The closure of Embracer-owned studios continues — this time it’s developer Piranha Bytes that’s reportedly shut down. Piranha Bytes is behind the Gothic, Risen, and Elex series.
This isn’t what was happening. It’s a tale as old as time, once a corporation becomes large enough it will buy up scrappy competitors and allow them to fail so that they can take the ideas and staff who would otherwise be resistant to the business getting sold.
This happens because even if 50 of those ideas fail but you have 1 guy who comes up with a battle royale game mode, it pays off. None of these companies want to own and manage 50 indie studios, so they shut them down and absorb them on purpose.
And big studios aren’t even immune from this. I think Bethesda is keeping their name, but they’re in dangerous territory. Obsidian is hanging by a thread and barely got saved from this. DoubleFine still exists for the moment. But look at what happened to Tango Gameworks getting shafted by Xbox. The industry devours indie studios day by day for the hope of their stock growth, don’t be fooled
I am not saying embracer or MS or Sony or whoever else are “good guys”
But actually look at the hellscape that is indie development right now. Studios with solid track records are fighting tooth and nail for publisher deals. And newer studios are just fucked. NoClip have done a few episodes of a “documentary” about making a game and Danny O’Dwyer gave a really depressing take on what it is like pitching for a publisher that compared it to Tinder and being glad if someone is kind enough to actually say “no” rather than ghosting you.
Some of the studios involved might have been able to secure publisher deals. Most would have gone out of business likely even sooner.
Its easy to blame big corporations and big corporations deserve a lot of blame. But it is more important to understand what is actually going on so that maybe people don’t throw shitfits when developers use Early Access or even try the kickstarter well again.
This isn’t what was happening. It’s a tale as old as time, once a corporation becomes large enough it will buy up scrappy competitors and allow them to fail so that they can take the ideas and staff who would otherwise be resistant to the business getting sold.
This happens because even if 50 of those ideas fail but you have 1 guy who comes up with a battle royale game mode, it pays off. None of these companies want to own and manage 50 indie studios, so they shut them down and absorb them on purpose.
And big studios aren’t even immune from this. I think Bethesda is keeping their name, but they’re in dangerous territory. Obsidian is hanging by a thread and barely got saved from this. DoubleFine still exists for the moment. But look at what happened to Tango Gameworks getting shafted by Xbox. The industry devours indie studios day by day for the hope of their stock growth, don’t be fooled
I am not saying embracer or MS or Sony or whoever else are “good guys”
But actually look at the hellscape that is indie development right now. Studios with solid track records are fighting tooth and nail for publisher deals. And newer studios are just fucked. NoClip have done a few episodes of a “documentary” about making a game and Danny O’Dwyer gave a really depressing take on what it is like pitching for a publisher that compared it to Tinder and being glad if someone is kind enough to actually say “no” rather than ghosting you.
Some of the studios involved might have been able to secure publisher deals. Most would have gone out of business likely even sooner.
Its easy to blame big corporations and big corporations deserve a lot of blame. But it is more important to understand what is actually going on so that maybe people don’t throw shitfits when developers use Early Access or even try the kickstarter well again.