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."

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...

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?

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.

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? :-)

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.

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.