European Game Developer Failures Enumerated

Thanks to Polygon for their article discussing the recent problems faced by European videogame developers. The piece explains: "According to a recent study conducted by London's Financial Times, 23 European game developers folded in 2003, which is up from 14 in 2002 and 8 in 2001." It also notes that "one of the biggest European companies to close its doors this year was Rage Software, perhaps best known for their David Beckham Soccer series", and a recently-linked editorial mentions a number of other notable independent developers who are no more, including Mucky Foot, Lost Toys, Computer Artworks, and Silicon Dreams. The news piece ends by quoting Eidos CEO Mike McGarvey as suggesting: "A studio of about 150 people, split into three teams, is about the ideal size and it's hard to see how it makes sense for the cottage industry types. They may have more of a future in post-production as a service-based business."

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a lot...I recognised a couple developers from the list.

Is it the beginning of the game developer decline?

Re:Wow

[Kris_J]

And Rage Software managed to produce a version of Doom for the Saturn that had a frame rate lower than the 32X version.

"Cottage industry" game production is perhaps best suited to retro [atariage.com] and portable gaming, where the technical abilities are limited such that a large team and lots of money don't outweigh talent and a decent game concept.

Re:Wow

[Goldberg's Pants]

I think there is a place for cottage industry. I mean look at Out of the Park Baseball. Produced under those sort of circumstances, just three or four guys I believe.

I think a lot of these developers go under due to piss poor management more than anything else. Either that, or the conspiracy theory is true, that being the likes of EA contract these developers. If they're good, they absorb the talent, and if they're not, they bury them.

Re:Wow

[johannesg]

These teams are not really "cottage industry". They are not some guys playing at being game developers, they are (usually fairly large) professional teams with years of experience in the industry.

Re:Wow

[sandalwood]

They also made Blade II, which was fairly awful.

Silicon dreams ?!

[Tobias Luetke]

Well, i think they closed doors just in time to avoid the impending "most unfortunate name of the year award" ...

That many close?

[Karem Lore]

This is an interesting statistic, but what would be most useful is to know how many "new" outfits started...If 25 new ones started, then this isn't so bad, if only 3 started, then this is bad...

Karem

23 is far too low

[Teut]

23 is far too low. Our count has 12 developers foldiung in germany alone, we counted over 40 in the UK, we dont know how many others folded in the other countries. This is widly known, I dont know why the Financial Times has this low number. Its far worse than the article shows. Many studios are still struggling, more failures to come.

Thats a bit harsh, isn't it?

[iainl]

Best known for the David Beckham Soccer series? I'd have thought more people would like to remember Rage for their excellent Rocky game, the wonderfully promising Lamborghini and the under-rated Hostile Waters. David Beckham Soccer was famous for five minutes when it flopped horribly, but that was all, really. Even Go-Go Beckam, their GBA platformer, was rather more memorable.

open source will get to games, too

[ajagci]

The news piece ends by quoting Eidos CEO Mike McGarvey as suggesting: "A studio of about 150 people, split into three teams, is about the ideal size and it's hard to see how it makes sense for the cottage industry types. They may have more of a future in post-production as a service-based business."

McGarvey will be surprised when open source will start eating his lunch. First, industry insiders thought open source couldn't develop compilers, then kernels, then desktops, and they were proven wrong each ti

Re:open source will get to games, too

[TwistedSquare]

I think that the stumbling block for open source gaming is more likely to be the organisation. To gather together lots of programmers, designers, artists, level makers, sound engineers etc into one vision and make them see it through without pay is quite a challenge. That's why so many independent games revolve around simple ideas in my opinion; I doubt we will see an open source Deus Ex/Final Fantasy for a while to come.

Games and $$$

[Sigga]

Games cost so much money its almost like a movie production, artists, scene directors etc. The # of companies that can afford to produce a good game shrinks then, and that is why there is less and less variety occuring.

Kris Holland [mailto]