Square Enix taking over Tecmo – End of small developers?
In a surprising announcement Square Enix is currently in talks with Tecmo over a friendly takeover. It seems more and more giant publishers are attempting to gobble up the smaller publisher/studios. What does this mean for the future of the video game industry.
Tecmo’s had its share of troubles lately especially with Tomonobu Itagaki, the creator of Dead or Alive series and developer of the Ninja Gaiden remakes, leaving Tecmo. Also Tecmo has not been as profitable as it once were back in the hey-days of it’s rein.
Now with huge publisher/studio Square Enix eating up Tecmo for breakfast we witness yet another case of a well known studio getting merged into a larger studio. Recently we witnessed the Activision Blizzard merger, as well as EA taking over Pandemic and Bioware among other studios. The reason so many studios are being swallowed up by bigger studios/publishers is because of the ever increasing competition that is occurring in the game industry.
Its a necessity for these studios to get taken over in order for them to survive. Last generation many studios could survive just by developing on the PS2 with its huge 140 million user base. However now costs have sky rocketed to develop for next gen systems as well as with the user base splintered between three different consoles the burden of developing for the same return is quickly diminishing.
We can take a look at the history of video games to see where one possible outcome we can get if the eventual merging of studios continue to happen. Several decades ago before the video game industry was saved by Nintendo there was Atari and ColecoVision. These two giants duked it out and created majority of the video game development at that time.
Basically it got to a point where the manufacturers swallowed up most of the developers eventually the manufacturers became the power publisher. This is where the problem started manifesting, after many years of both manufacturers inevitably ripping-off each other’s games it seemed like originality was dead and the giant publishers became a well oiled cookie-cutter factory.
Once that happened the public started losing interest in an endless slew of games that just seem to just like the last. From what I can see in the game industry I am already seeing many studios getting into the cookie-cutter phase and many cases of "Mii-too" situations. It certainly makes you wonder where the game industry is heading.
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2 Responses to “Square Enix taking over Tecmo – End of small developers?”
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August 29th, 2008
I think creative and “cookie cutter” phases alternate. Look at movies. Now, everything is a remake or a sequal (or 10th sequal) to something that was made 20-30 years ago. But back then, those movies were not copied from anywhere else. And this isn’t the first time this problem has come up in the movie industry.
The same will happen to games, TV, almost anything that requires someone to come up with something new or copy something old.
I think, certainly, there’s a dark age comming. Look at how many people eat up Madden every year, or buy the new FPS that has the same weapons and is in the same place as the other three they got in the last year (and same weapons as the 10 they got in the last year, just different place).
So long as these make money, companies will make them. The companies are not to blame for this. People buying these endless sequals that add nothing new or yearly sports games with updated stats are the ones to blame, and I think we all are to blame.
Want it fixed? Get your friends hyped up about Banjo Kazooie or any number of games that are/look fresh. Don’t buy the next Halo, Final Fantasy, or Zelda unless it offers something new.
Companies will and SHOULD follow the money. It’s good for the economy, it avoids shortages. Consumers speak with their money. No one can say they haven’t sent the wrong message with their money. But if the money stops, companies, even those that makes games, will look elsewhere, including new, creative games.
September 2nd, 2008
Well that’ a shocker. Although it’s a trend, I really don’t think that it will be the end of small developers. You still got developers like the Behemoth out there developing small indie games.