

 

[Spirit of Jazz]

Please buy Relic Valve, I trust nobody else

 

[Tron 2.0]

Here you go...

That's a good list, but definitely not exhaustive. I can think of two, Black Rock Studio and Propaganda Games, that were closed just last year.

 

[SolidSnakex]

Their policy was that if you were a developer with a proven track record, you could make any game you wanted as long as you gave THQ the IP, and then they would try and figure out how to market it.

Unsurprisingly this strategy failed.

I know that it's developed by Volition, but they gave del Toro a deal. That's just bizarre. Midway should've taught everyone that gamers don't care about Hollywood talent being involved in games. This isn't the movie industry.

 

[AlphaTwo00]

Here you go



Nuclear Muffin suggested some additions, and even called THQ going down in a follow up to that post here.

That's just a list of full shutdowns that are "press released", right? Cause I recall more than that list. Bedlam Games in Toronto comes to mind (was recently talking about the whole Daggerdale deal).

Edit: also of note, this list is probably not including studios that were hit with sizeable layoffs either.

 

[Nirolak]

I know that it's developed by Volition, but they gave del Toro a deal. That's just bizarre. Midway should've taught everyone that gamers don't care about Hollywood talent being involved in games. This isn't the movie industry.

Danny Bilson is a former Hollywood figure and good friend of del Toro, to shed a bit more light on that one.

 

[ZoddGutts]

Wouldn't be surprise if Sega is interested in Relic. They've been happy with non home dev console studios like Sports Interactive (Football Manager games) , The Creative Assembly (Total War games) and most recently with Three Rings Design (Spiral Knights).

 

[Takao]

Wouldn't GAF just make the games THQ made before, with all those studios that got canned?

Well, I guess we wouldn't fuck up with not marketing them.

More wrestling.

All the time.

 

[Mario]

That's a good list, but definitely not exhaustive. I can think of two, Black Rock Studio and Propaganda Games, that were closed just last year.

Yeah, it was only really current up to the end of 2010, though I threw in one or 2 more when I made that particular post. KMM Brisbane also closed shortly after.

Edit: also of note, this list is probably not including studios that were hit with sizeable layoffs either.

I wasn't tracking layoffs. There were may too many studios laying off people in late 2008 and throughout 2009, so just kept it to studios that didn't make it through at all.

 

[infinityBCRT]

More wrestling.

All the time.

Shenmue 3 built on the WWE All-Stars engine.

 

[Des0lar]

Still hope Relic goes to Square / Eidos. They don't have a good RTS IP since SupCom 2 was a piece of shit and Relic has a great track record. Also they don't seem too heavily involved with all the DLC, retailer exclusive bullshit afaik.

 

[DGRE]

That's a good list, but definitely not exhaustive. I can think of two, Black Rock Studio and Propaganda Games, that were closed just last year.

Wow, so extremely short lived and uninteresting that no one even remembers Gamecock opening and closing all in about a two year span this gen.

I would love it if Nintendo surprised u all and they bought something off of THQ.

 

[Nirolak]

Alright, the PR crisis level has already been exceeded and we still have no comment, so I'm just going to assume this is true and head out for a while.

If something notable pops up, PM charlequin or stump and they will probably be around to update.

 

[SteveWinwood]

Wow, so extremely short lived and uninteresting that no one even remembers Gamecock opening and closing all in about a two year span this gen.

I would love it if Nintendo surprised u all and they bought something off of THQ.

I intentionally tried to forget gamecock.

Thanks for reminding me :/

 

[DTKT]

I could see Square buying THQ Montreal.

 

[TheOddOne]

I could see Square buying THQ Montreal.

500 man studio with Assassins Creed head in charge? How about every publisher in the world with enough money to burn.

 

[bigtroyjon]

List is pointless without discussing all the new studios and teams that have been formed over the same period. A lot of those studios were formed by game developers and not businessmen so the goal was making good games, not making a profit.

You are always better off killing off a studio, paying severance(or the remainder of a contract) and just forming a new studio that is structured in a way that actually allows you to make a profit.

You are likely going to see the same thing happen with THQ, someone might buy an IP but I'd put the odds of a successful major publisher buying the studios really low. No reason to when they can just hire the top talent, start a new studio, and then make the game at a cost that actually makes sense.

 

[Die Squirrel Die]

500 man studio with Assassins Creed head in charge? How about every publisher in the world with enough money to burn.

Fucking hell, was it that large already?