Epic's Mike Gamble blames studio closures on 'stupid acquisitions'

Companies see a market take off, and grow bigger each year, they get hungry, use their financial power to buy several studios, ruin it into the ground, close studio, blame studio for stupid decisions, act like they had no fault in it.

Happens over and over again. The only thing that changes are the two kinds of companies involved.

Man does have a point , worse part you think they would have kept the studio going after that flop that was fail Disney.

I agree. But then again, some studios just kept pouring money into crappy games that weren't anything special unfortunately.

RIP Popcap

Is it corporate idiocy? Yes.

But in the case of Disney/Black Rock, that's a bit somewhat similar to saying it doesn't make sense for Disney to start a reasonably violent, PG-13 franchise out of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. And yet...

Disney was horrible for getting rid of all the Dev's they did.
Especially after getting rid of Propaganda games along with any hope of a turok sequel (Which they own the rights to).

I know for some Turok wasn't that great, but honestly it wasn't that bad.
It's the best dinosaur game of this gen (Though their isn't much competition). Had they given propaganda another shot I bet Turok 2 would have been great. But instead they cancelled it, then rushed them on Tron. Then the game they really were putting time into Pirates: Armada of the Damned, they just cancel.

Disney is just all around horrible to dev's. I hope no one bother's going under their wing after how poorly they treat devs. Now i'll be waiting a few years until disney decides to sell the rights or make another turok game.

Dammit why are dinosaur games so few and far between.

Cue The Scorpions Winds of Change

This is part of the constant cycle; an inevitable part of the confluence of art and commerce. After cashing in and discovering the true costs, they retreat to focus once again on quality. Its a healthy thing and this usually means we're entering the really creative and interesting part of the generation.

The perspective about developers basically 'respawning' new companies is rather interesting. I'm hoping the best for these startups. It seems like every studio / dev is now owned by some other huge company (E.A. / Activision) and quite often it appears that this huge company has no clue what to actually do with the studio and as a result the studio often bleeds to death losing only a few employees at first and then as time goes on all of them. Often times the polices and goals of the huge parent company just don't seem to connect on any level. We have seen the influence of EA on BioWare, the DA:O has been under development for some like 8 years and that resulted in a pretty good game, DA2 however was a result of an EA release schedule and from the result we can see that the two are just not compatible. I really do believe that more companies need to be independent and not just automatically join up with the big guys like what we're seeing with Respawn Entertainment. It is through this kind of acquisitions that we have lost some very great studios that have brought us countless great games. That said I am interested in seeing what will come out of these startups created by these laid off devs, who knows maybe as a result we will see another Valve or Blizzard or BioWare (post EA purchase).

My 2¢s.

"What was the point of a well-known children's IP holder buying a hardcore racing studio?," asked Gamble. "It doesn't make sense."

It's called branching out and finding a new audience. That's why Disney created it's Touchstone movie brand in the 1980's, to capture a new demographic (adults and teens). Touchstone was a very popular brand in the 1980's and 1990's, with films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Pretty Woman, etc.

"People are not looking to create companies where they're going to buy Ferraris. They're looking to create companies where they're having a great time and making nice money, but really doing the cool stuff."

Says the guy who's business is infamous for its employees' devotion to Italian supercars.

From the New Yorker:

'At a stoplight, Bleszinski exchanged waves with the driver of an adjacent red Ferrari—another Epic employee. When we hit a hundred miles per hour on a highway entrance ramp, Bleszinski announced, “Never got one ticket!” On the highway, he slowed to seventy-five. “One of my jobs in life,” Bleszinski said, cutting over to an exit, “is to make this look a little cooler.” By “this,” he meant his job.'

I just really wish BlackRock would've been scooped up by either the TWISTED METAL crew or even Criterion for another BURNOUT.

so sad that blackrock studio had to close down,i really hoped for split/second 2,or any other from game from them,split/second was awesome.

No clearly the blame lies in used games. This is what the giant publishers are telling us, so it must be true.