Microsoft Buys Lionhead Studios

Grench writes "The BBC has an article on Microsoft's purchase of Lionhead Studios. They focus in particular on Peter Molyneux, and the kind of talents and expertise that he can bring to Microsoft's future gaming efforts. A sequel to Fable was mentioned as a probable endeavor." From the article: "Some of the giants of the games industry, such as Electronic Arts and Ubisoft, were reported to have been interested in acquiring Lionhead. But Microsoft has emerged as the victor, adding the studio to its roster of British gaming talent. In 2002, it acquired developers Rare in a $375m deal."

Comments

EA was never realistic

[Duds]

He still isn't fond of them regarding the ripping apart of Bullfrog after he sold out. EA's overall control is the reason he left Bullfrog in the first place. Bullfrog was last seen converting Quake 3 to the PS2.

That said, it'll be interesting to see if it's any easier at Microsoft. They make pains to say they won't be excercising creative control, but another 2 failiures like B+W2 and the movies and you wonder how long that will survive.

Re:EA was never realistic

[Grench]

I've never played Black and White 2, but The Movies seems to have a fair community - I bought the game for my stepson, and he's spent countless hours making movies to go on TheMoviesGame.com's community site, and even more time than that watching other people's movies and rating them.

It's really quite an interesting title; I'm yet to play it myself, but it's just the sort of innovative game I'd expect from someone like Peter. Not sure why it hasn't sold all that well. Shame.

Aha!

[MyLongNickName]

We now know why Microsoft could not afford to buy Bill the digital whiteboard he wants so bad...

Put some of that Black and White experience to use

[Anonymous Coward]

In hyping Windows Vista as the greatest thing EVER and then letting everyone down with how much it sucks.

Re:Britian's Silicon Valley.

[Duds]

Always has been. It's not a "new" thing at all. A large proportion of the successful studios at other publishers are british. Team 17 (Worms), Rockstar North (Lemmings, Grand Theft Auto), Eden (WRC, Test Drive next-gen), Melbourne House (Test drive current gen, Test Drive LeMans (DC)).

The reason if anything is that while America had a tendancy to buy NES in the 1980s, the british were a lot more keen on programmable computers. The NES sold well, the Master system much better, but they were all blown into the weeds by the Spectrum,CPC and C64 (and later the Amiga). Any bedroom guy could and did write commercial software, that's how Molyneux and Rare (as "Ultimate - play the game") got started, and countless others.

Worms was sent to Team 17 almost complete too.

There goes another good game co to hell...

[Fallen Kell]

Everytime MS buys a gamd company, the games then fall apart and then suck. I don't know what they do to them. Look at Bungie Soft, the same people who gave us the Marathon series and Myth series. Marathon was the FPS on Mac for forever, the Doom of the system, and in some aspects even more fun. And if you never played the first Myth: The Fallen Lords, you missed possibly the best real time tactics game ever made in the genera (or any after mods like WWII which converted everything into a WWII units of soldiers, medics, even tanks).

Then MS came... well, all I can say is go look for games that have the Bungie Studio's logo somewhere on the game now... They are most definitly NOT the only one this happened to. I firmely believe that MS does not have the corporate presence and structuring that is needed to actually produce good games. I personally believe they shreded the Mechwarrior series. Mechwarrior 2 is still the best in my opinion. But do you want to know why? It is because Activision at least gave a HUGE selection of mechs and weapons. There were more different mechs in Mechwarrior2+GhostBear Expansion then in ALL the later games in the series COMBINED. Part of the whole idea in that game is that you really DON'T know all the different mechs that might be feilded against you. That you don't know the weakness of everybody, or their strengths until you get smacked hard by something that surprised the crap out of you...

Re:There goes another good game co to hell...

[Swanktastic]

I also disagree. The Bungie Webmaster in 1996 is just as funny in 2006.

Re:There goes another good game co to hell...

[Anonymous Coward]

Everytime MS buys a game company, the games then fall apart and then suck. I don't know what they do to them.

Having lived through the Microsoft buyout of a game studio, perhaps I provide some insight into why acquired studios seem to lose their mojo. Disclaimer: This are my opinions only, and come from the individual contributior perspective, not that of the studio management.

First off, Microsoft corporate culture does not map well to a typical successful game studio, and no matter what assurances are given that the studio's culture and operations are going to be left intact, within a couple years the studio becomes fully integrated into the 'Microsoft Way'.

Probably most destructive are the Microsft one-size fits all HR policies such as stack ranking. Game development is truly a team effort, and successful studios have managed to create teams where most of the performers are above average. Instead of being able to reward people fairly, a pre-determined number of people each year have to be given a "poor" review which includes no compensation increases of any sort, and the warning that if they fail to improve by next year, they will be on the list of people to be 'managed out'. On the other end, a smaller pre-determined number of people will be rewarded handsomly no matter if they have not produced anything to merit such. So a culture of teamwork, focus on the product,and pride in the company will quickly morph into a culture of individual self-promotion, politicts and backstabbing, and a disdain for the company.

Additionally, as part of Microsoft, the studio no longer has the urgency to make the next game great and complete it in a timely manner. With Microsoft's billions insuring financial stability if a game is cancelled, and no direct financial upside to producing a hit game, the pressure of living close to the edge that was present in the old culture that helped the team focus is supplanted by a devil may care attiude that creeps into the 'rank and file'.

As a result, many of the developers tranform from passionate, competitive people who strive for excellence into someone who just 'does their job' and goes home at 6pm sharp. Others just leave for greener pastures. Management gets thier large bonuses in any event.

There are other issues of course, such as loss of control over future projects, headcount restrictions that prevent a studio from hiring desperatly needed people, and so on.

Re:Put some of that Black and White experience to

[tourvil]

Perhaps they could use their B&W experience to reintroduce clippy as a trainable creature.

Clippy: It looks like you are trying to write a letter. Would you like some help?

*slap* *slap* *punch* *slap*

Not suprized

[Lokre]

I can't say that this was really that shocking. I really enjoyed Fable and B&W (haven't played 2) and am looking forward to Fable 2.

I really wish that MS can give Pete the time to let some of his ideas come to fruition...I really was dissapointed when some of thefeatures i really wanted in Fable got cut. ( i.e. raising a family, multiplayer) I'm hoping we'll get a Fable sequel (mabey prequel?) that delivers all the promises of Fable 1 that didn't happen.

From the article...

[supabeast!]

"We are not afraid to take a risk. With Peter Molyneux you have someone who is able to push the boundaries."

Isn't Molyneaux's whole problem that he gets all of these wild ideas and then fails to actually execute them? In which case is he really pushing boundaries, or just being mediocre?

Re:From the article...

[Jugalator]

Isn't Molyneaux's whole problem that he gets all of these wild ideas and then fails to actually execute them?

But then maybe he's just the right guy to balance a company who rarely have any wilds ideas, but often suceeed in executing them? :-)

Bill Gates

[babbling]

This is how Bill Gates *REALLY* works. Microsoft is having a tough time beating Sony, so they buy up the game companies and surprise, surprise, everything is "only on xbox".

Re:Put some of that Black and White experience to

[orderb13]

Yeah, but then Clippy will end up crapping all over your word doc and then eating some of the letter at random. I mean, how are you going to explain that to your boss? "I'm sorry, but Clippy ate it."

total creative control

[CheechWizz]

I just hope they start making some good games again. Back in the days Peter Molyneux made some very nice stuff but ever since he left Bullfrog and started Lionhead most of his stuff was more about the hype than about the games. Some people liked B&W 1 but I never could get into it, too many little annoiances to be really entertaining. Fable was good, but way, way too short, I finished it in one day and I wasn't even trying. That's basically the story of lionhead games, good idea, poor execution (wheter it be controls, length or something else).

I think his problem is that now he's a super-mega-uber game developer and people are to much in awe of him and his status to go against him on game design issues and in the end it's hurting the games. At Bullfrog there probably were enough people around that knew him before he got the status he now has to tell him an element of the game wasn't working.Giving creatives who made a couple of hits total creative control is seldom a good thing, just look at George Lucas(first example to come to mind, Image comics is another) , creativity flourishes within confines.

Having somebody to answer to is probably really good for Lionhead, altough Microsoft would'nt be my first choice I would've rather seen Ubisoft buying them, they seem to be really on the ball the last couple of years.

RIP Lionhead

[Tom]

Too bad, another game company with great ideas bites the dust. Yes, I mean that. Look at Bungie - whatever came of them? Halo 2 their greatest idea since M$ bought them out?

Of course, what M$ wants - what M$ needs - are a few killer games that are Xbox-exclusive. Probably half of the original xbox sales were thanks to Halo. With the PS3 rapidly approaching, the 360 will lose a lot of market share if there aren't any great exclusive games, and quickly.

Re:Britian's Silicon Valley.

[AndrewHowe]

Melbourne House are in Australia. As in, Melbourne, Australia.

so much for Linux

[MikeFM]

So much for Linux versions. From a developer that was at least warm to the concept. Damn.

RIP blah blah blah.

[xtieburn]

Take a look at the companies MS Games has bought up.

Bungie made Halo by a long long way the most succesful game they ever created.
Digital Anvil made freelancer the most succesful game they ever created.
Ensemble Studios made Age of Empires the most succesful game they ever created. (I hope your noting the pattern here)
FASA made Crimson Skies the most succesful game they ever created.
Rare remain the only studio that hasnt prospered quite as much as theyd hoped though with Perfect Dark and Kameo. Hardly a bad start.

(and lets not have 'Bungie made Halo for PC!' crap. Thats not the point, MS not killing off the studio, is.)

Lionhead was going down. You had either EA, Ubisoft or Microsoft. So which do you want? EA who has bought and dissolved countless companies with no regard for there worth? Ubisoft who have recently taken a liking to absurd protection methods. Or Microsoft who buy up companies to use there names and ideas exclusively? Its not exactly a clear cut 'MS are teh evil' situation.

I know to a lot of people they're the big evil corporation but seriously take a step back and look around for two seconds. You really think the other publishers are better? In fact take a look at the other studios MS owns, you really think Lionhead is gone now?

Im not saying bad things arnt going to happen to molyneux's baby but MS, in this case, is arguably there best option. (With Ubisoft coming a close second. Lets not even suggest the Bullfrog destroying EA.) Heck, Id even go so far as to say they stand a chance of releasing some pretty solid stuff.

A little less of the incessant farewell, RIP, crap and perhaps a little more perspective on what is going on.