GAME OVER FOR 2022
Cast your mind back to the start of the year, when Richie Shoemaker was still finding his MCV feet, Vince Pavey didn’t have any, and the only cost crisis on the horizon was what Microsoft was prepared to shell out for Activision
JANUARY
FEBRUARY Not a great month for game companies clamouring
2021 was a record period for game industry mergers and acquisitions, with
GI.biz reporting at the start of the year that $85 billion had been splurged on the likes of Gearbox by Embracer ($1.38 billion) and on Sumo by Tencent ($1.27 billion) - three times the total amount changing hands the previous year. At this realisation, clearly someone had a “hold my beer” moment at the Take-Two Christmas party, with the announcement in January that the company had $12.7 billion to blow on Zynga, the creator of FarmVille, which when approved would be the biggest games industry buyout of all time. Just a few days later, before Take-Two could buff up the horn it blows every quarter to toot out the latest GTA V revenue figures, Microsoft honked out its intention to buy Activision Blizzard for more than $68 billion. The moral of the story: never ask Phil Spencer to hold your beer.
to get on board the chuffing NFT hype train that was soon to run out of track. The latest: Team17, which had just announced a series of Worms NFTs, hoping that by claiming that they were environmentally friendlier than those that aren’t, it might deflect attention away from the fact they were still trying to flog NFTs. Understandably, gamers were unimpressed, especially when it came to light that the staff and Team17’s development partners were apparently given no warning of the announcement. Open revolt ensued and the whole sorry idea was dropped after just 48 hours, which, to Team17’s credit, was far quicker than it took Troy Baker, GSC GameWorld, Ubisoft and a host of others to see the error of their ways.
December 2022 MCV/DEVELOP | 51
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