crisis or consolidation?
 

mucky foot, another high profile UK games company has collapsed and closed its doors on Thursday. Despite the low sales of Startopia and Urban Chaos the closure was unexpected, the company had only recently expanded and set up a second studio, had released the profitable Blade 2 for activision and were under contract to produce a bulletproof monk game for empire interactive. Because of the critical praise and high profile from their past games they were an attractive option for getting contracts from publishers, the only reason Startopia failed was the complete lack of promotion from eidos.

there are rumours of the muck foot staff setting up a new studio in argentina and they are apparently being head hunted by lionhead studios...

over the last year we've lost:

Lost Toys (Moho, Battle Engine Aquilla)
Kaboom (Rollcage, Dogs Of War, Conflict Desert Storm)
Runecraft (mucho licenced stuff)
Crawfish (GBA stuff like SFA3 & Ecks Vs Sever)
Hotgen (Rally Championship PSX, Eggomania)
IG (Fifa 2002/2003, Sim Isle, Pro 18 Golf)
Red Lemon (Roswell Conspiracies)
Rage (Striker, Rocky, GTC Africa, War Of The Worlds)
Computer Artworks (Evolva, The Thing)
Mucky Foot (Urban Chaos, Startopia, Blade 2)
Microprose UK (Grand Prix series)
Particle Systems (PC stuff)

But is this the slow collapse of an industry that blossomed in the 80's with the spectrum, a death and rebirth cycle, or the games industry growing up - weeding out and consolidation?

I think its a bit of all of that, a lot of the companies which closed did so for obvious reasons.. like poor management (companies from the 80's that started as bedroom operations are mostly headed by unqualified creative types), over-expansion or going for short rather than long term decisions...

Companies are taking big risks to adanvace to another level and for some its working. SCi, Criterion, Babel, Climax, Evolution, Travellers Tales, Eurocom and Empire being cases of this..

I don't think the recent outflux of company's in the game's industry is foreshadowing its doom. I just think the game's industry is perhaps turning into a monopoly of sorts, where very few people are actually capable of creating a successful game. Given that, very few people will end up making them. :o

I guess we'll never see Urban Chaos 2, which is a shame because I really liked the first one.

How come they couldn't close down a place like Eidos, who no one likes anymore.

Aw, man this sucks... Mucky foot was a really cool company, a really cool one.

Urban Chaos was pretty much GTA3 but with more structure & plot, with morals, with a brilliant lead character, in 1999 and out on three formats.

So what did eidos do. Sit on it and let the game flop :( while GTA3 goes on to sell millions two years later :/

I think how the market is now there are too many companies competing for too many contracts, developers are less stable and unless they are hugely successful cannot ride out problems. But then if companies are closing left right and centre during the peak of the console cycle gawd knows what will happen in the next transitional period :(

Mmm... subsidy...

Jesus Christ! "Ten years ago games cost about $200,000 to produce, but now they cost between $3m and $7m." :eek:

"With powerful video game publishers veering towards safe bets of games with an American look, perhaps, for the sake of diversity, a little state intervention is not such a bad idea."
I totally agree, and I so hate that the world seems to become "Americani$ed" in each and every aspect. What the heck is going on? :frown:

America is essentially the biggest single market.

heh... *nods* I even sound American though I've never even been to the place. That's the effect of US tv and cinema for you... :rolleyes:

I liked Urban Chaos a lot, so it's sad to see Mucky Foot go. Yes, it was kind of sloppily designed (It had it's share of bugs, sadly) but it was still a very good game. The fact that you could hop into a car and do things similar to the open-endedness in GTA3 (Except for the big and seamless levels) was rather unbelievable. And Urban Chaos even allowed you to climb up on buildings, just like in GTA3. The plot wasn't all that great (Oh no, the end of the world?!) but the mission-based structure was fine. I only ever tried a demo of Startopia, and didn't like it all that much.

Weren't Mucky Foot working on something when they closed? I can't seem to remember what it was.

They were working on Bulletproof Monk for Empire Interactive, and also had at least two other un-announced original products in production.