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Take-Two Acquires Firaxis
eToyChest reports that Publisher Take-Two has acquired Firaxis studios, developers of the Civilization franchise. From the article: "At this point I'm not sure what to think. If Take-Two takes a hands-off approach, and lets Firaxis do their thing, then I'm all for this. I just don't want this to become a matter of "too many cooks in the kitchen", and somehow negatively impact future titles that spring from Sid Meier's genius. Your thoughts?"
Take Two has already published two successful Sid Meier's games. This may simply be a way of ensuring that they have permanent control of those franchises.
I don't think it's very good. If Take-two wants to regularly invest (and thus) profit off the games Firaxis makes, then that's fine. If they want to sign an agreement for them to do a certain number of games this way...that's fine. But, there's no reason for all these publishers to keep gobbling up all the developers. We're gonna get to a point where there are very few companies that autonomously create games, and thus less innovation I'm afraid.
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
Take2 previously handled much of the marketing etc for Firaxis. Take2 doesn't deal so much with the development aspect of game publishing... that's done by the subsidiaries IIRC. Not to say that the parent co doesn't have input, but I imagine it's similar to the original Take2/Rockstar setup. Rockstar devlops games, Take2 publishes them.
Where this worries me is that the Civ franchise will probably need to be dumbed down a bit in order to do well in a larger market -- especially the console market (and you can bet they'll be pushing it there).
I'd like to see the top of the org chart for Take2's new acquisition -- will Sid continue in his current role?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
That's what happens when Sid Meier isn't involved anymore. Pirates! and Civ IV were great games, but we won't be seeing the likes of them until Sid creates another firm 10 years from now.
Granted, 2K has not been heavyhanded with Rockstar, but then Rockstar makes pretty much the #1 game franchise in the world. A smaller firm like Firaxis will be easy to meddle with and fuck up irreversibly.
(It's never too late to join the Renaissance)
In this turn-based game, you will create brothels, build slaveships, create drug cartels, research ways to refine cocaine, harvest opium fields, and assasinate political leaders, and it'll have a story line.
=)
I develop sports games for a company owned by Take Two under the 2K Sports label. I have worked here before, during, and after the aquisition. I will be the first to say that the acquisition has been nothing but positive for our company. Take Two has not pushed us to do anything we wouldn't have done otherwise and has only provided us with larger pockets from which to draw resources.
I am confident that the acquisition will not negatively impact Firaxis' great line of games.
My SIG is a SG-552 Commando
For people who've been watching the Civ IV release with interest (anyone who paid money for it probably is), this is clearly another bad thing.
For people who don't know, Civ IV, while mechanically a great game, was rushed out of the door unfinished. I would suggest that the *majority* of people who bought it had technical difficulties with the game, from rendering, XML, ATI initialisation, crash to desktop, restarts, bluescreens and all manner of other problems (just take a look at the forums at Civfanatics to see).
The reason for this is, presumably, that Take 2 forced Firaxis to release the game in an unfinished state.
Take 2 aren't offering any support for the product apart from rumours that a support person once said there may be a patch released. They're not answering emails and the telephone support is quite bad as the call center staff don't have much information.
Take 2 directly owning Firaxis now means that this kind of shoddiness is now something we should expect in future.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
What if the folks at Take Two are huge fans of Sid Meier and merely want to pump enough cash into his company to help him make the game he really wants to make?
Games are getting expensive to make these days, and a competitive, next-gen experience is even more expensive. Besides, some folks like to concentrate on creating things and leave business to the business folks.
So while were all speculating on shit we know nothing about, I'll do a little speculation of my own: what if Take 2 will pay for the development of a fully 3D, full featured Alpha Centari 2 with 30 times more content and the greatest, most intuitive interface ever seen in a strategy game?
Can't do that without cash, folks.