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Game Developer's Top 20 Publishers, 2006
Year formed: 1990 Since its purchase by competitor SCi last year, Eidos seems to have kept its day-to-day operations largely independent from the parent company. But a slow release schedule and slightly lower average review scores have caused it to drop from the number 14 spot it held last year on the Top 20 list. As an upswing, Eidos’ Tomb Raider series has been revitalized by Crystal Dynamics-developed Tomb Raider: Legend. The game was met with multi-platinum sales and favorable critical reception. Additionally, the latest Hitman release, Blood Money, sold over a million copies as well. SCi predicts that the company will be catapulted back into profitability by this welcome success, in the black again for the first time since the merger with Eidos, which bodes well for both halves of the relationship. During restructuring under SCi, the original Tomb Raider series creator Core Design was sold to developer Rebellion, ending the years-long business relationship between Core and Eidos once and for all.
Year formed: 1982 Up from the number 20 spot and landing at number 17 this year comes San Francisco-based LucasArts. LucasArts only published six games during the year considered, but a high average review score and high revenues, fueled by smash hits Star Wars Battlefront II and Star Wars: Empire at War, have propelled the rather quiet publisher to its current ranking. The company also released Star Wars Galaxies: Trials of Obi-Wan, an expansion for its struggling massively multiplayer online game, only to dole out refunds to players who were distraught over sweeping (and widely unpopular) changes made to the game in an update released just after the expansion. But future prospects are bright. Partnerships with Day 1 and Free Radical for next-generation console development should bring more Mercenaries-style, non-Star Wars-dependent successes, and Traveller’s Tales has just finished a sequel to the hit Lego Star Wars.
Year formed: 1994 (as Disney Interactive) Also new to the Top 20 Publishers roster is Buena Vista Games, Disney’s game publishing division. The company enters at number 18 due the success of Kingdom Hearts II, which was published and developed in partnership with Japanese developer Square Enix and has sold more than one million copies. The publisher has beefed up its internal development since the release of the first Kingdom Hearts with the purchase of Salt Lake City-based Avalanche Software and the establishment of a Vancouver studio, Propaganda Games, which is staffed largely by former EA employees. Also successful for Buena Vista this year were games based on the Chronicles of Narnia movies. Buena Vista’s monetary foundation is admittedly rooted in a wide variety of games based on Disney-owned intellectual property, but the company has made some surprising moves this year toward original material and other licenses. In April, Buena Vista announced a deal to publish four games by Tetsuya Mizuguchi-headed studio Q Entertainment. Propaganda will be developing a new game based on the Turok license, taking the reins from previous license-holder Acclaim, and Japanese handheld developer Jupiter Corp. will be responsible for Spectrobes, an entirely new anime-styled RPG. |
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