Every Developer Wants To Be Bought

The unexpected consequences of Microsoft’s near-$70b purchase of Activision is suddenly every developer wants to be bought. Nearly every studio and publisher, when asked, have answered positively about the possibility.

So Ubisoft, for instance, today said they would consider offers. Which is a great answer, by the way. Makes it sound like the second the bidder walks out the room the party poppers will come out.

Look, video games are hard. They’re expensive and developers don’t make much money on most of them. The market is fickle, too. Ask EA, who blamed part of the disinterest in the latest Battlefield game on Halo Infinite being both better and suddenly available. If you’re not on top, you’re just managing.

And despite the record profits in the gaming industry, it’s true that most are just managing. Games take more effort to make, and more people. Those record profits disappear faster when you put out a bomb.

And this isn’t defending the multibillion dollar companies, believe me. It’s just a brief reminder that there are plenty of reasons to look for the cosy support of a bigger company.

That’s especially true now that the question of independence has come up out of nowhere. There are varying degrees of independence for developers. Bungie will – hypothetically – still be releasing games on Xbox in 10 years time, despite being a Sony first party studio. While in the Xbox camp, studios are pretty much left alone to do what they want.

It seems too good to be true, and maybe it is. You get a huge buyout, your budgets go up, you don’t have to worry about keeping the lights on AND you can keep making whatever you want to make?

This is a bubble that’s going to burst. But, for now, the subtle calls will continue.

Developer consolidation and the industry

This does very little to help those concerned by worries of consolidation. And these guys are having a bad enough time of it as it is.

Because the reality is that this is only going to continue. Developers are desperate for help. And with shareholders seeing dollar signs, you can bet it’s going to up its pace too. The truth is it’s been a good long while since we saw a truly seismic shift in our industry. Probably the Xbox 360 and its UI and online functionality, with DLC and ultimately micro-transactions part of that.

Since then we’ve been treading water, with increasingly small changes happening over time. That the latest hot topic of conversation is a Matrix tech demo is hilarious for this reason.

The games might not be changing – better graphics, bigger ideas – but the industry is. The biggest players in gaming are now also the biggest companies full stop. And it might be that Apple and Amazon aren’t really paying attention right now… but they’re sleeping giants waiting to be woken.

And now we have the likes of Ubisoft saying they would consider offers. It doesn’t take a genius to see exactly where this conversation will be ending up.

On the bright side, at least there will be plenty to talk about over the next few years…