Is the arms race between Microsoft and Sony to buy up mid-sized and large indie devs good or bad for the industry?

[ToddBonzalez]

Seems like the industry consolidation going on right now is mostly unprecedented. It feels like the age of the mid-sized to large indie dev is ending with basically all of them being bought up by the large publishers. On one hand it should provide stability for the developers, but could tamper with their agency (both creatively and in terms of how they run their businesses). For example-- it's unclear whether or not Double Fine will be able to act as a publisher for interesting, small titles, or if Insomniac will continue working in the VR space.

On the whole do you view this trend positively or negatively? How do you see it shaking out in the coming years?

 

[CloseTalker]

Too early to tell. Microsoft especially has been pretty firm in their stance of "We'll let you make the games you wanna make", and Tim Schafer of all people doesn't seem like the kind to sell out.

Time will tell if there ends up being cases of devs being homogenized, but at this point all we can do is take MS and Sony at their word. Anything else is just a hunch.

 

[Ghos]

Negative. We need more smaller devs with full autonomy not less.

 

[Ereineon]

As long as its not EA buying... it cannot be worse than that

 

[bluexy]

Generally speaking I support acquisitions for studios with high potential caps that are struggling due to sales/staffing/marketing/stuff a bigger company could be able to help with. I think Microsoft's acquisitions virtually all fit into this category. The Insomniac acquisition less so. That said, all it takes is a change in leadership or something going wrong and any acquisition can turn into a nightmare.

 

[Joni]

It is good in terms of ensuring these studios can make the games they want to make, but it is a bad symptom of the state of the gaming industry. It is not possible anymore for these studios to really survive on their own.

 

[Deleted member 10737]

honestly, for all the studios that have been purchased so far, i think it'll work in their benefit and allow them to make better games in more relaxed environments.

edit: but yeah, as the above poster mentions, it's not a good sign that many independent developers aren't able to maintain their independent and make successful games.

 

[JoeNut]

Bad, it means more console exclusives which can't be a good thing

 

[Betty]

Mostly bad.

Sure for some it's about saving dev's that were one bad game from being shuttered.

But eventually bigger fish are going to get poached and when the likes of Ubisoft/Ea/Capcom, god knows who else goes exclusive to one platform, hell will follow with it.

 

[Viale]

For the recent development, I think it's too early to tell overall.

I do believe exclusivity can be a good thing as it can lead to developers feeling secure and maybe more able to branch out and take more risks (thinking of GG deciding to branch out and do HZD or Naughty dog moving from mascot platformers to uncharted and what not). You could argue they may have done that without Sony, but I bet the added security helps a ton.

I don't think its necessarily a bad thing by any means personally.

 

[Ananasas]

We will probably see similar things to what happened in movie/tv industry (Disney).

 

[Mifune]

Arms race is a bit of an overstatement.

 

[Kill3r7]

It is inevitable as the industry moves on to a new phase.

 

[ElephantShell]

I dunno if I'd call it an arms race. Microsoft went on a bit of a buying spree over the last year as part of a strategic shift but they've since slowed down and the Insomniac purchase was Sony's first in a while, I think.

 

[modiz]

As long as it's not a publisher level acquisition and the developer getting a strong enough level of creative freedom in the development, I think it's fine.

 

[TuMekeNZ]

I see it as mostly good as long as these teams can continue to pursue their visions while having the security of a big publishers backing.
From memory both Sony and MS have said these teams will retain their freedom?
I think Sony at least has proven this with the variety of different games their teams push out.

 

[Starlatine]

I dont think its going to happen that often to become "an issue"

 

[Neural]

Is it even a race? I mean, Sony just bought Insomniac lately, that's all.

 

[DGS]

Arms race? Sony bought ONE studio, that was already extremely close to WWS. Imo, to soon to tell.

 

[Ricky_R]

Wonder when will Nintendo join in the fight.

 

[Teeth]

This has happened before. The industry moves in cycles....this is acquisition time. Then companies will start shutting down places and more indies will pop up and previously small indies will have breakout hits and grow over the years and then acquisition time will start anew.

The circle of corporate life.

 

[Flandy]

If they end up making games they wouldn't have been able to make if they weren't acquired I'd say its a good thing

 

[Deleted member 8196]

Not only Sony and MS are acquiring studios.

THQ Nordic acquired more studios than MS
Epic Games started with Psyonix
BigBen Interactive bought 2 studios

 

[Bizzquik]

I feel it has more to do with the ever-rising cost of developing games rather than Microsoft & Sony building their stable of exclusive content creators.

Its a happy timing for devs that Microsoft & Sony are giving them a way out; a Plan B. I don't begrudge devs for taking the money at all. Terms from third-party publishers are rarely dev-friendly when trying to make even one game, let alone keep an independent studio going for a number of years.

 

[Deleted member 10737]

Wonder when will Nintendo join in the fight.

Click to shrink...

i doubt they will at all. they're able to take huge teams out of big publishers like bandai namco and koei tecmo to work on their games, and have good, almost exclusive relationships for decades with studios like game freak, intelligent systems, HAL or next level games. if they were interested in buying studios, they probably would have bought one or two of those by now. their last purchase (monolith soft) worked out very well but i don't think they're looking to buy more. even with the limited number of studios they own, they're able to put out a crazy amount of games every year, more than sony and MS combined.

 

[vivftp]

Quoting myself from a previous thread:


With so many power players looking to make moves in the gaming sphere I think acquisitions like this need to be made now. We have the established players like Sony, MS and Nintendo for consoles. We've got Valve, Epic and now Google on PC/other. Then on top of that we've got other power players like Apple, Amazon, Walmart Comcast... all companies that either have some part in the gaming sphere or are rumored to be looking at options. With so many unproven mammoth companies looking to enter this market I think having the established players secure devs and even some of the smaller pubs is a great move to protect what the industry has spent decades building. Any of those power players could buy up a bunch of devs and wouldn't bat an eye at the cost, and if they later decide this isn't for them they could just cut their losses and move on, or they could force those devs to make games that aren't desirable for the health of the overall industry (lootboxes...).

So yeah, if I look at the possible future before us, I would 100% like it for the established players to fortify the industry to make sure these other companies can't just waltz in and potentially fuck it up.

 

[NewDust]

I think most studios acquired in the last two years by MS/Sony were either to large for some publisher like THQ or 505, to big a disconnect for japanese publishers like SE, Sega, Capcom, and to high risk for EA, Ubi and Activision. A lot probably wouldn't have made it in the long run. It remains to be seen if Sony and Microsoft are going to respect the artistic integrity of these studios. The obvious exclusivities seem a necessary evil.

 

[sredgrin]

I mean, at least a couple that MS bought were clearly on the edge of disaster like Obsidian after Pillars 2 bombed. In all likelihood some of them wouldn't have made into the next generation at all. So I'd rather have games still coming even if there's limits on the platforms.

Not sure Sony has really bought enough studios to really qualify for this discssion yet either.

 

[Deleted member 7462]

It's ultimately good.

It, at least in the short term, preserves some devs who might otherwise struggle to stay open (Double Fine comes to immediate mind).

In the long term, the market is so crowded with people who want to be in it that there will always be new start-ups in the development part of the business that replace the devs who are snapped up by bigger companies. I don't think that this will hurt the variety of games or amount of games coming from independent devs.

 

[Saucycarpdog]

Good when the company behind my platform of choice does it but absolutely bad when the others do it.

 

[Jon God]

It's hard to tell.

One one hand, it means a publisher can shut them down at any time for any reason.

On the other hand, AA/AAA indie developers are dancing in death's doorway these days, so having security is good for the 100s of people working at said companies.

 

[Night Hunter]

It is good in terms of ensuring these studios can make the games they want to make, but it is a bad symptom of the state of the gaming industry. It is not possible anymore for these studios to really survive on their own.

Click to shrink...

This is kind of my stance on this.

The technological arms race has made this inevitable, not that I'm not guilty of this.

 

[Falchion]

If they buy them and then give the studios the independence and creative latitude to do what they want without meddling then it'll be really good. If not, maybe less good.

 

[Marufuku]

Wonder when will Nintendo join in the fight.

Click to shrink...

Nintendo usually buys studios that ask to be bought by them:

Iwata: So Mobiclip and Nintendo had been building a stronger relationship like this and it was around this time that Mobiclip investors were thinking about selling the company to recoup the investment. My understanding is that the two of you then proposed Mobiclip becoming a part of the Nintendo group, is that right?
Alex: Yes, exactly. The projects we were working on with Nintendo were exciting. At one point I asked Jérôme if he agreed that it was only the Nintendo projects that were exciting and he replied saying, "Well, yes." We were then bold enough to approach Nintendo and basically say that we wanted to concentrate only on Nintendo projects. Of course investors have their own agenda and we had to convince them. At that time I thought we had only maybe a 10% chance of success because I assumed Nintendo would not be interested in such an offer. We were really surprised when we saw Nintendo was willing to welcome this small French company.

Click to shrink...

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Iwata-As...-Nintendo/7-Working-with-Nintendo-759284.html

Sugiura: "However, when we were given the choice, we had a strong feeling of 'wanting to continue making something original,' which was also one of the reasons we started the company in the first place—so we wondered what should we do? That's when we received consultation from Nintendo's then-managing director Shinji Hatano. Hatano-san told us 'just go out there and make something that can't be found elsewhere in the industry, something original with an independent spirit.' That was just the thing Monolith Soft looked to accomplish. And that's when it was decided that we would become a subsidiary of Nintendo

Click to shrink...

https://www.siliconera.com/2017/08/...cer-going-namco-nintendo/#xaoGAge1ktm4066T.99

 

[etrain911]

I don't think it is really much of an arms race at the moment. MS has been sweeping up devs left and right, but Sony's really only bought Insomniac.

 

[Ricky_R]

Nintendo usually buys studios that ask to be bought by them:





https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Iwata-As...-Nintendo/7-Working-with-Nintendo-759284.html





https://www.siliconera.com/2017/08/...cer-going-namco-nintendo/#xaoGAge1ktm4066T.99

Click to shrink...

So boring.

 

[Peek-a-boo!]

Sony has bought just one studio recently.

Microsoft in comparison feels like they have purchased half the industry with the way they talk (and shout) about their acquisitions in the past fifteen months.

I am sure we'll get an answer to the OP's question in three or four years time.

 

[Deleted member 43]

Bad.

 

[Soundchaser]

No one forces the devs to sell their studios, I don't think it's a valid dilemma.

 

[Razgriz417]

neutral, some devs need the $ to survive

 

[Kilgore]

The best thing for all of us would be having as multiplatform independent studios that we can, but the market is tending to concentrate on big publishers and well, that's how things are gonna be from now on I guess.

 

[AmFreak]

They remove them from the open market to push their closed platforms (if not now, long term).

 

[Weebos]

Isn't Insomniac the only studio Sony has acquired recently? Not much of an arms race if so.

 

[808s & Villainy]

Sony bought ONE studio. This isn't remotely an arms race. Relax

 

[Woozies]

There's an arms race?

 

[Son Lamar]

As long as its not EA buying... it cannot be worse than that

Click to shrink...

WRONG
NFL20 THE SHOW will make up for sony buying EA in one fell Swoop

 

[Damn Silly]

For the ones that would have to downsize or go out of business entirely, I think it's a positive, albeit one that shows the industry may not be in a healthy position.

For the ones like Insomniac who seemed to be perfectly fine without it, I'm personally not a fan.

 

[canseesea]

I'd rather more independent companies, but I'd also rather (in general) see the developers who aren't going to make it be bought by a first party than a large third party. Microsoft and Sony have vested interests in offering games that appeal to many different markets to try and get a wide variety of audiences to buy their console and/or services. EA and Ubisoft on the other hand just have an interest in selling the same game to as many people as possible, making it often a better decision for them to ignore more niche markets.

 

[J_ToSaveTheDay]

Neutral to me right now, but if it aggressively continues, I'll start to feel pretty negative about it.

I personally only feel bad about potentially being locked out of Ninja Theory games, but that may not be an issue if they go with Microsoft's "also on PC" model.

 

[Crayon]

I'm not fond of the saying "it is what it is", but here we are. This is just the tip of the buying sprees that are about to go on as more big players are attracted to the lure of subscription business.

So I would say neutral, but it's not going to be fun to watch, so that pushed me down the negative.