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Activision acquires a new development studio.
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Yesterday, Santa Monica-based studio Activision announced the acquisition of Budcat Creations, who were reponsible for ports of many Madden and Guitar Hero games and also the excellent Blast Works: Build, Trade, and Destroy for the Wii.
It seems that they were acquired to Activision wanted to strengthen their capabilities for developing games for Nintendo-based systems. Which seems great until this line in the press release pops up from Mike Griffith, president and CEO of Activision Publishing: "this acquisition increases our Guitar Hero development resources as we continue to grow the franchise and expand our global leadership position in the music-based genre."
Great....now i've already written about my feelings on Activision exploiting this franchise, so I won't repeat the same mantra. My biggest beef in this whole deal is that gamers are yet losing another talented indie group just to port an already decent game to platforms.
Memo to big publishers: if you worried about game sales and revenue, then let your development teams actually develop something new and risky. Especially on a system, like the Wii, where consumers are begging for great third-party content. Sooner or later, your revenue is going dwindle and you're going to scramble to actually come up with something interesting. And when the time comes to actually make a great game, try to put a lot of money into it, you can't become a huge success if you're not taking huge risks.
For more reading: Los Angeles Video Game Examiner-Guitar Hero: The ground isn't enough to run into
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