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Game Developer's Top 20 Publishers, 2006
Year formed: 1950 (Bandai); 1955 (Namco) This year we see the first results of the merger between Namco and the Japanese mega-conglomerate Bandai, which consolidated their U.S. operations in January. Unfortunately for both participants, sales of their major titles (including Soul Calibur III and Ridge Racer 6 domestically and Mobile Suit Gundam titles overseas) fell short of expectations for the year. The publisher admits to being too soft in taking advantage of handheld development for the surging DS platform. The resultant decreased release count and a marginal review score has kept the publishers’ combined efforts out of the top ten, but the company has managed to remain in its Namco-occupied position from last year. Licensed titles proved to be the biggest help for the company over the period, with its externally-developed Curious George games debuting in the U.S. market, and a new line of Tamagotchi games doing well in all territories. In addition, the publisher lost no time in taking advantage of the mobile market. In October 2005, Namco established a subsidiary mobile games division in the U.S. known as Namco Networks America.
Year formed: 2000 Blizzard’s online RPG World of WarCraft — still the most popular game in the world — was responsible this year for driving revenues reported by the French conglomerate’s games division. Now simply called Vivendi Games (dropping “Universal”), the publisher’s income increased significantly over last year’s records, thanks to World of WarCraft mainly, but also successes such as 50 Cent: Bulletproof and games based on the Ice Age 2 movie license. Seeking to capitalize on the wireless-game boom, parent company Vivendi established a mobile development division in Meudon, France. Vivendi Games added more talent to its studio list in January by snapping up Darkwatch developer and former internal Sammy developer High Moon Studios—and the Darkwatch franchise along with it. All has not been so well for other development efforts, though. Even after a developer switch and years of production, Blizzard’s StarCraft: Ghost was put on indefinite hold recently. The company stayed put on our ranking at number 12, with a reduced release schedule and lower average review scores hurting its overall score, while a higher producer rating raised them back up. Interestingly, Vivendi Games has chosen to revive the Sierra publishing brand for a number of its products, playing on the nostalgia of gamers for that venerated label, which had been dormant for two years. |
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