Starker on 10/9/2016 at 10:55
Interplay (that is, the husk that remains of it) is holding a big garage sale for its games, so you can look forward to the next free to play Earthworm Jim Mobile:
Quote:
(
https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2016/09/07/870242/10165014/en/Interplay-Announces-Sale-of-Significant-IP-Portfolio-Wedbush-Securities-as-Strategic-Advisor.html) https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2016/09/07/870242/10165014/en/Interplay-Announces-Sale-of-Significant-IP-Portfolio-Wedbush-Securities-as-Strategic-Advisor.html
"Interplay has entertained millions of players with its well-recognized games, including Earthworm Jim, Freespace, Giants, Kingpin, Messiah, MDK, Run Like Hell, Sacrifice, Battlechess, Clayfighter, Dark Alliance, and Descent. As game creators, we are proud of the entertainment these properties have provided over the years. With the proliferation of mobile, augmented reality, virtual reality and other new forms of consumption, we believe that consumers are ready to experience and interact with Interplay's characters, stories and game play in ways never possible before. We look forward to seeing how this unique portfolio of interactive entertainment icons will evolve for the worldwide audience," states Eric Caen, President of Interplay.
...or maybe Night Dive has enough money left to grab a couple of those and license them out to someone who actually gives a damn.
DarkForge on 10/9/2016 at 14:01
Somebody please let me know when Freespace 3 finally gets made...
ZylonBane on 10/9/2016 at 17:20
"DIVE! DIVE! DIVE! ONLY 10 GEMS TO HIT YOUR BURNERS PILOT! BEST DEAL!"
Pyrian on 10/9/2016 at 18:44
I've heard that Interplay is trying to sell the whole thing to a single buyer, and wants to avoid having to sell them off piecemeal. Seems... Unfortunate, really.
Starker on 10/9/2016 at 18:56
Damn, you just know someone like EA is going to pick up the whole pack and sit on it forever.
Tony_Tarantula on 10/9/2016 at 22:27
Quote Posted by Starker
Damn, you just know someone like EA is going to pick up the whole pack and sit on it forever.
Only benefit to sitting on it forever is that it prevents a competitor from being able to use those licenses for themselves. Don't expect them to buy these licenses with the intent of sitting on them. Most exec-types are unwilling to sign off on something like that unless they get a forecast showing that a purchase is expected to have a net positive NPV. It doesn't always actually happen that they realize this profit because a lot of these large, bureacratic observations suffer from a massive "yes man" effect where all the finance, market, etc. people involved are tweaking their assumptions trying to paint the rosy picture their bosses want to hear. Once execs realize that actually developing and selling these games would cost a lot more than they were told the projects get scrapped.
Interestingly enough a lot of the more successful companies know this and have adapted. For example some of Target corp's finance people have told me that when they are estimating the returns of a decision that the managers will artificially discount their returns in order to cancel out the "yes man" effect and get more realistic operational forecasts.
Quote Posted by Pyrian
I've heard that Interplay is
trying to sell the whole thing to a single buyer, and wants to avoid having to sell them off piecemeal. Seems... Unfortunate, really.
Can't blame them though. It's a bit counterintuitive since consumer markets don't work this way but they're worth a lot more as a bundle due to a concept called "synergies", meaning that for business purposes owning multiple related or even unrelated assets realizes benefits to both. One of the more cynical examples would be that if...let's say a regular and a mobile gaming company merge. The "Synergy" would be that you can fire all of your now extra customer support people....so each unit now costs individually less to operate.
It's a little bit more wooly with IP but there's quite a bit of benefit to snapping up multiple IP's with a single transaction, not the least of which is that you only have to pay the fees associated with one deal.
EvaUnit02 on 10/9/2016 at 23:44
THQ Nordic would be a great house for all of these IPs. They actually do shit with their acquired properties rather than just sitting on them.
Starker on 11/9/2016 at 04:27
I think it's pretty likely that a company like EA would do an Earthworm Jim Mobile game and not much else with the whole package. I think that a lot of the games on the list are way too niche, complicated and/or "weird" for them. I just can't imagine a big publisher releasing something like Toonstruck or Redneck Rampage or Giants Citizen Kabuto or Sacrifice (eww... an RTS) these days. And the sad part is that there are developers ready and willing to give it a go: (
http://www.first-wonder.com/)
THQ Nordic would be a good scenario, though. If they are willing to do something like Spellforce, they'll publish anything on the above list.
Slasher on 11/9/2016 at 06:37
EA presents Freespace 3 free-to-play! First 10 missiles free, additional missiles cost 10¢ per missile. Afterburners available with purchase of Basic Ship Functions DLC.
Fafhrd on 13/9/2016 at 05:26
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
Don't expect them to buy these licenses with the intent of sitting on them. Most exec-types are unwilling to sign off on something like that unless they get a forecast showing that a purchase is expected to have a net positive NPV.
Tell that to Patrice Desilets. Or Stephen Chow, or Zhang Yimou, or Park Chan-Wook.
Companies buy shit purely to do fuck all with it all the fucking time.
Ubisoft bought THQ Montreal and 1666: Amsterdam entirely so they could put it on hold and fire Patrice Desilets. (seriously. As part of the bidding process potential bidders were given access to design docs, and 1666's design doc was
shit. There was no reason to spend money on it. And it's not like Ubisoft needed THQ Montreal's fucking QA office.)
THQ bought the Homeworld IP and then proceeded to do nothing with it until they went bankrupt (coincidentally they bought the IP right around the same time as Alex Garden's non-compete ended and he was re-entering the games industry. Doesn't take a genius to figure out they bought it because they were afraid he was going to buy it and use the promise of making another Homeworld game to tempt the remaining talent at Relic into jumping ship).
The Weinsteins are
notorious for buying the rights to well regarded Asian films and then not releasing them.
You really need to stop pretending you know what you're talking about when it comes to, well, anything, really.
