@Talleh: In response to your second paragraph, I was thinking when a merger occurs, of course, the company has many more employees which would benefit all especially since more development teams could be created with more money on hand and plus more games could be developed at the same time, and hopefully, as we all do, will result in more quality games.

MrMister

It depends on the terms of the mergers/takeovers.

If all that changes is the administration and legal status of the companies (i.e. the two are now one, or one is now owned by the other), then perhaps it isn't such a bad thing.
But if it compromises the creative talent (i.e. the development studios), then it's probably not such a good thing.

EA has been known for sucking the life out of several studios they've acquired. Not all, of course. Maxis seems to still be kicking around original ideas, huh?

Namco and Bandai's merger doesn't seem to have changed much, really. Hell, both the original Namco and Bandai logos are still used. The only major difference I see now is there's a Tamagotchi character in Namco/Nintendo's Mario Kart: Arcade GP2.

So, it really depends on a case-by-case situation. And the question for every situation is, "Will this affect the quality of their games?"

BPMΣ

@PapaBear434:

I miss the Giraffe too. it's just so cold without him. I demand Kotaku bring him back and add red eyes to him.

i_am_ben

Larger mergers of say, major studios on the level of Take Two and EA doesn't bode well. Just look at the Sierra/ActiBlizzion thing. Ghostbusters might not be able to be released because they got bought up, and the game wasn't deemed worthy of having their name on it.

In general, it isn't so bad. When talented people work together in larger groups towards a greater goal, the end result could be greater, or less if the teams don't mesh, or are conflicting in their ways of doing things.

One thing I think that should happen more often is the consolidation of smaller developers, small garage programmers coming together to pool their creative and unique brand of new and fresh to make something that has the polish of a larger studio and the indie dev scene feel that all the rest of their games have. If Johnathan Blow and the developer of Fez worked together on a game, who knows what they could make?

On the other end of the spectrum, when we get the massive corporation mergers, this usually means the larger has absorbed the smaller for one reason or another. While this might benefit the larger, it could harm the smaller and the industry as a whole. If say MS bought up Valve, so they can milk the HL series, how awesome would that be? A yearly HL release, sounds great...except that it probably wouldn't have near the quality as the true Valve games.

Just look at Guitar Hero, how many people are REALLY looking forward to buying the same game with new tracks even more often? And why? Because Actiblizzion knows that they can get away with it and still solely make near 1/3 the entire industry's income alone.

Either way, we can't really do much about the mergers. All we can do is analyze, predict and hope that we aren't all buying every game released from one of the last two publishers left, because if either bought up the other, they'd own 100% of the market.

Talleh

im into murders and executions..

sluzzuls

double edged sword for smaller companies. indie means hard earned freedom. mergers and acquisitions means money but pleasing the man.
but two large companies merging, i dont think that really makes any changes in what the consumer sees.
square enix for example didnt make much of a difference. another one i watched closely was discreet acquiring alias. there havent been any changes there either.

sluzzuls

@GunSavior:

Yes it will be hella nice when the game industry can become like the tv or movie industry where it doesn't matter what brand of game system you have. Then maybe game developers wouldn't have to result to mergers and could get more value for their dollars

bird1988

@AlphaUltima: Anti-Guitar Hero comment?

I think the best merger so far is Blizzard and Activision... I hope Square-Enix gets Tecmo and Koei, that way *hopefully* Squeenix's high standards for their games rub off on them.

MrMister

I personally think that Square Soft had a significant decrease in the quality of their games after their merger. Square Soft and Enix were both great companies back in the day.

colonelschvatz

I'm sure that you could ask twelve different people in twelve different occupations this very question and get twelve different answers. Not too helpful when you might want to use thier information to come to a conclusion of your own.

I think that mergers and takeovers being positive or negative should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. For example (and these are my opinions), Namco Bandai makes plenty of fun games, whereas it really seems that Enix has brought Squaresoft down. Since their merger, they've only made a few big name games: XII wasn't that good, I couldn't bring myself to finish it; I didn't play any of FFXI, so I won't say anything about it; they haven't made a Kingdom Hearts game (until the recently announced one for TGS(; and I can't even really think of anything else. I still just don't like "Square-Enix". I want my SMRPG making Squaresoft back. :(

vid3oman64

If it keeps the company going of course it is good for the industry. It is a great deal more difficult to survive in this industry. Square Enix and Namco Bandai haven't changed much at all. If Tecmo-Koei happens maybhe Dynasty warriors will become considerably more epic in regards to the crazy awesome attacks you should be able to do to destroy squads upon squads of epic phail AI.

When news first broke about the takeover I chuckled at the though proposed that gaiden 3 would feature sephiroth. I don't know about this merger with Koei and how much it will assist tecmo. If it happens it happens if it works it works and that is all well and good. If it screws up both companies I wonder if Square Enix will come in and offer the same deal.

Blazinfire0

Mergers in game companies don't seem too bad. It's when they split that really pisses in everyone's breakfast. I'm mostly referring to Harmonix/Activision. I don't keep up too much with this kind of thing, so please correct me if I'm wrong about them splitting or something.

ArgentAngel

It depends. The big name ones that eliminate direct competitors tend to be bad (EA and Take Two), but only because they take away one motivation for hard work and excellence.

But many mergers are between indirect competitors or non-competitors (Activision+Blizzard), and are either neutral or even good. For example if it's necessary for the company's survival, it's better than both companies going out of business. Or if it's a big publisher picking up a great company and helping them promote their games (Rockstar and Take Two), it's also synergistic (Rockstar makes the good games, Take Two distributes them).

In general, it's only bad if it reduces competition without being necessary for survival or removing redundancy. But a lot of mergers do good by combining resources (innovation + marketing muscle). A lot of names wouldn't exist anymore if it weren't for M&A.

royaljester

@Nirolak:

Or most companies will leave consoles and develop games for PC or PC type system creating a universal platform.

bird1988

I don't like it. Games are becoming too expensive to produce and it's making the industry more exclusive to the "big boys." As someone going to school to get into the business of making games it makes me a little uneasy. I'm not fretting about it, the industry has its highs and it has its lows. But as I said, I don't like.

GunSavior

When two smaller companies like Tecmo and Koei merge its pretty neat, but when EA gobbles up every developer it can is a nasty thought to me.

fenderfuel08

Harmonix + MTV + EA = win
Activision + Neversoft + RedOctane = not as much win
Konami = SUE SUE SUE

AlphaUltima

Mergers kill competitions. No competition, no creativity, we - the gamers - are the real losers.

cong

@oneshot_: My sentiments exactly. Without mergers, a lot of smaller developers would have gone under and deprived us of their future games. But by the same token, big publishers like EA are a lot less willing to take risks with something new and unproven. Its a double edged sword, both have their good sides and bad sides.

BryanH

Honestly it is good in some cases... Square Enix being the biggy. Though the agressive takeovers that EA like EA's are at best minimal in affecting the developers. I think that big developers buying small ones end badly, though big developers buying ones that are struggling and seem to have lost their magic.. not so much.

We could look at EA and pour out a stream of bad (when was the last timesplitters btw) and look as Square Enix and do something else... though the Tecmo attempt seemed.. out of place.

SaanZ

It doesn't seem like it's going to change much. Yippee-skippy, some studios relocate, people are let go, people are hired on, some franchises get thrown about. Really won't change much on our end.

I was hoping for Squeenexmo. Just cause it's so fun to say.

Krackatoa

It's simply the natural progression of of any industry maturing. Vehicles, Beer, electronics. Name any large industry and you'll see during it's budding years small shops were the norm. As the market grew and industry matured a period of consolidation occurred. This is a natural event and shows the health and future prosperity of our beloved industry. Unfortunately some of the unique quirks which make this form of entertainment so bright will flicker out, drowned in the billions now flowing through the sector's veins. But at least it's game makers eating other game makers. And not goof ball movie/music studios diving in, dick in hand to make a mess of OUR generation's defining form of entertainment.

LanciePants

I think it might actually turn out quite well, just because come next generation, the cost of making games is going to go even higher since the standards will continue to skyrocket, and only really large corporations will likely be able to fund talented developers to make these games.

Nirolak

You can't really say its bad or good. Since obviously everything has its pros and cons. I mean the company gets more resources to their games, and what not, but at the same time they eliminate their competition, so potentially the games become half-assed.

oneshot_

I like the merges where the big company mainly just pays for everything, but the little company doesn't change a bit.

They keep producing games the way they want, and the big company gets money. Sucess.

ItsSuperEffective

Probably not. More companies mean more ideas. But on the other hand, smaller companies have trouble getting their big ideas off the ground. We just need more publishers who are willing to help out the little guys, I think.

EmeraldDragon

Mergers are only good if 1) the mergers seems like it was bound to happen 2) It would benefit the consumer, NOT JUST THE STOCK HOLDERS or 3) Would result in a smaller studio getting a financial boost it needs, as long as there is no corporate interference.

MrMister

I hope everyone merges! Then splits again! That would be great!

You Are My Friend!

I miss the giraffe... Just not the same without him.

Personally, I hate it. Big companies tend to produce crap, because they can't afford risks on interesting games and would rather take the safe, secure money making route. Sucks the soul out of the creative process.

PapaBear434

I'm too angry by the absence of the giraffe to even think about what's being asked.

Murgatron

In the US, at least. Maybe it's different over in Japan. How about it, Bash? What's the word on your end of the Pacific?

WittyUserName

I don't really know what to think. I mean, the Square+Enix and Namco+Bandai mergers really didn't change anything, did they?

WittyUserName

but look at the NEW EA...the lovable, Rock Banding, Dead Spacing, Mirror's Edging, Valve Supporting, Id Courting...EA. If they continue to run their City-state model. is that so bad, Activision on the other hand...seems like it's going in the wrong direction as mergers go

HeyMykie

They are flat out bad.

The more giant conglomerations, the less variety we're going to see in types of games.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves.

GrandfatherParadox

For the concerned companies, these mergers and takeovers can be a good thing. It provides a measure of financial security in a financially hostile environment. The drawbacks are lack of variety and competition in the marketplace and an increase in the combined company's risk aversion. Take Square-Enix, for example. That company's creative output has severely dwindled since the merger. While I can't speak for Enix as I have never been a big fan of their games, I have noticed that the Square of old, the Square that brought us Vagrant Story, The Bouncer, Einhander, Brave Fencer Musashi, Bushido Blade, Dew Prism, Xenogears, Kingdom Hearts, and Parasite Eve has lately been developing fewer and fewer original IPs and has instead been relying on churning out one Final Fantasy spin-off after another. There are original IPs from Square-Enix post-merger -most notably The World Ends With You, Sigma Harmonics, The Last Remnant, Infinite Undiscovery, and Radiata Stories- but with the exception of the last one, those titles have been on low-volume (360 in Japan) or low-risk (DS, by virtue of its install base) platforms.

Conversely, EA and its subsidiaries have been coming out with original titles post-takeover. Pandemic is working on Saboteur, as well as several unnamed projects. BioWare is developing a Sonic RPG (!), and Dragon Age. DICE is working on Mirror's Edge, and EA Redwood Shores is producing Dead Space. Those are four named, original projects coming from a developer/publisher which is usually maligned for its continued reliance on sequels and yearly updates. There is also Criterion which is continually developing and offering for free updates to Burnout Paradise.

Strictly going by the two examples I've provide, it may seem that mergers and takeovers are handled differently on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. It might very well be, but I simply do not know enough to make such a judgment.

What it comes down to, it seems, is that mergers and takeovers can be bad or good. It just depends on the companies involved and how willing those companies are to take risks in a market which increasingly punishes newcomers.

Altersparck

It is good and bad. When a talented smaller company gets bought by a benevolent larger company that mainly just sits back and funds the smaller company it can be a good thing. But I really don't like the idea of games going the same way as TV, radio, and film where there are basically just a few huge companies making the same crap over and over and a few smaller independent companies struggling to survive. That is one reason I am glad that 2K keeps turning down EA's offers.

Namco/Bandai and Square/Enix both seem to have worked out well though and the Tecmo/Koei one could be good as well.

RykinPoe

Competition is always nearly a necessity in a market. Without it, we'd be stuck with one narrow view of how games are made and how they look. Right now, we have a pretty large diversity; Capcom, Square, Konami, Ubisoft, Valve, EA, Activision, all the third parties out there are required to keep the industry moving.

NeonLight

Game mergers are BAD, m'kay...who wants another EA or Activision greenlighting Call of Duty: Rock Band Edition Volume 5. Smaller companies tend to promote original ideas, while large companies espouse new twists on old ideas. Both can and should exist, but without the former the latter becomes a suffocating weed in the idyllic garden that is video games.

mrryu

no not at all, we need individuality

chaos_isnt_here

More competition is always good. It fuels growth and keeps the consumers happy. However, there are benefits to having everything flying under one banner, including flexibility and funding. It's a trade-off, and we must not forget that video games are themselves in competition with other forms of entertainment.

psychobaka

It would depend on the company and the terms of the merger I suppose.

Ajh

I still wish Sony and Microsoft would make their next console a joint effort. A snowball's chance in hell, but I'd sure appreciate it.

Wolfers

I believe that the mergers are a bad thing. The more the companies merge, the fewer people you have in charge of a now much larger company. This can create bias about certain game ideas being given the OK and which games are allowed bigger budgets and more attention. When you have numerous individual companies focusing on their own concepts, I believe it just works better for the industry as a whole.

Kado

It's one of the many reasons I want to quit playing games. Squarenix, Blizzard Activision, Namco Bandai, Tecmo Koei, what's next? Nintega? Capnomi? What the fuck?

mascot1063

I have no issue with two good developers merging for financial reasons. Sometimes its the only option for the old houses. I do however take issue with EA and to a lesser extent Microsoft buying up good companies for the intellectual properties and then killing the production house. I will however say this, if EA ruins Bioware like I think they might, I will never buy another game even remotely connected to EA.

option-g

Look at what happened with Mass Effect. The nimrods at Fox News were on rant about sex in the game, even had an "expert" on who did not play the game.

Then, EA sends their lawyers down to put Fox News in check and stop all the bad mouthing. A company the size of EA has lots of lawyers that they can just send down with stuff like this happens.

Criterion, BioWare, and Pandemic have all benefited from being under the EA umbrella. If we look at most other industries, the majority of the products are produced by a small few. The music industry has only 4 major distributors. Or it might be 5 now, but it is a small number. The American auto industry only has 3 producers of cars, who have several different brands. The movie industry has a few giant companies who own most of the studios that develop movies.

In all of those examples, you will get great products, and bad products. But there is a lot of power to be had from that same scenario.

I like the idea.

TheAngryHeretic

I think it is indeed a double-edged sword. As manylof you have mentioned, EA is no longer the "evil empire." They have several innovative and creative-looking titles that I'm eager to play (Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, etc.). Also, I love Namco as a company, so I'm glad they merged with Bandai if only because it means they can continue to exist in today's highly competitive market.

That said, the Square-Enix merger completely killed both those companies in my eyes. To go from the era of PS1 classics like Xenogears and Parasite Eve to...Final Fantasy X-2, is just a freakin' tragedy.

With EA, they have big pockets, which they're finally starting to use to fund interesting projects that appeal to the 'hardcore' gaming crowd. Whereas I feel like that Square and Enix both found themselves in such vulnerable positions before their merger, that they felt they had to combine in order to survive and are now just clinging to profits and afraid to take any risks at all. It's a shame.

I placed a lot of hope in Monolith Soft as a developer after Square-Enix 'sold out,' but their output hasn't been extensive.

BelmontHeir

This is no easy question...
It depends.

Merges can save companies from ending, but it can also kill the diversity, specially when both companies have very unique styles.

But depending on how the merge happens, both companies can essencially remain the same, they can mix stuff up to produce good results, or kill each other trying to make generic stuff to please both sides, ending up pleasing none.

Bokusatsu_Tenshi

Of course, when 2 bad companies merge, you end up with crap because the cons outweigh the pros.

Ajey

I say it's a good thing. There's just way more pros than cons in this one. If anyone can offer any criticism to your work, it's an outside perspective. When 2 companies merge, they can tell each other what they feel/think are cons with how the other company runs things. This leaves only the pros behind, and that's what they bring to the table in the merger.

Ajey

Blizzavision was the best merger ever- now I get to see more crappy Crash Bandicoot and Spyro games! Thank goodness they got rid of good games like Ghostbusters, Prototype, and Brutal Legend! :D

Chillblain

@GrandfatherParadox:

If Blizzard hadn't ate Condor, the makers of Diablo we might not have had Diablo 2, Warcraft 3, WoW and more. Valve ate the developers of Counter-Strike, Portal and Day of Defeat. If Elevation Partners hadn't invested in and merged Pandemic and Bioware we might not have the upcoming Dragon Age or Bioware developed Star Wars MMO. One more example? Magic the Gathering. Had Hasbro not gobbled up Wizards of the Coast, Magic the Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons and more awesome fantasy IP would have likely died or been chopped off and sold. Just ask FASA how that scenario turns out. Corporations are the entities which brought you video games, television and damn near everything else. Mergers and acquisitions are a form of growth for these entities. They're not mustache twirling villains.

LanciePants

There are instances when a merger will enable a company to be more flexible and take more risks with their games - instead of just relying on what works.

antialias02

If a company is still making great games and have a good fanbase, they should be left alone, unless they themselves feel that a merger is really necessary.

DavidFU

Mergers help companies survive, but they also do away with new ideas in favor of the bigger IPs of both companies. Where's my new Ogre Battle game?

Dragon_Warrior

As so many people before me have said, a balance is necessary. If the companies are too small and too many, they'll come up with a bunch of brilliant ideas that will never see the light of day because they don't have the funding to act on them.

On the other hand, if the companies are too big and too few, while they have the funds necessary to make a game out of even their most brilliant ideas, the lack of competition and challenge will deprive them of brilliant ideas.

Everything in the news lately seems to be about big companies merging into bigger companies, which obviously means more money and resources. But to the best of my limited knowledge, these mergers have essentially left the smaller companies untouched, still free to brainstorm ideas. If it is indeed business as usual for the smaller companies, then these mergers can only be a good thing.

Paviel

Where's the damn Giraffe?

pisseddog

As always, it depends on exactly which companies. And exactly what kind of takeover we are talking about.

However, my general inclination is to say that too many takeovers and mergers are a bad thing. We are creating these megalithic companies, and soon there will not be any space for the innovation and genius of the independent developer.

Which is not to say that larger companies cannot innovate. But if the smaller developers are squeezed out of the equation, it would be a great loss for the industry.

soulmonarch

I think mergers can be a good thing myself, under one condition though. That there are smaller upcoming companies that are there to take the place of the void left by the merger.

Reason for this being, mergers usually allow the company being bought out(im including aquisitions in this too) to obtain a lot more resources to express thier creativity with. In doing such, we as a consumer should in theory see better made games for atleast a short time before the large corporate atmosphere fully absorbs the small developers.

Then you have the new smaller companies to create the new ideas and get bought up later repeating the cycle. Its kind of like fishing in a way, as long as you replentish the stock, there will always be food.

RuneX21

It is okay in some instances. Tecmo being eaten by Squeenix is fine, because it will help keep the company alive. EA gobbling up Take Two however, would be lame because it takes two industry giants and makes a supergiant.

I love Microsoft and Apple, respectively, but we only have two real options (yes I'm ignoring Linux, sorry) for consumer operating systems, and that's weak. The idea of capitalism is that if something is not being done in an industry, someone else can fill that hole. But when the only options are so powerful and the only money to be made in the industry is to be had working for them, you've stunted capitalism, and that is called a monopoly.

A few mergers won't turn this industry sour, but if it becomes a trend...eeeh...

TheHeartless

@MrMister: That's what can happen in the ideal situation. I think it was Daikatana, where they kept bringing in new people to replace the old. And since they didn't have enough experience with the software, the group of people, they floundered. Not to throw around corporate speak, but they need synergy between all groups in the merger, or it wont work as ideal as it should work. To use Valve again, from what I've seen inside their offices through interviews, videos and the like, they work totally different from most other game studios. If they were bought up by a group like Ubisoft somehow, where they give a game a hard and firm release date, and the game WILL be out by then, the Valve team might not take to it and put out games of the same quality versus from when they did things their way.

Of course we have no way of knowing exactly how a merger will affect the quality of anything till after it's released and the merger complete. I think that with mergers in general, like most things, all can change depending on the people involved, the conditions, and every little detail. It could go the way of the new EA, where they just support the developers and leave them be and work at their own pace, or the old Techmo, making their people work extra hours, no overtime and games that don't have as much polish and sheen if they were able to take their time.

Talleh

@Lixie:
Dragon warrior 3 is like the last dragon warrior I remember loving.

God, Orochi was a bitch. >.<

Terrorsaur.

I think they are bad. Example: Square-Enix.

Squaresoft and Enix used to fight with each other over who would dominate the RPG landscape. Both tried to win with quality AND quantity. We could look forward to major releases on almost a yearly basis. But since they merged I've noticed an awful lack of main series Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games. In fact, in the 5 years since the merger we have only 1 Dragon Quest game, and 1 Final Fantasy game.

Lixie

In a nutshell, it helps keep companies alive, but at the same time, it lowers the quality standard.

So I guess in essence you either have to sacrifice diversity or creativity, or find a balance of both.

I suppose if these companies start to realize that they should just fund the projects without fucking with the actual creators, they could make good quality games, and increase their damn payrolls.

Terrorsaur.

It's not a good sign in the industry when, to make a game for us to play, they have to keep merging with one-another while jacking up the price, as the length and difficulty of the games keep coming down, with the average movie-licensed game clocking in between 5-8 hours and being terrible to boot.

I feel like the industry has, sadly, passed its prime somewhere along the road, and I don't feel like we got much of anything to show for it. From here, it's going to get tighter, and quality will keep dropping as it takes fucking ridiculous amounts of time and staff to produce an 8 hour game, anymore.

But my assertion doesn't seem to include things World of Warcraft and Rock Band's success and nigh-endless gameplay for its price.

HT Tenrai

I think that it can be great, only if the right companies merge. Sometimes, it can be terrible though because it can remove the aspect of competition from a very competitive market, hence if EA bought Take-Two, the NHL 0's and the NHL 2K series wouldn't have to compete (Although personally, I think the 2K series is absolute garbage --- but not everyone shares my opinion, and some people prefer that series over EA's).

So it can be great, and it can be horrible.

udiie

Squeenix is an example of how removal of competition between rivals kills the motivation to push the envelope in development. Honestly, until just recently, how many new IPs have come about since the merger between Squaresoft and Enix? Of those new IPs, how many of them have actually been GOOD? Let's not forget that Kingdom Hearts actually came out BEFORE the merger; only the "Greatest Hits" version has the post-merger logo. They seem so infatuated with Final Fantasy remake after Final Fantasy remake and then Final Fantasy spinoffs. Couple that with the ruination of older IPs such as the "Mana" series. Mergers in and of themselves aren't inherently bad, as evidenced by that of Bandai Namco. It just seems that many traces of novelty disappear when competition is eliminated.

jmsalal

I actually wrote an essay dealing whether cooperation or competition is better for a particular market for my MCAT. for the example that cooperation might be better, I used the Video Game Crash of 83 as an example. In a small market, all those small companies should have branded together into a few bigger companies to make the market less fragmented and to improve quality.

Except, now, games are a huge market. We need small companies to fill small niches. Mergers are kind of bad right now since a large corporation that singlehandedly dominates a market would have no reason to improve (and the parallel I used in the essay was how having a better product led Steve Jobs to charge a premium, allowing PCs to dominate the market before the lack of competitive pressure let PC quality fall and Macs became a powerful competitor again). Take a look at Squeenix. Besides from the graphics, you cannot say with a straight face that Final Fantasy games have been steadily improving. That's because when it comes to the tasty JRPG market, everybody's a niche-filler compared to Final Fantasy.

Gunhaver

It's a terrible business practice. Most (if not all) original ideas come from creative indie developers. When they begin to play in the big leagues, their unique visions are oftentimes compromised for the sake of profit. Although publishers are usually the ones to blame (quality isn't always in their best interest), working with hundreds of co-workers is no easy feat.

YHWHMystic

Well, if EA bought Take-Two, then Mercs 3 could use the GTA:IV engine isntead of the buggy Mercs 2 engine.

Tyrannical

edit..games EA couldn't shit out on their best day

Batousi

Well this will only make sense to those in the U.S, but I'll compare the video game scene to the cell phone scene.

We had a bunch of individual cell companies, each with their own brand of shitty service and products, that slowly got eaten up by richer companies, in turn turning into bigger companies with the same shitty service and products. So...in theory, though in many ways, buying smaller companies and those in the RED as far as money goes can help, the individuality of the video game scene is slowly disappearing. I don't want EA having Take-Two because Take-Two provides me with games could shit out on their best day. I don't want Square Enix taking over Tecmo, I want Square Enix to get some original shit of their own and quit being a bunch of bitches stuck in the past. We are in age where we're all going to be broke by January, games still cost bookoo bucks to make, next gen systems don't live up to the hype, and all of our gotdamn video games are THE SAME EXACT VIDEO GAMES WE PLAYED 10 YEARS AGO, WHAT THE F..CK.

That's all I got.

Batousi

It depends entirely on who's taking who over. EA somehow consuming Konami and Ubisoft, for example, would totally suck.

Metal_Slug_Solid

Yeah I agree with the general consensus that merging does stifle the creative process for small time devs. This is why i think first party-games are the best bet. Usually they give a bit more freedom as a publisher rather than majority stockholder, but that brings into question exclusivity regarding Sony, MS, and Nintendo, which does seem to be dwindling a bit with perfect timing in light of all these huge merge deals so far.

mGS_FOXDIE

Mergers are great! I mean it worked for Sega with Sammy right?

SuperSplashBro

Mergers and Takeovers are a part of business. As a gamer, I don't particularly care what the companies do so long as it doesn't result in series being canceled unjustly, game quality being lowered, etc. In that case, it's hard to look at it favorably. Otherwise, its not really my concern what company my favorite developers are a part of.

Xenigma

Takeovers and Mergers, CAN, be a good thing if the two companies strengths augment each other.

For example, if you have one company that's well known for making great new properties that sell well even though they're cheaply made, and another company that has a ton of money and a few really old franchises but no real new properties, then a merger or take-over makes sense.

If however something along these lines is pursued for the sole purpose of a larger company getting their hands on a popular property, then its bad for all parties involved. Its very rare for a properties value to survive intact after it's been, "bought," useually developers will jump ship during such mergers, or the larger company doing the take over will throw out the old team and rush the property.

In short, these sorts of things are good when the two companies actually have traits and resources that augment each other, but fail and hurt everybody when they do not.

Course, even if companies have traits that augment each other it's no guarantee things will go smoothly. Square and Enix merging should have been good for both companies. However many key developers were not ready for the change in company culture or business tactics and left as a result.

So when it comes to gaming companies you probably need to consult your development teams as well and get their feelings on the matter.

WolvenOne

YAY! Giraffe is there, x3 :D. But not on front page :(

But fuck mergers, it's gonna be like the fucking apocolypse of games, that one world shit. Soon we will have no choice when it comes to games at all, one console, one genre (probably fps) and so on. Fuck that.

ViceOfFire

its the way of life. and tbh most mergers seem to be all talk anyhow Square - Tecmo and EA - Take two, i guess aslong as we get some good games outta of it all, but time will tell if any of the mergers are worth it.

And Sqaure aint worth less since they merger aye fair enough in the USA and Euro they might not be massive no more, but in japan they got games coming outta every door in the HQ building, and all they need is japan. Just Final fantasy sucks latly

crazy_jim

I think it sucks... EA sucks, Activision Blizzard sucks, and Squ'eenix has been worth much less since the merger... I was aghast to hear they'd tried to buy out more companies...

bobtheduck

I think... it rarely works. There are good times, but yeah, usually it sucks. Square Enix releases more titles now, but it seems like they've lost their artistic integrity and just want money now. They used to do what they wanted, and the hell with fanboys, but now we get Crisis Core? I mean, it's a good game, but it's a symbol of all that's wrong with the company. They just do whatever will make them money. They're not going to do any risky new IPs, like Xenogears was back in the day.

Now, Valve knows how to do mergers. Basically, don't. Valve just picks up small individual dev teams that show promise, and lets them in on its big happy family. THAT is how you do it. The bigger it is, the worse it turns out, it seems.

And Tecmo-Koei (or Toei or Kecmo or Teko or whatever they settle on)? That is a very dangerous combination. Tecmo pretty much lives off of Team Ninja, which is now crippled, and frankly, though tech wizards, never seemed very good at making games fun to me. On the other hand, you have Koei, who lives off of the unchanging formula that is Dynasty Warriors. DW Gundam was kinda interesting because it was new ground for them, and that is nice, but the company's roster is stagnant as all get out, even the fans say so. So I imagine that Koei could learn and benefit from Tecmo some, maybe get them moving again. Tecmo, though, they have nowhere to go but down with this deal. Koei has no new ideas to offer them. It's like using a piece of spagetti as a cane. They're just gonna fall again, and this time it's REALLY gonna hurt.

Dangeresque: I know Gundam is dirty but I love 00

Less individual companies means less competition, so I'm not crazy about them.

Bernard McGraw

Well its impossible to deny their inevitability. Considering that the cost of development has never been higher, the small to moderate sized companies are in a sense being saved. But of course that extra life comes at the expense of outside influence. We all know that the investor wants to see a significant return, and in most cases they will do whatever they feel is necessary to ensure that short of taking of the projects entirely.

I can't say that I'm in favor of it gamewise, as there's always a fear that the games are going to start to feel more similar than they already do, but there's nothing to stop new companies outside the wheelhouse from being created.

Frologic

I think they're actually a good thing for the industry, providing companies like EA, Ubisoft and Activision can get their act together and start producing good quality games consistently. The fact is that the days of the independent game studio are largely over. Games are just too expensive to make for small indie companies, but the financial muscle present in large corporations like EA can be a real boost to a game.

Case in point, Warhammer Online and Age of Conan. WAR was originially set to be released this time last year, and Mythic had budgeted around that. As launch approached, they realised that the game was simply not ready for release, but their finances were gone. EA stepped in, bought Mythic and funded another year of development and the general consensus amongst beta testers and preview weekenders, is that this game is really good, and even competition for WoW.

Age of Conan was also developed by an indie company, was originally set also for around this time last year, and Funcom also had to delay. Luckily they had the funding to continue. Then they released the game in May in a clearly unfinished state, so they must have run out of money. Instead of being bought up by a large company, developing the game more and having a successful launch with what was clearly a game with a lot of potential, funcom decided to launch and unfinished game that flopped pretty much instantly.

I have a lot more faith in EA now than I did a year ago, if just because they allowed Mythic to retain their name "Mythic Entertainment" and not "EA Mythic".

Anaralia

Mergers are a necessary evil in the corporate world. I'd love for every videogame company to be independent but that scenario would have to mean that each and everyone of them would have to be earning more than enough to survive.

Mergers are what most people think that stifle creativity in game studios. In some cases they're right. Though one can also argue that independent developers have a better chance at making a great game with the right funding,marketing,etc.

I think this is something that's continually going to happen as the budget for each game continues to rise. There's also the chance of the higher-ups of a certain company being bought out leaving it and forming a new one. Which is starting to become a trend as well.

I would like it if a merger happens but the creativity of a studio is kept intact and they're not forced to release a game just to pad the revenue for each fiscal year.

excaliburps

At this rate (at least in North America) the Gaming Industry will be the new Hollywood machine very soon.

zonizukaz

Whether mergers are bad for the "final product" I'm not so sure it's that bad a thing.

Many managers seem to think that mergers bring a lot of cost saving "synergies", which I don't believe - just look how it worked for AOL Time Warner or DaimlerChrysler... miserable fails.

When companies merge the people at the base (developers, graphic artists etc...) only have two options:

a) leave the company because something has changed (more or less voluntarily)

b) they need a lot of time to get acclimated to the new situation (new boss, new structures, new communication rules etc.etc.)

--

So mergers at least cost A LOT OF TIME in terms of people need time to find their new roles/functions in the new company.

On the other hand, if the structure is not changed, meaning that company x plus company y under the name of "xy" stay the same ("nothing" changes for the indiviual companies because they stay "independent") then a merger is a failure - why would you do a merger when nothing changes?

The only positive thing about the above described situation I can think of is that "2 companies share a better financial base", so if one company is out of money the other one can help out... but again, that's not making sense when you want a merger.

retronaut

Its about collecting all the eggs in one basket so you can carry them in one trip; You know where that leads though ;(

vincevl

I don't know, when it was just Square/Squaresoft before 2003 when the merger happened, they were my favorite company. I don't know if it was because they had less money so they felt more inclined to bust their balls all the time, but they used to pump out an awesome Final Fantasy game every two years.

FFVII-X came out in 1997, 99, 2000, and 2002. Since the merger we got much less beloved entries such as XI, X-2, and the headache that is the waiting game for XIII. Coincidence or intentional, todays SquareEnix isn't a company a lot of people truly love these days. That's just one merger, but when mergers happen, perhaps the extra revenue leads to complacency which never helps anyone. Just ask Sega about what happens when you rest on your laurels rather than your ambition.

TheRiver

I vote that all the takeovers are bad. Putting all the bread in one basket just beggs for the basket to be broken for grins.

lostinseganet

It can swing both ways, but generally it seems to turn out for the worst, at least in the short term.

Three examples: EA
They've been in the 'eating smaller companies' business for years and it's got them quite a reputation, and at first it wasn't really working, it just meant the EA brand was slapped on everything and with so many projects under one name not all of them got the funding and time they needed. However, EA seem to be learning from their experiences, and seem to be sated with money for the moment, so they appear to be taking a few more risks at making game-friendly decisions and making things fun, rather than doing it for the cash...

Activision Blizzard: This seemed like a good idea at the time - combine the publishers, get mutual benefits for all the developers under each, with some fun ideas thrown around at the start (remember the WoW/Guitar Hero april fool?) and the upshot being that Activision titles could get a cash cushion from the Blizzard juggernauts and Blizzard could take their pick of tech ideas from the Activision stables.
How it turned out was less ideal - Activision sell off all their new, exciting and innovative IPs from the Vivendi side like Ghostbusters and World in Conflict and concentrate on the cash-cow products like Crash and Spyro.

The best example: Valve
They know what they make makes money, so they have income, so they forget about that and concentrate on making what they make awesome. And that means when they see a dev team or mod author who does things the way they like, they buy it up and incorporate it into the Valve awesome factory!
Result: Portal, Counter-Strike Source, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, etc etc etc

NiceMissMayonnaise

Does anyone miss psyagnosis as much as i do? i must be the only one

Bone Structure

YES and NO

These mergers and takeovers have been occurring for quite a long time now and I was always totally against them. My worry was of a day when a single company controlled all third parties. Hind-sight makes those worries seem a bit unjustified and it would seem that such a scenario is still unlikely even now. Looking back, a lot of the mergers were necessary for industry to evolve because it would be crazy to think that the small development houses of the 2D and early 3D eras could create the stunning and complex 3D games of our time, the funding and raw man power was simply inadequate.

Sure we MIGHT still see single company that houses all "third party" products but I think that production values are almost at their peak. As real-time visuals are coming close to CG quality and the peak of visual quality is reached the price of development will level off and those companies left standing will thrive or die along with the entire industry.

But for a company like EA the damage was already done has my fears of them becoming the all powerful game company lead to my disdain of them. Maybe I'll get over that someday.

SAKY

Mergers, like nearly everything else in our world, aren't inherently evil. They're nearly always intended to be beneficial to all the parties involved, so I suppose I'm more pro- than I am against them. The upside of a quality merger-- a better collaborative environment, sharing more complete and cost-effective middleware solutions, better-funded marketing and research departments, a stronger brand name (and the ability to use that stronger brand name to sell more offbeat projects)... all of those are great effects caused by well-conceived deals.

But even the most well-meaning business deal can sour on the spot, and we see it often enough. One company consumes another and cuts staff. A huge publisher buys a smaller one to pillage a powerful IP or two and guts the rest of the company. Promising ideas get canceled, and innovative voices get silenced (here's looking at you, Sierra, though I'm not saying you were always innovative, or even innovative often). Evil can happen anywhere-- and sometimes it even makes good business sense. I'm fairly sure Satan wears a power suit every once in a while.

I think the large merger is fine-- not necessarily a good or bad artifact within the scope of the industry. Happily, technology seems to be providing those who truly value independence to pursue it with all their strength-- platforms like Greenhouse, Steam, and the console digital distribution systems all offer boutique minds the chance to make their works public without tapping a vein and signing over their lives to a big publisher. And sometimes the big publishers themselves recognise mergers aren't the best choice-- Electronic Arts have made a lot of headway recently with announced publishing partnerships with studios like Pandemic, Valve, and BioWare. Those studios now get help where they need it-- marketing and putting the product in the hands of consumers-- and freedom to do what they do best-- development.

So, do I think mergers are evil? Sometimes. But no more than anything else.

wild homes abides!

its both.

A bigger game company can pull off the multi-million dollar game that the little guys can't. The Doom3 era of gaming that we all come to expect. The kick ass graphics, the superb setting and Hollywood plot

But of course, big companies takes fewer risks. They don't want to strive for a 10million dollar innovation that could be the next Daikatana. So they stay what is safe and sells. They make there money and play one or two new innovative title a year in hopes it will turn to the next money maker series. NFL Head Coach anyone?

Is it good? Yes cause we get our big budget games, no because we have less risk. Less taking of chances. The little guys, the Braid, the Portals, the BGaE are considered some of the best titles of the year because they are so innovative. Meanwhile titles with twice the budget (Battlefield:Bad... Company) are everyday shooters that'll be lucky to be considered in the top 50 come end of year.

BUT....

Battlefield Bad Company will sell twice as much as Braid, because at the same time, gamers are just as scared as the publishers. This isn't the PSX era with games selling for 40 bucks. Games are 60-70 bucks as a rule, not an exception. Most gamers want the game they've enjoyed in the past. The same magic as Halo or Deus EX the first time they picked it up. They see sequels as the bigger, better editions of the game series they all know and love (The Final Fantasy effect really) A 60 dollar investment in hours of shitty experiences with a 'unique game' is a risk. A risk many gamers just don't take.

So game mergers and game take overs, they are needed for the big games gamers want. But there will always be a place for the little guy... Til he's bought up too.

huginn

I wish it was an awesome thing to do but as they merge more and more they loose their originality in games and start making crap.

oveja

I agree with some people here. I don't think all of they buying has hurt EA at all...in fact, it has actually made them better. I have never been so excited and interested in EA's products as I am now.

johnpnj

I agree with those of you who said "It depends", since it is kind of an unfair answer; when you examine the question "on it's face."

My PERSONAL opinion: If it helps create competition, and helps strengthen the core of progression within the industry; then I am all for it.

However, by that same token, I am not a fan of any company just creating mergers for the sake of devouring competition; especially if it does not help the industry in the end.

I would like to see the industry continue to evolve and become stronger, since I as a consumer want to see the bigger and better products as I get older. If a merger kills that aspect of the progresion of interactive entertainment, it inadvertently makes me less interested in buying those products, as I can become easily bored with the same old product, and ultimately will not justify paying a couple of hours salary buying a mediocre-at-best game/system.

Ultimately, that would cause a consumer like me to take their discretionary income elsewhere; and if one person thinks this way, you can be assured that there are others that think this way.

And that would be a bad precedence for the industry. Game companies NEED the competition to inspire itself to innovate. Less companies equal less competition, and less competition leads to less innovation, which will lead to less profit in the long-run.

And *that* is how I'd foresee the demise of the game industry in the future.

Soldier_CLE

According to the CFA Institute curriculum readings (as of 2005), only about 20% of mergers / acquisitions generate long-term economic benefit for the companies involved. My conclusion is that such corporate actions are not usually done for long-term benefit, but as a way of shoring up the companies' financial statements on a short-term (2-5 year) horizon.

The typical story behind a merger is that Company A has lots of cash but underperforming revenue, while Company B has strong revenue but not enough cash. So Company A buys Company B and suddenly the Balance Sheet and Income Statement look nicer and a bunch of "redundant" administrative people get laid off, reducing overhead. The reality that little has changed to alter the fundamentals, and both companies have undergone tremendous upheaval. In terms of games, it's hard to believe that quality of output will be improved if the long-term financial outlook doesn't improve, and it seems a fair bet that a lot of projects will suffer as a result of said upheaval even if the merger is successful in the long run.

So, in short, there are 4:1 odds this is unlikely to produce better games, and the odds are only that high if you assume that better financial health of the company will lead to better games (which is optimistic).

psychicfriend

@pisseddog:

You're right! Bash show us teh giraffe dammit!

xymor

I think the current state of the console industry is really bad for small devs, Nintendo kinda suffocates 3rd parties in their platforms and developing for Ps3 and 360 is really complicated and expensive.

To anwser the question, yes, it is bad, mainly because A great deal of innovation is done by small and indie devs but it's a scenario more and more likely due to current state of the gamming industry.

xymor

Takeovers are good for company owners. They are bad for company workers since takeovers often mean mass personnel replacement/ sacking, and they are bad for creativity since corporate clown sitting on top has no idea why people are loving the game so much, the important thing for him is that people are buying it, and his order is "ok, make more of this". Which means milking franchises, rushing projects, and so on...Overally very bad to customer.

Zorba

This really depends on the company and the situation. For example doing what EA did back in the 90's when they bought up a ton of studio's and then drove them into the ground that is bad. Also buying a company just to get rid of the competition that they offer is also bad and some think that's what EA was after when they were trying to acquire Take-Two.

However when a company isn't doing well financially and needs help a merger is a good thing. Tecmo-Koei makes sense. Tecmo games tend to do very well in the US but not in Japan and Koei games are the reverse so a merger between the two would balance each other out in theory.

It all depends on the situation really. A company buying other company's left and right is bad. company's trying to stay afloat by means of a merger is a good thing.

Reibooi

@sixonedoesitall:

Too bad none of the people getting rich actually care about video games.

BigWyrm

@Mayu-mayu:

It's making alot of people very rich...

sixonedoesitall

Globalization is bad. Period.

Mayu-mayu

:P Yes?

They are great.Comments prove it,don't it?

boy78

ALSO! As far as all this^ hurting the quality of the games themselves went; I do believe that our work as a whole suffered somewhat. Which means that it eventually affects the consumer as well. Something to think about, especially when it comes to large mergers (EA/Take-Two anyone?)

WalkOnWater

In theory they can be a good idea. In practice, this is rarely the case.
I used to work for a small/mid-sized games publisher a few years ago. (Yay QA!) I found that being a smaller company meant a more intimate working relationship between the various departments, which was beneficial for everyone involved. It was easier to communicate clearly and was generally pretty laid back.
However!
After a little while of working there, the company bought out a larger publisher. Instead of just taking over, continuing to use their current workforce and abolishing the larger company's (horrendous) work practices; they instead decided to merge the two companies and use the bigger one's name, offices etc.
Working for the 'new and improved' company, it didn't take long to realise that something was amiss. It was becoming more and more difficult to communicate with other departments, even in the same building. The larger workforce meant it was harder to acquire any kind of promotion within the company. We went from being a tightly run ship to not knowing what another person across the room was doing. We saw less and less of management and the company owners, and it completely lost the personal feel that was originally so great.
It wasn't long before morale dropped and people started leaving for greener pastures. Including myself eventually!

I may sound a little bitter, but I'm really not. I enjoyed my time there because the people were great. It was just a shame to see such a good atmosphere disappear because the higher ups thought more money would be made taking on a larger role.
Moral of the story/tldr: Big companies suck! :P

WalkOnWater

Bad. They start focusing solely on the bottom line, ignoring niche titles and whoring out the biggest titles, usually with mediocre results, like the pile of lousy FF7 spin-offs. There have been more half-assed projects with the name FF7 glued on in recent years than proper FF games, much less games not named Final Fantasy.

Illusion

@Mayu-mayu:

Globalization is bad...

...if you don't take the time to invest in it.

Personally, while the majority of Americans spent the time to talk about how bad Globalization is for America, I started loading up on Vanguard shares, and I will tell you now that because I didn't take the time to mope, I arguably (and effectively) shaved about a year or two off of my retirement goals.

Is Globalization bad? Maybe...

If you live paycheck to paycheck, and don't initially subscribe to the beliefs of "deferrred gratification"

Remember: Money Invested + Knowledge X Time = Compound Interest = Viable Income for Retirement.

At the same token: Excuses X Populist Rhetoric = Failure of progression.

"Adapt or Perish."

Soldier_CLE

EA is single handedly killing the gaming industy, they killed the espn 2k football franchise and it was cleary a better football game than madden was. they killed origin games, every company they touch dies.

drizzit

I think they're terrible at this point in the industry's life.

Smaller studios are being gobbled up quickly, and it's killing competition. Soon we could be seeing only 2 or 3 major developers/publishers.

A few years ago the mergers could be seen as "just business" since there were way more independent developers.

But now the likes of Bioware, Mythic, and Blizzard are being bought up or merging with EA, Activision, and TakeTwo.

cametall

Man, I hope that in the future, GHM does not get taken over

Japan_Time

@level250geek:

Competition is an illusion when there are really only 3 or 4 conglomerates with the resources to 'compete'. That's where the video game industry is now, which puts it in the company of most other major, mature businesses.

The only question is which upper management is the least incompetent. Blizzard was for sale 5 years ago for well under a billion dollars. Were any execs at EA, Microsoft, Sony, Viacom or Disney smart enough to buy then? Of course not. Now, that's less than one year's revenue. That's because most execs are too busy building and consolidating their personal empires and following their stock prices to actually try to create value. At most of these conglomerates, the only real competition is the VPs struggling to burrow their tongues into the BODs rectums more effectively than the other VPs.

JesusLooezus

The main danger of mergers and take-overs in any industry is that it eliminates competition, and when there is no competition there is no pressure to make a better product. The Zune is getting better and better (ever so slowly) because the iPod is so awesome; the PS3 is getting better because the X-Box 360 is so great. Companies want to make money, and they have to make a better product to do so.

However, if a small developer is bought out by a big one--and are still allowed a great deal of creative freedom--then the access to a bigger budget and a more diverse staff can be only a good thing for them.

So to answer the question, I say it depends. If a small developer is merged with or taken over by a bigger one that can provide them with more resources, and they are allowed their personal freedom, then I say great. However, competition drives the market, so I say merge all you want but avoid a monopoly.

level250geek

@SicariusIV:

Sierra has been an earnings drag on Vivendi/Havas for over a decade now. The fact that any aspect of it still exists at this point is fairly miraculous.

Maybe the only good thing about M&A escapades is that at least they encourage management to just put failing studios out of their misery.

JesusLooezus

Usually bad, as it kills creativity and niche titles when the larger company takes on a smaller one.

Lyner

As someone who works in the industry, a merger like Activision/Vivendi is pretty much universally bad. A lot of smaller projects (under the Sierra umbrella) became affected very negatively by this merger because Activision had the big end of the stick and didn't hesitate to use it to shake off some of the smaller projects that simply did not "fit in" their portfolio. Yes, they say Brutal Legend and Ghostbusters are fine, but what about all the other smaller projects that also got dropped and that no one has heard of since? My bet is that lots of people have lost their job or are about to lose their job because of Activision.

SicariusIV

It is impossible to generalize. A big multi-billion publisher swallowing a dev studio for 20 or 30 million is much different than two multi-billion publishers coming together.

In some cases, you get a sweet spot where the creativity of the smaller entity benefits from the bigger resources of the buyer. But, in almost every case, the identity of the bought studio is lost, and executives will just use the opportunity to cash out. In most cases, they are burnt out anyways - creating something someone wants to buy is usually a fairly exhausting affair.

From the perspective of the larger publishers, any kind of M&A activity is often a sleight-of-hand designed to temporarily inflate the value of options packages, create an opportunity to write new ones, and/or enrich buddies on the side. Generally, the shareholders and non-executive employees end up being the losers, the shareholders get diluted shares and overpriced assets, the lower employees get distracted management and new underwater stock options.

JesusLooezus

@PapaBear434: agreed same here these mergers EA i;m looking at you, produce mediaorce titles and frankly I have like 80 360 titles and for most of them I just have a gash left of why did I get that game.

This generation of gaming unlike the previous has a real sadness about it because so many of the games are terribly mediaocre and I don't mean to be harsh here but games like GOW halo 3 ratchet and clank super mario galazy.

I just want the thrill like I played on previous gen games like on crash bandicout when I was like I completed this game BUT I really enjoyed it.

Truth be told the only games that have made me have that same enjoyment was tomb raider legend and tomb raider anniversary ESPECIALLY

the only company I see improving with mergers is EA and they have some really nice looking titles like mirrors edge and dead space and a few others

holybarbie

Looking at it as a business standpoint, it can be both good and bad.

The good thing is that we can have huge blockbuster titles coming to us faster and are fantastic, long games. We can also have them picking up titles that usually wouldn't be released, since they have more money to throw around and more projects to do. It also allows the industry to sustain itself and not become like Acclaim.

The bad thing is that we can have mergers/buy outs where the companies get rid of things we wanted or the games change to the point of no longer being as good or just being terrible.

If the companies can keep games the same, then so be it. But don't go merging and then saying "Sorry, that game that was announced last week that everyone was so excited about? Yeah- canceled."

JGab

I don't think mergers make as much difference as breaking up talented creative teams within a company. Sometimes the two go hand in hand, sometimes they don't.

supercrap

It depends really doesn't it. However, with burgeoning production costs I suppose that mergers and takeovers are becoming more of a necessity than a luxury or something whimsical. It's the best way of getting a variety of products under one umbrella for development, marketing, et al. I suppose there's some cannibalising going on and the loss of identity to consider but with more consumer-savvy companies, they know not to do that. Or atleast they've cut down on such activities made "popular" by the EA of the late 90s/early 00s. Similarly, the networked nature of media exposure nowadays ensure that they keep on their toes. I suppose the market will soon turn into just a handful of single companies, a large proportion of merged development/production houses and a lot of indie developers being contracted or in some cases, absorbed.

Chupakun

Some mergers will be good, some won't be. It's the same for all cases, but I think it is good when big companies pick up some of the new independent devs. It's a necessary component of the business, as long as quality games keep being made and the companies don't try to abuse the acquired parties or consumers, I see no reason to stop or hinder these activities.

Ryodestined

Sometimes merges are good, sometimes are bad. It's a risk anyway. Business is business as usual.

Mike's Stalker

There isn't one style of leadership that is universally beneficial. Nintendo's focus on a singular individual (Miyamoto) is very different from Valve's sort of democratic developement process. So each business needs to be lead in the fashion best for that company's vision. For one thing, making 'good' games is only one business model. THQ is not exactly the producer of hits, but they certainly do well in terms of profits.
The problem with takeovers is getting two different companies to mesh their developement styles, their business models. A good takeover strives to give and take, to connect well with the new company. In short, a good takeover is like a good marriage. A bad takeover is when one party merely uses the other for personal gain. Example being, suppose Activision started making cheap games selling on the Warcraft name, dragging Blizzard's reputation through the mud. That hasn't happened, but that would be the takeover gone bad.
There's one other point. When a company seeks to be bought, often that means they're having trouble standing on their own feet. In those cases, care should be taken to improve those failings, and not be dragged down by them.
Mergers don't preclude competition. One can't buy up all the indie developers. You'll always be able to find good games; maybe not on the next gen console of your choice, but it's impossible and ludicrous that competition would cease. If mergers produce better games, they're good. If mergers produce profit they're good. Ideally, profit arises from good games; it doesn't always work like that. As long as there is a market for crappy games, some people will be content to make crappy games.

AllegraStreit

The merger of major publishers was something that was predicted prior to the arrival of the Xbox 360 and PS3. This was presumed to happen due to the rising production costs of triple A titles. So in that regard there isn't really anything unexpected occurring.

Addittionally, now that the downloadable game scene is growing I'd imagine that any creative yet disanfrachised victims of these mergers will still be able to find a productive place within the industry and they'll probably be happier there anyways.

BallPtPenTheif

Like all things in business, it just really depends. Mergers/acquisitions mean more capital for these video game companies, leading to larger budgets and development teams, which should lead to bigger, better games. Doesn't always work out, of course, since these larger budgets and development teams mean that the game has to make more money, which means that oftentimes larger companies have to aim for the lowest common denominator to maximize profits.

But also, it means that these large companies have the ability to take some financial risks. Doesn't mean they'll choose to, but they can. A small developer might try experimenting once, fail, and fold. A big company could try an experiment, and if it fails, then they've learned something. If it succeeds, then they'll probably be better able to exploit it than a smaller developer.

Those points have doubtless already been made, but people really need to keep those in the back of their minds before spewing out uninformed babble about how larger companies = bad for consumers.

So long as these large companies don't make up the entirety of the industry, and so long as one company doesn't have a completely overriding advantage in quality of titles, these businesses will be forced to make better products or succumb to consumer antipathy. Observe EA; their video games have long been seen as the golden standard for hastily produced crap, and now they've lost their top spot to Activision. So their lineup is changing incrementally to better, solidly produced games, so that people will buy EA products instead of COD 4 or Guitar Hero.

AvidAbey

I think mergers have the potential to be good thing, as long as they keep themselves from creating homogeneous games. One of the largest problems the industry faces is resisting the urge to copy other games success. Call of Duty 4 offered a new approach to FPS multiplayer. It did so well, other games and developers set about working similar systems into their own games. The result is a glut of titles with experience based reward systems, none of which is as good or as well thought out as the original.

As long as the companies in question are willing to mix things up a bit rather than keep to safe, tried and true design, the industry can certainly benefit from a merger. All I hope is that they aren't afraid to take risks with their games.

Lexicographer

I dont care for companies merging and buying each other out. It leads to lack of competition and stagnant franchises. Though some of the smaller studios benefit from having a larger company absorb them, it makes you wonder, whats keeping that larger company from simply hiring new people and creating a new studio? Obviously, theyre just interested in creating more sequels.

Altima NEO

All these mergers are just proof that gaming is becoming like Hollywood.

And no, that's not a good thing.

dowingba

Well, on the one hand, these mergers are probably a way for smaller companies like Atari to stay alive. On the other hand, companies like EA are trying to squash the life out of every other video game company.

Personally, I like that the idea of our favourite companies staying alive.

I just don't want it to get to the point where we're buying games from Nintegatarenixmobisoft....

PlayerX

It depends on the merger, sometimes its not bad, and other times its horrible. Remember when EA bought all those game companies (that made original games) a few years ago and changed them to only making sports titles? EA HAS improved, but how long will it last? As long as there is competition it is ok, however when you have just a couple of companies own EVERYTHING, there is no incentive for them to compete and we end up with mediocre games since we have nowhere else to go.

Azriel77

I think mergers, generally speaking are bad in the long term. Soon, the game industry will become akin to the recording industry. You have three companies that essentially own everything. There is no such thing as an indie label anymore (with a few VERY rare exceptions) they all still have to be distributed by majors. If all game publishers had to go through EA, or Acti-Blizzard, I think it would be tragic. It's also kind of like the outsourcing debate. Sure, outsourcing creates new ideas for big business, but it hurts the little guy in the short term.

ThisCharmingMan

I'm all for mergers as long as they keep the industry going strong.

Wubbytoes

Hostile Takeovers are almost never beneficial in creative industries; if the people don't want to work for a certain company with certain restrictions, then it hurts the products and the creativeness of the industry.
However, I have no problems with mergers in which everyone is satisfied with the result. I was pretty skeptical about the Activision Blizzard merger in that I though Blizzard might lose some of its power and product quality by combining with a public company, especially one so large. My fears were quelled, though, when we got the standard "it'll be ready when its done" Bizzard response to things like SCII and Diablo III. It seems like the Activision part is staying out of Blizzard's way, which is great.

Blah8

I find them to be beneficial.

Back in 98 when EA bought Maxis, at the time Will Wright worked as not only the CEO, but the CTO, and COO of Maxis!

Can you imagine, a creative mind like Will Wright pouring over budgets and finances?! EA let Will get back to making great games. He crapped out Sims 1 in record time and we all know the story from there.

Having a finanical giant in your pocket to help with the annoying things like distribution, marketing, etc leaves the creative types free to "create".

I feel sorry for the less creative types like the testers, and customer service, but really, there are great jobs outside of gaming.

Android8675

They are both necessar