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[Maxey]

What are examples of game companies or dev teams that were not doing great and nearly going out of business to only then release a game that not only saved them from going down but also made them quite relevant and famous?

I heard Bethesda was going through a rough patch when they were developing Morrowind and so they decided to go all out with that game and wish for the best.

The rest, as they say, is history.

 

[Zhao_Yun]

Squaresoft (Final Fantasy) is probably one of the most famous examples.

 

[Tetsuo9]

I heard Gearbox wasn't doing so hot until Borderlands dropped.

 

[Maxey]

Squaresoft (Final Fantasy) is probably one of the most famous examples.

Isn't that a myth? Square was doing alright and the name was just your typical quirky japanese game title?

 

[Pakkidis]

DoubleFine.

 

[Soulflarz]

Isn't that a myth? Square was doing alright and the name was just your typical quirky japanese game title?

Sort of

I believe we've heard both sides from people a ton of times. As in, yes, that is correct, but it's by no means why FF is called FF.

 

[robotrock]

Isn't that a myth? Square was doing alright and the name was just your typical quirky japanese game title?

I thought that Final Fantasy movie almost broke them

 

[Maxey]

I thought that Final Fantasy movie almost broke them

Haha, now that would be ironic if the myth was true.

 

[JoeyJungle]

Obsidian were right on the edge before the Pillars of Eternity kickstarter. Can't remember if that was from their dev diaries/documentary footage or from an interview.

 

[contologics]

If I remember correctly, after the failure of that movie, combined with other factors, if FF7 didn't perform properly, it would mean the death of Square.
Got a lot of the facts from watching a FF Retrospective on Game Trailers last year .. (God Bless their soul)




Also, dunno if this counts but Intelligent Systems with Fire Emblem Awakening more recently.

 

[FluxWaveZ]

George Kamitani, head of Vanillaware, had to personally borrow 20 million yen to keep the company afloat in 2006 because Atlus didn't want to release Odin Sphere, because it would conflict with the recently released Persona 3. That's why they had to seek other publishers for other projects like GrimGrimoire and Muramasa: The Demon Blade. When Odin Sphere came out, though, Atlus paid high royalties for the game, which put Vanillaware back on their feet.

 

[Zhao_Yun]

Isn't that a myth? Square was doing alright and the name was just your typical quirky japanese game title?

As far as I know the game was supposed to be named "Fighting Fantasy", but it wasn't because of trademark issues. Sakaguchi wanted the game to be abbreviated as FF, so he had to choose another word with F.
I think Square going through a rough time is true though.

If I remember correctly, after the failure of that movie, combined with other factors, if FF7 didn't perform properly, it would mean the death of Square.

Nah, the movie was released years after VII. They had to merge with Enix to recover from that,

 

[Guardian Monkey]

I thought that Final Fantasy movie almost broke them

yes

 

[SolidSnakex]

George Kamitani, head of Vanillaware, had to personally borrow 20 million yen to keep the company afloat in 2006 because Atlus didn't want to release Odin Sphere, because it would conflict with the recently released Persona 3. That's why they had to seek other publishers for other projects like GrimGrimoire and Muramasa: The Demon Blade. When Odin Sphere came out, though, Atlus paid high royalties for the game, which put Vanillaware back on their feet.

And now Atlus seems to be in love with them.

 

[Glowsquid]

Acclaim was nearing bankruptcy in 1996 and bet everything on the first Turok when they saw it tested well. Wikipedia has all the deetz


ofc they ended up dying later, but Turok really did save them for a time.

 

[contologics]

Sad, Square may never hit that low again to create something truly great again (crossing fingers for ffxv though)

 

[CertifiedFP]

Can we count companies that DID go bankrupt but survived?

If so, Bungie. They got absolutely wrecked by a Recall of Myth 2 over a computer-breaking bug, combined with the failure of Oni - And thus were basically forced to accept a Microsoft buyout or Die.

And thus, Bungie's entire relevance in modern gaming began, instead of them just being "those guys who made that floaty mindfuck Doom clone" (And a game that effectively INVENTED the System Shock formula before System Shock was a thing, but noone remembers that game).

Going to be cackling so hard if/when Bungie under Activision fully de-souls and has every last drip of talent from before 343i's founding leave/get fired and end up going somewhere else. That'd be an ironic end. From being Starving Artists to Rich and Soulless in two decades.

 

[JDMC13]

Can we count companies that DID go bankrupt but survived?

If so, Bungie. They got absolutely wrecked by a Recall of Myth 2 over a computer-breaking bug, combined with the failure of Oni - And thus were basically forced to accept a Microsoft buyout or Die.

And thus, Bungie's entire relevance in modern gaming began, instead of them just being "those guys who made that floaty mindfuck Doom clone" (And a game that effectively INVENTED the System Shock formula before System Shock was a thing, but noone remembers that game).

Going to be cackling so hard if/when Bungie under Activision fully de-souls and has every last drip of talent from before 343i's founding leave/get fired and end up going somewhere else. That'd be an ironic end. From being Starving Artists to Rich and Soulless in two decades.

Ironic or par-for-the-course?

 

[FluxWaveZ]

And now Atlus seems to be in love with them.

Yeah. Their history goes way back, of course, since Vanillaware was basically born because of Atlus. Atlus had saved Kamitani's project before (Princess Crown), but that thing failed spectacularly, so they probably weren't too hyped up about the prospects of Odin Sphere, even though they're the ones who accepted the project.

Actually, one could say Atlus kinda loved them all along. They saved Princess Crown in 1996. They saved Odin Sphere in 2004. And then they saved Dragon's Crown in 2011-2012.

 

[Falk]

Sad, Square may never hit that low again to create something truly great again (crossing fingers for ffxv though)

I guess FFXIV 1.0 soooorta counted? I mean, taking an MMO offline to go back to the drawing board isn't something you do with a finger snap. Turning it around was a monumental effort.

 

[Gouty]

How this thread isn't about Platinum is beyond me. All they make are bombs with the occasional modest success.

 

[entremet]

I guess FFXIV 1.0 soooorta counted? I mean, taking an MMO offline to go back to the drawing board isn't something you do with a finger snap. Turning it around was a monumental effort.

Poor Tanaka. He was Square lifer and lost his job basically because of that debacle.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

As far as I know the game was supposed to be named "Fighting Fantasy", but it wasn't because of trademark issues. Sakaguchi wanted the game to be abbreviated as FF, so he had to choose another word with F.
I think Square going through a rough time is true though.



Nah, the movie was released years after VII. They had to merge with Enix to recover from that,

No they didn't.

 

[Dinky Dino]

Obsidian were right on the edge before the Pillars of Eternity kickstarter. Can't remember if that was from their dev diaries/documentary footage or from an interview.

Dunno how they almost did. I love nearly all their games and I see many others do as well so I can't see how they were even close to closing their doors.

 

[CertifiedFP]

Poor Tanaka. He was Square lifer and lost his job basically because of that debacle.

At least he lost his job with dignity in the end, and he's still in the industry.

The director, on the other hand, had a nervous breakdown on stage shortly after 1.0's release and hasn't been seen or heard from since. Betting he got Gunpei Yokoi'd (Be it whacked by the Yakuza for wasting their money, or demoted down to a ground-level position in the company for the rest of his career at Square, take your pick.)

 

[Nairume]

This ties somewhat into video games, but Wizards of the Coast came pretty close to a bad place after being sued by another tabletop games publisher (the delightfully crazy Palladium Games) over a RPG supplement that, among other systems, included conversion rules for Palladium's stuff.

In order to survive the lawsuit, Wizards took a risk on a little game called Manaclash. Some tweaks and a namechange later, they released that game as Magic: the Gathering to success, popularizing a genre and putting them in such a solid financial position to where they outright bought out the company behind and the rights to Dungeons & Dragons a few years later.

 

[Caronte]

Amazing, 3 or 4 stories about Square Enix in this thread already and not a single one of them is true.

Obsidian almost went bankrupt, they talked about it in some interview a while ago, and a bit on the documentary of Pillars.

 

[vala]

Capcom loss a lot money with the Street Fighter (1994) movie. IIRC Resident Evil saved them.

 

[Walpurgis]

During the economic crisis of Europe in 2008, CD Projekt RED faced bankruptcy.

After they released The Witcher 1 (published by Atari) to satisfactory sales and reviews, they immediately moved on to The Witcher 2. However, they later halted development to port The Witcher 1 to consoles. It was to be titled The Witcher: White Wolf. They collaborated with French studio Widescreen Games. Unfortunately, Widescreen Games later demanded more manpower, money and time. They even said that they weren't be paid. CDPR was actually paying them more than their own staff. They were unable to come to an agreement so CDPR cancelled the console port of The Witcher 1.

Atari was pissed off and demanded that CDPR repay them for the money lost on the console port. However, CDPR could not afford this and faced bankruptcy. So, they agreed that Atari would publish The Witcher 2 in NA. Now CDPR had no choice but to focus only on The Witcher 2 though they were able to create the REDengine to faciliate future console development. REDengine was later used to port The Witcher 2 to the 360 and to develop The Witcher 3.

 

[Mario]

OMGPOP were counting down the final days to shutting down then a couple of the team made Draw Something as a side project and they sold to Zynga about a month later for US$180m.

Surely the most dramatic and immediate turnaround in industry history.


Also in the mobile space, I believe Rovio was struggling before hitting it out of the park with Angry Birds, though not sure they were in danger of immediate bankruptcy. Halfbrick too before Fruit Ninja.

 

[Caronte]

Not exactly what this thread is about but I would love to live in a world where Maxis launched The Sims before getting to a point where they needed EA to survive.

 

[Pakkidis]

Dunno how they almost did. I love nearly all their games and I see many others do as well so I can't see how they were even close to closing their doors.

Obsidian was/is a typical indie developer that relied heavily on publisher support. When publishers stopped supporting them, they ran into trouble. Didn't help that Alpha Protocol sold poorly given its budget

 

[JoeyJungle]

Dunno how they almost did. I love nearly all their games and I see many others do as well so I can't see how they were even close to closing their doors.

Iirc it was a string of bad events; poor sales from Alpha Protocol, after New Vegas they were 1 or 2 points shy of the metacritic score needed for massive bonuses, and THQ went bankrupt during South Park: The Stick of Truth.

 

[Admiral Woofington]

During the economic crisis of Europe in 2008, CD Projekt RED faced bankruptcy.

After they released The Witcher 1 (published by Atari) to satisfactory sales and reviews, they immediately moved on to The Witcher 2. However, they later halted development to port The Witcher 1 to consoles. It was to be titled The Witcher: White Wolf. They collaborated with French studio Widescreen Games. Unfortunately, Widescreen Games later demanded more manpower, money and time. They even said that they weren't be paid. CDPR was actually paying them more than their own staff. They were unable to come to an agreement so CDPR cancelled the console port of The Witcher 1.

Atari was pissed off and demanded that CDPR repay them for the money lost on the console port. However, CDPR could not afford this and faced bankruptcy. So, they agreed that Atari would publish The Witcher 2 in NA. Now CDPR had no choice but to focus only on The Witcher 2 though they were able to create the REDengine to faciliate future console development. REDengine was later used to port The Witcher 2 to the 360 and to develop The Witcher 3.

yeah CDPR was gonna be my answer.

I'm glad they pulled through and delivered what is among the best RPGs of all time.

 

[Caronte]

Iirc it was a string of bad events; poor sales from Alpha Protocol, after New Vegas they were 1 or 2 points shy of the metacritic score needed for massive bonuses, and THQ went bankrupt during South Park: The Stick of Truth.

Microsoft cancelling their game was important too.

 

[freeofgreed]

If I remember correctly, after the failure of that movie, combined with other factors, if FF7 didn't perform properly, it would mean the death of Square.
Got a lot of the facts from watching a FF Retrospective on Game Trailers last year .. (God Bless their soul)




Also, dunno if this counts but Intelligent Systems with Fire Emblem Awakening more recently.

?

Didn't the movie come out like 4 years after FF7 though?

 

[Crimson_Echidna]

I thought that Final Fantasy movie almost broke them

Yes & No. It lost them a lot of money but Sony did them a solid a purchased a bunch of shares to mitigate the losses. Final Fantasy X and Kingdom Hearts also made a lot of bank. So if anyone is curious just why Square suddenly started releasing spinoffs of those two franchises out the wazoo, it was because of this.

 

[Quazar]

yeah CDPR was gonna be my answer.

I'm glad they pulled through and delivered what is among the best RPGs of all time.

Same they stick out the most to me considering where they are now.

 

[BiggNife]

Dontnod was apparently dangerously close to declaring bankruptcy because Remember Me was a huge flop

Thankfully Life is Strange seems to have done super well so I think they're on much better footing now

 

[Stitch]

Daedalic Entertainment (Deponia) was saved by putting their games on Steam.

 

[Emperor Bohe]

Didn't Dead or Alive 1 Dave Tecmo?

 

[Madao]

Also, dunno if this counts but Intelligent Systems with Fire Emblem Awakening more recently.

only the FE series was in danger of being canned. IS was never in danger.

 

[notaskwid]

Nintendo

Spoiler

so far

 

[Madao]

Nintendo

Spoiler

so far

they have never approached anything that could be considered even similar to going bankrupt. let's not assume the Wii U tanking is tanking the company. this isn't Sega.

now, Sony is one that would actually fit. didn't they reach very close to bankruptcy shortly after the PS3 was out? i recall hearing their other divisions saved their asses when the PS3 ate all their gaming profits and was losing tons of money and selling slow. it's even more of a dodged bullet since later, when the PS3 recovered and turned profitable, the company was depending on PS3's profits when their other divisions did get in trouble. if things had misaligned slightly, Sony would have been gone.

 

[Teriyaki Blues]

How I wish I could answer this thread with "Neverland and Rune Factory 4". A case where they managed to get the hit game out, see it becoming successful, but had to file bankruptcy anyway.

They could have been developing Rune Factory 6 right now (while we were enjoying #5), and although most of the staff was integrated into Marvelous, and know that they want to make more games in this series, it hasn't yet been stated that they are or even if they are able to do so.

 

[fernoca]

Not as far but...

Netherrealm Studios.

A few years ago they were part of Midway and known as Midway Chicago.

While Midway was facing problems, they put their assets on auctions to make some money back and try to pay their debt.

Mortal Kombat along other Midway properties were part of an auction. WB bid earlier with $33 million thinking others would jump later as they had interest in MK mostly.

Time passed and noone else bid. So they ended as the owners of MK by default. They invested the extra money in the series by getting the entire dev team, moving them to new offices, gave them more time to polish MK2011.

After only a month in sales WB got back all money invested and profits too.

 

[SturokBGD]

The Obsidian story still brings a tear of joy to my eye. Thank you, other gamers.

 

[NinjaCoachZ]

SNK's a weird one. They actually did legitimately go bankrupt in 2000 or so and so the next two KOF games were done by some Korean company. King of Fighters 2000 was their last hurrah.

But then most of the old SNK employees left the company and started a new one called Playmore. All of SNK's IPs were sold off... and Playmore bought them all, rebranded themelves as SNK Playmore and continued business as usual.

Recently it looks like KOFXIII helped them stay afloat just a bit longer and after a hiatus now they're getting back in business by doubling down on traditional console games.

 

[Durante]

Obsidian were right on the edge before the Pillars of Eternity kickstarter. Can't remember if that was from their dev diaries/documentary footage or from an interview.

That's the first one which came to my mind. IIRC, Larian was also pretty close to going under at one point.

 

[boskee]

During the economic crisis of Europe in 2008, CD Projekt RED faced bankruptcy.

After they released The Witcher 1 (published by Atari) to satisfactory sales and reviews, they immediately moved on to The Witcher 2. However, they later halted development to port The Witcher 1 to consoles. It was to be titled The Witcher: White Wolf.

It was to be named The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf

They collaborated with French studio Widescreen Games. Unfortunately, Widescreen Games later demanded more manpower, money and time. They even said that they weren't be paid. CDPR was actually paying them more than their own staff. They were unable to come to an agreement so CDPR cancelled the console port of The Witcher 1.

Atari was pissed off and demanded that CDPR repay them for the money lost on the console port. However, CDPR could not afford this and faced bankruptcy. So, they agreed that Atari would publish The Witcher 2 in NA. Now CDPR had no choice but to focus only on The Witcher 2 though they were able to create the REDengine to faciliate future console development. REDengine was later used to port The Witcher 2 to the 360 and to develop The Witcher 3.

That was only the beginning tho. They had to sacrifice their complete independence and go public. Getting listed on the Stock Exchange would take them too long, so they have done reverse takeover of an almost defunct Polish company called Optimus (which was legendary on the Polish PC market in its own respect). Basically Optimus bought CDPR with its own stock.