20 Games Studios We Lost in 2012

This time last year, IGN ran a feature called ‘12 Games Studios that Died in 2011’. In 2012, while researching a similar article, we stopped counting about midway through the 20s.

Such is the nature of the games industry, or at least, life in the 2012 entertainment-tech economy.

Of course, each company or studio is unique, and so is the sad nature
of its departure. But there are trends worth noting, and this list aims
to highlight those trends. This year, there has been a flushing out of
the mobile, social and MMO markets, a general tightening of belts among
large companies and, of course, the dismal spectacle of studios getting
caught up in economic and even political turmoil.

It’s worth remembering that, as well as these 20 companies, we
counted a further 35 instances of smaller studio closures or significant
lay-offs. The games industry was ever a maelstrom, but it perhaps
serves some small comfort to consider that most companies, most of the
time, are seeking to fill positions, and that, via innovations like
Kickstarter and Greenlight, new projects new teams and new companies are
always being born.

We have placed the following list in order of company longevity, with
the oldest developer founded in 1973, and the youngest in 2011. This
list is a selection of notable closures, but does not represent every
developer that ceased work in the last year. It's worth also noting that
the end of a studio does not necessarily spell the end of the
franchises that made its name.


Hudson Soft


Founded in 1973. Best known for Bomberman.
Since its founding in the early 1970s, Hudson Soft has produced, in
Bomberman, one of the greatest multi-player series of all time. As well
as developing the Mario Party series for Nintendo, the company published
the popular Red Entertainment RPG series Tengai Makyo. In the late
1980s, it worked with electronic giant NEC to produce a games console,
the PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16 outside Japan). By the start of the last
decade, the firm employed 500 people with offices in the U.S. But it
spent the next decade being acquired and subsumed into the Konami
family, to the point where its parent saw no need for the separate
brand. In March, the company’s operations were rolled into Konami’s. In a blog post, product manager Morgan Haro wrote that the company had become a victim of the “Westernization of gaming”.


Sony Liverpool (formerly Psygnosis)



Founded in 1988. Best known for WipeOut. Psygnosis was the Brit-cool games publisher / developer of the late 1980s and early 1990s, producing graphically interesting games
for the red-hot Commodore Amiga. Little wonder that Sony, seeking to
launch the PlayStation games console and looking for as much credibility
as possible, latched onto the Liverpool company for electronic-wondrous
sci-fi racer WipeOut. Sony bought Psygnosis and the hits kept coming
including Destruction Derby and Colony Wars, until things began to drift
and Sony Liverpool became just another development outpost of a
multi-national entertainment corp, churning out racers. The office is
now used for low-level company-administrative and support purposes.


Spellbound Entertainment



Founded in 1994. Best known for Desperados. Ravendale,
an ambitious steampunk RPG, was due to be released this year. It’s been
in development, on and off, for at least five years. But its developer,
Germany’s Spellbound wound itself up and reformed as Black Forest Games,
which has already released Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams for Steam and
is planning same for PSN and XBL. The company was founded in 1994 by
Armin Gessert, who coded the original and notorious Commodore 64 hit The
Great Giana Sisters, a rip-off of Super Mario Bros. Spellbound went on
to create the Desperados series of Wild West tactical combat games as well as Arcania: Gothic 4. Sadly, Armin Gessert died in 2009.


ImaginEngine




Founded in 1994. Best known for Apples to Apples. ImaginEngine
has been making games for the children’s market for 20 years and has
worked with franchises like Dora the Explorer and Are You Smarter than a
5th Grader?. Its version of board game Apples to Apples for Xbox Live
and PSN, launched in 2011, was not well received earning average Metacritic scores in the 60s. Parent company Foundation 9 closed the company with the loss of 25 jobs, blaming a downturn in the kids and family market.


Zipper Interactive



Founded in 1995. Best known for SOCOM.
Zipper began life releasing PC games in the mid-1990s, but came to
prominence with the launch of 2002’s SOCOM: U.S Navy SEALs. The
PlayStation 2 exclusive showed off that console’s new online gaming
service, offering the most advanced tactical multiplayer delights of the
day. It became a multi-million seller. Inevitably, sequels followed.
Sony stepped in to buy the Washington company in 2006. The company
created a stir at E3 in 2008 with the first showing of a massive
multiplayer shooter called MAG.
Despite lofty ambitions it was received with lukewarm reviews and, in a
market now dominated by other shooting franchises, unspectacular sales.
Sony, seeking to save money left, right and center, closed the studio.


Rockstar Vancouver (formerly Barking Dog)



Founded in 1998. Best known for Max Payne 3. In
the history of games we have so often seen studios being formed by
talented, driven people, achieving success and stability, being sold and
eventually closing by edict of accountants.
It almost feels like a natural cycle, although this will be cold
comfort to those who lose their jobs. People often wonder why studios
don’t avoid the latter part of the cycle and retain their independence.
Often, the founders are looking to cash-out, or are struggling with the
grind of deal-making, lurching from one project to the next. Publishers
are no respecters of tradition, because when they buy studios, they are
usually buying a turnkey solution to a labor problem, rather than
history or culture (even if the PR people do say different.). Rockstar
Vancouver made Bully and then Max Payne 3, two good games, but then
Rockstar decided to focus its Canadian efforts in Ontario and announced
that its studios had "merged". It probably doesn’t help that Max Payne 3
was severely delayed and, compared to certain other Rockstar
franchises, barely registers as a profit generator.


Big Huge Games



Founded in 2000. Best known for Rise of Nations. Timonium,
Maryland is a day’s drive from Rhode Island, but that wasn’t nearly far
enough to save Big Huge Games from the widening catastrophe of parent
company 38 Studios’ demise. Back in the day, Big Huge Games had been formed by Alpha Centauri designer Brian Reynolds to focus on high quality strategy games combining traditional turn-based models with more RTS-style elements. Its first game, Rise of Nations,
was well-received and spawned an expansion pack and a sequel. The
company was sucked into THQ’s mid-decade developer-acquisition frenzy,
and then threatened with closure when that gambit didn’t pay off for the
publisher. 38 Studios saw the talent and stepped in. But when that
company went bust, it was all over for Big Huge Games. The good news is
that Epic has formed a new subsidiary in Baltimore made up of many
former employees.


BigBig Studios



Founded in 2001. Best known for Pursuit Force. When Little Deviants arrived as a Vita launch title, IGN’s Colin Moriarty expressed disappointment, in his review,
that a game supposed to show off the handheld’s undoubted innovations
showed so many inconsistencies. He scored it a six. The sense of
deflation was intensified as BigBig had once been a solid developer for
Sony’s original PSP handheld, best known for its driving-combat hit Pursuit Force.
But Sony’s financial troubles brought the UK developer under the
accountants' gaze. Just four years after being acquired by the company, the studio was closed.


Black Hole Entertainment



Founded in 2001. Best known for Heroes of Might & Magic VI. Andrew
Vajna, the Hungarian-American film-producer of such hits as First
Blood, Total Recall and The 13th Warrior helped to fund this Budapest
start-up, when it formed back in 2001. The team specialized in strategy
games, with its first game Armies of Exigo (published by EA) followed up
by work on the Warhammer license for Namco and finally, Might and Magic Heroes VI for Ubisoft.
The developer ceased trading after the release of Heroes, with one
anonymous employee placing the blame on Ubisoft producers and on the
developer’s own contract negotiators. He or she claimed that the delays were Ubisoft’s fault but were paid for by the developer. “This project cost Black Hole its existence... while Ubi is making profit on Heroes 6.”


THQ San Diego (formerly Midway San Diego)



Founded in 2003. Best known for UFC Undisputed 3. Such
is the perilous life of a studio that one deal can spell the end. This
studio was originally created to sit alongside Midway’s corporate HQ,
and worked on wrestling franchise TNA Impact. THQ, holding the rights to
Ultimate Fighting Championship, picked up the studio when Midway went pop, and did a stand-up job with the license, but that company then lost the license to Electronic Arts, which announced its new victory at E3, while defeated THQ had to lay-off the entire studio. To the victors, the spoils.


Multiverse Network



Founded in 2004. Best known for 'Firefly MMO'. The
Multiverse Network was really a technology company, offering an MMO
platform to other developers. But it also dabbled in the notion of
publishing its own virtual environments based on popular fictional
worlds, like Firefly and Buffy. Made up of Netscape veterans, located in
the heart of Silicon Valley and funded to the tune of $7 million, the
company even had James Cameron sitting on its board. It diversified into
creating advertising-games for the likes of Coca Cola. But a lack of
profits and finished games brought the company to an end, although its middleware source-code is still available via a group of non-profit volunteers.


Monumental Games



Founded in 2005. Best known for Moto GP 10/11. Here
is one of many UK-based developers on this list, but perhaps it’s a
microcosm of the troubles facing developers around the world. Founded in
2005, the company sold low-cost MMO-creation middleware to other
developers, produced its own browser-game, called Little Horrors, and
developed the motorcycle-racing MotoGP series on behalf of Capcom. But
it spent much of the last few years just struggling to survive, cutting
staff and closing offices, finally letting its last 25 people go at the beginning of the year.


38 Studios



Founded in 2006. Best known for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Many
of the companies in this wretched list ran aground on their own errors.
Either they sold out to the wrong corporation, or they released a lousy
game, or they just made a bad commercial bet. 38 Studios is perhaps the
saddest story of all. These guys made a really, really good game,
they were backed by a charismatic former sports star, they were funded
by the State of Rhode Island. Sure, the company made mistakes, spent too
much money, made too many promises. But what it all comes down to is
copy sales. And when Amalur, an RPG released in the wake of Skyrim, at
the tail-end of a console generation, sold only a million copies or so,
it became clear that the costs of the venture were clearly never going to be recouped. The politicians ran. The media fed. The lawyers filed their lawsuits. The staff collected their things, placed them in boxes, and began looking for another job.


Ubisoft Vancouver (Formerly Action Pants)



Founded in 2006. Best known for Motionsports Adrenaline. Publishers
often make strange moves that seem to make sense at the time, but later
seem puzzling. In 2009, when Wii was flying, Ubisoft acquired
independent developer Action Pants, which offered a stated
specialization in Wii sports games. The company subsequently released Academy of Champions Soccer for Wii which was okay, and subsequently, Pure Futbal for other consoles and PC, which reviewed poorly. Finally, in 2011 it completed MotionSports Adrenaline for Move and Kinect, which IGN’s review described as “bad”. In closing the studio,
a Ubisoft spokesperson explained, with Gallic sang-froid,
“Unfortunately, we haven’t found the right formula for success for the
talented team there.”


HB Studios Halifax



Founded in 2007. Best known for NBA Baller Beats. Nova
Scotia’s HB Studio has been knocking out sports games since its
founding in 2000, beginning with a cricket game, but eventually
encompassing work on franchises like Madden, Tiger Woods, NBA Live and
FIFA. During a period of expansion five years ago it opened a satellite
studio in Halifax which worked on NBA Baller Beats, released in 2012. The Kinect game requires players to bounce a basketball in rhythm to music, and reviewed pretty well. But when the lease came up on the offices, HB decided to refocus its energies on its main HQ.


Paragon



Founded in 2007. Best known for City of Heroes. When
Korean publisher NCsoft, the wildly successful company behind Lineage,
decided to expand into the United States and Europe about a decade ago,
it signed up an MMO called City of Heroes from
Cryptic Studios, followed by an expansion City of Villains. NCsoft
bought the franchises in 2007, transferring the developers from the
offices in Los Gatos to nearby Mountain View and calling the team NCsoft
NorCal. The studio eventually took on the name Paragon. Although City
of Heroes / Villains enjoyed a long run and devoted fans, turning
free-to-play in 2011, it closed down this year, along with Paragon, with
the loss of about 80 jobs, according to Gamasutra.


Bright Light



Founded in 2008. Best known for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In
late 2011 EA announced it would be considering the future of one of its
UK-based development subsidiaries Bright Light. The firm explained (in
that inimitable way of corporations) that this would “help centralize
development on future projects, reduce development costs and allow for
better knowledge and talent sharing within the organization". The
developer had employed over a hundred people, but in January, it emerged
(following a Develop investigation)
that the studio had been closed down, with some staff re-allocated
around EA’s studios. Bright Light had been formed in 2008 during an EA
re-org initiated by chief-exec John Riccitiello. It worked on some
casual games as well as three Harry Potter titles, none of which were
particularly good.


Dark Energy Digital



Founded in 2008. Best known for Hydrophobia. If
you don’t follow business too closely, you may find the story of Dark
Energy Digital confusing. A UK company called Blade was founded in the
late 1990s, servicing its local market with games about snooker. In 2008
the company management launched, with the same development technology
and management, a new outfit, Dark Energy Digital, which eventually
released Hydrophobia in 2010, to middling reviews. Reports began to
surface at the beginning of the year of financial troubles and staff
going months without wages. In February Gamesindustry reported that
Dark Energy Digital had indeed entered administration, but was being
replaced by a new entity called Dark Energy Publishing, headed up by the
same people. We don’t know if the staff got their wages.


4mm Games



Founded in 2008. Best known for Def Jam Rapstar. When
some Rockstar guys got together with a few Def Jam creatives at the
tail end of the music-game boom, they began work on a hip-hop game
called Def Jam Rapstar. Originally envisioned as a Wii title, its
ambitions expanded to other platforms and to a large online / DLC
campaign. Reviews were okay,
sales were sluggish. In any case, by the time the game came out, the
company had burned through a lot of cash. And then EMI showed up with a
lawsuit, claiming its copyrights had been violated. So, when finally
there was nothing left, the guys could only shake their heads and look back at what went wrong.


Hogrocket



Founded in 2011. Best known for Tiny Invaders. Studios
don’t always have to be large commercial enterprises, owned by
multinational mega-corporations. In the age of the indie, the can appear
as one-project entities, collaborations between friends. One such was
Hogrocket, made up of former Bizarre Creations employees. The team released an iOS game called Tiny Invaders described by Edge
as “not perfect, but it definitely brings a smile to your face.” After
only a year together, the team folded. Co-founder Peter Collier
explained the situation to Gamesindustry,
“The three of us have all moved onto new things. This was due to a
combination of factors, ranging from geographical to financial. It's sad
but the three of us all learned a lot."

Researching this article using IGN's news archive, we also found many
other sites extremely useful, most especially the following - Gamasutra, MCV, Develop, Neogaf, Gamesindustry, VG247, Giant Bomb.