SEGA Strengthens its Strategy Portfolio with Acquisition of Amplitude Studios

[ffronw]

SEGA Strengthens its Strategy Portfolio with Acquisition of Amplitude Studios

//cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/library/deriv/1334/1334180.jpgThe developer of the Endless series of strategy games is now a part of SEGA.

Amplitude Studios is well-known among PC gamers as the developer of the Endless series of turn-based strategy games. Today, SEGA Europe announced that it has acquired Amplitude Studios, and that it plans to use the developer to expand SEGA's PC strategy portfolio.

The news means that SEGA will publish Endless Space 2, and will take over previous titles in the series: Endless Space, Endless Legend, and Dungeon of the Endless. Speaking of the acquisition, Amplitude co-founder Mathieu Girard said, "Joining the SEGA family represents the culmination of five years of hard work from myself and Romain and everyone here at Amplitude Studios. For the Endless series to be alongside PC franchises with such heritage as Total War and Dawn of War in the SEGA Europe stable puts our games where we feel they deserve to be. We look forward to leveraging SEGA Europe's expertise in the PC market to take the Endless series to the next level."

The most interesting thing about this acquisition is that it places SEGA in the position of having what is arguably the best strategy game portfolio in the industry. Creative Assembly (Total War series) was acquired by SEGA in 2005, and Relic Entertainment (Dawn of War and Company of Heroes series) came over after the THQ bankruptcy in 2013. Amplitude is indeed joining some well-regarded teammates.

There's no word yet on what this will mean for Endless Space 2, but it's probably a safe bet that we won't be seeing the planned Steam Early Access release that was slated for later this year. There's probably a good chance we'll see and hear more about the game at GamesCom in August.


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[GrumpyPirate]

One company to ruin them all...

 

[Coach Morrison]

I really like Endless Legend, please don't fuck it up SEGA

 

[Mikeybb]

Well, sega didn't manage to ruin Total Warhammer so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt here.

What I hope is that Amplitude doesn't abandon the Games2Gether system.
While I recognize at its most deconstructed it was little more than a voting system for minor elements of the game development (skewed in favor of those who had invested the most time and/or cash into the game already), I still liked that element of influence it brought and genuinely appreciated the dialogues which it inspired on the forums during the development of Endless Space.
Especially when you consider the developer participation that sometimes happened.
The importance of what you were asked to vote over was usually very minor indeed.

More often than not it was as little as voting for which art style for, say, a vessel type was the most appealing, but occasionally it was used by the developers to see what the interested playerbase would select to prioritize in a list of features.
Not to say that this information trumped developer instinct and capabilities, but that it certainly informed them about what the player base viewed as features of importance.

I found myself thinking that the system they used struck a good balance between customer participation and developer experience, hence as I said above, I hope it's here to stay.

 

[Synigma]

After the boring re-tread that was Civ5 the Endless games have been the best strategy series around. The fact that they all take place in the 'same' procedural generated universe adds something to what are each great games on their own.

So I'm torn by this news... on one hand hopefully this means they will be in a position to make an even better game. Then again on the other hand, as Kickstarter has shown us, more money doesn't always mean a better game. Plus it's more hands in the cookie jar...

don't fuck it up SEGA

 

[Czann]

As long as they don't hire Gearbox to steal their money... I mean, make their games.

 

[tacotrainwreck]

I'm not sure If I'm more put off by Amplitude selling themselves to Sega or all of those horrible things that large video game companies always do when they buy off someone smaller but fantastic.

 

[Kahani]

So I'm torn by this news... on one hand hopefully this means they will be in a position to make an even better game. Then again on the other hand, as Kickstarter has shown us, more money doesn't always mean a better game. Plus it's more hands in the cookie jar...

The thing about those Kickstarter examples is that they generally have problems not because they got lots of money, but because they got more than they'd planned for and ended up having to greatly expand scope in order to justify it. That inevitably results in significant delays since money means you can do more but not necessarily do it faster, and often results in feature creep and mismanagement from people who weren't prepared to deal with it. As much as people love to complain about big companies, avoiding problems like that is the entire reason publishers exist in the first place - they guarantee a fixed budget for a fixed amount of work, and can force people who might not be the best managers to actually stick to what they're supposed to be doing, while also having the possibility of bailing them out if something unexpected happens. Of course, more money still doesn't guarantee a good game, but the issues with publisher-backed games are generally very different from Kickstarted ones, and usually the result of those extra hands in the jar rather than the money itself.

 

[GrumpyPirate]

Well, sega didn't manage to ruin Total Warhammer so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt here.

Lets just say theres pretty drasticaly varying attitudes there. Total war has little to do with what made it great, nowadays its pretty much dumbed down and streamlined to oblivion. Some people may like it but its sure as hell not Total War anymore, it actualy kinda feels like a cheap ripoff with pwetty graphics of a real total war game :/

 

[Mikeybb]

Well, sega didn't manage to ruin Total Warhammer so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt here.

Lets just say theres pretty drasticaly varying attitudes there. Total war has little to do with what made it great, nowadays its pretty much dumbed down and streamlined to oblivion. Some people may like it but its sure as hell not Total War anymore, it actualy kinda feels like a cheap ripoff with pwetty graphics of a real total war game :/

I'd certainly agree that there has been an element of dumbing down and streamlining for Total Warhammer.
That said, it does capture the feel of Warhammer very nicely and, compared to some previous titles, has had a very stable release.
Total Warhammer was always going to have a degree of compromise with the setting that otherwise Creative Assembly would have had no pressure to adhere towards.

Personally I hope it's enough of a success that it gives CA the confidence to branch outside of the historical events and environments they've tapped for settings thusfar and then let their imaginations loose.
Without a license attached to a fantastical setting, they would be able to make any decision they wished with the title.

 

[xitel]

Well, sega didn't manage to ruin Total Warhammer so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt here.

Maybe not, but they sure did fuck up CoH2.

 

[GrumpyPirate]

Well thats the thing, these compromises have no point whatsoever beyond "we want more money". Its pretty simple realy, if its a sword and bow era game, if it lacks something Medieval 2 has it needs to have a damn good reason seeing as that game is over 10 years old now. In the end the result you will get is "we want more money" and the product suffers incredibly because of it. I mean come on they released a WARHAMMER game without blood just so they can sell it as a overpriced DLC, not to mention the fact that theres a mesly 4 playable races. And any explanation like "we wouldnt make a profit otherwise" or "its because of age rating" is pure bullshit. First of if the base game is ready creating new races is something even single modders can do, for a company with a full staff and the team who created the game its a teeny tiny part of the whole amount of work needed. And the age rating thing is the dumbest thing ive heard in a long time, first of a WARHAMMER game should be rated high, its bloody WARHAMMER setting. Secondonly if they are so horribly worried you make a parental trigger in options with a password option and set it as ON per default, problem solved.

 

[kekkres]

they released a warhammer game without blood so that it could fetch a T rating. Just a small correction.

 

[GrumpyPirate]

they released a warhammer game without blood so that it could fetch a T rating. Just a small correction.

Read what i wrote, i targeted exactly that.