34
Bandai Namco to shut down Reflector Entertainment (www.gematsu.com)
submitted 1 day ago by to c/games@lemmy.world
10 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

😞

all 10 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 11 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Could it ever plausibly be made illegal to buy a company and then liquidate them within a given period of time? Eg, the company goes up for government auction rather than the parent retaining the assets. I definitely feel trade law needs improvements, just picturing if anything works here.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 11 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    Bandai Namco bought this studio in 2020. It's been over 6 years. In that time period (and, in fact, the entire history of this studio), Reflector produced one (1) game. Which was a pretty terrible flop.

    I get it. I hate to see stuff like Microsoft buying up a ton of studios and then shutting them down, even after they make successful games like Hi-Fi Rush. In cases like that it definitely seems like the bug corporation is more interested in eliminating potential competition than actually creating new products. But sometimes a studio is just actually bad and needs to be liquidated.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 2 points 15 hours ago

    I might argue that 6 years isn’t a tremendous amount of time for a company. Given those failures, it could be that it’s still better for the publisher to stop paying the studio’s losses, but still let anything left go to general auction. Yes, a poor break for the company, but that would be the loss accrued from a bad buyout.

    That would mean that buyout/slash isn’t a viable method to gain someone’s patents, or kill competition.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    There is a law that regulates how you can sell your stake in a company if you have a large quantity. So people could not just get up one morning and sell all of their shares, which would crash the company. That concept is similar and probably related to outright shutting down a subsidiary like large corporations have been doing in the gaming industry.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 1 point 12 hours ago

    You're talking about public trading on the stock market. That is not how mergers sns acquisitions work. Private equity firms buy and sell companies regularly. Sometimes there is oversight for things like anti-trust compliance.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • [–] 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Acquire them just to liquidate them.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 1 day ago

    Bandai Namco bought this studio back in 2020, back when their first game was announced but unreleased. That game eventually released in 2024 and did terribly. It looks like they had 2 years to try to find something else productive to do ans failed to do so.

    It really looks to me like Bandai Namco bought this studio hoping that game would be good and turn itnk a decent long-term franchise, and it just didn't work out.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • [–] 3 points 1 day ago

    The irony of releasing a game called Unknown 9, and then have it flop because it was unknown and did not sell even 9 copies.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
    •
    [–] 1 point 1 day ago

    I guess the lesson learned from all of this is that if you want to keep making games, don't fucking sell your studio.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
    •