Quote:
Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn
I can quote you one example which we will follow: SEGA's acquisition of Sports Interactive in 2006. Back then many Football Manager fans worried that the world was going to end. Guess what, it did not, and FM is in better shape and has more fans than ever before.
|
This leads to the first major question I had. I knew someone would eventually buy you out, but I thought it would be a company I knew.
Com2uS? Why didn't you pursue a deal with a company like Sega, who has done this sort of thing successfully before, is a hugely known brand, and likely has deep enough pockets to meet your demands? There are a number of companies on this level. So why Com2uS - an obscure Korean company with what seems like a poor reputation, no experience with this type of game, and probably little experience with the US market?
Also do you know why aren't they here answering questions, or getting involved on the forum? If I had paid a significant sum of money to acquire a video game franchise which had a very well-established community, the first thing I'd do is go to their hangout, introduce myself, and give some thoughts on what my intentions were for the game's direction.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn
The same thing will happen here. Our team stays intact, we get help when we need it, and otherwise we will continue to do our thing. So any fear about OOTP turning into some sort of microtransactions monster is completely unnecessary. OOTP & PT are already very profitable, there is no need to change the winning formula. The only goal is to get it into the hands of more people, and Com2uS will help us to achieve this for OOTP and OOTP Go and FHM and all future products.
|
So what is changing? Assuming everyone on your team is staying and on the Com2uS payroll, is Com2uS going to be bankrolling this and making the final decisions on what gets into the game? Are they going to make all the decisions regarding pricing and DLC/transactions? Are they deciding what licenses to get with what organizations? Are they determining what the release date is and how much time you're going to spend on bug fixes?
It must be one or more of these things. They surely haven't spent all this money to have no say in what you do, when you do it, and who your coding team is and where they're located, right? What will be changing, and what will their input be into the game itself?
My thoughts are the same as many here, and for the same reasons - that the franchise is done in all but name. I upgraded from 19 to 21 today even though I wasn't happy with the recent game updates, because my thought is that 21 is going to be as good as it gets for an old school solo GM player and I'd better pick it up while I still can.
We could all be completely wrong - I would be happy if so, but I'm not optimistic.
I'll add that while I don't like the direction that OOTP has taken over the last 2-3 years as a player, I respect your business acumen. PT was released at the perfect time to take advantage of the void in PC baseball games and your aiming at casual players with the graphics updates was also well timed. Also OOTP will likely never be more valuable than it is now - you've done pretty much everything imaginable in a game of this type and so it is probably the perfect time to sell, too. I can't knock any of that. Most small devs would never have the smarts to make moves like this at such key times. I'd be hard pressed to find a tiny independent game developer who systematically grew their success like you have. Well played and good luck whatever happens.