A little business news for ya. Yesterday saw Square Enix moving in to buy out Taito in a potential 67 billion yen deal. According to news site Gamesindustry.biz, Taito stock rocketed in response to the proposed deal.
Two questions:
1) Will the new company be called Square Enix Taito? It sounds like some kind of crazy law firm. 2) Will we see any exciting IP crossovers? Perhaps Final Bubble Bobble Fantasy in which the balloon popping dinosaurs embark on a heroic quest to squeeze more life out of the Bust-A-Move franchise.
Meanwhile in America, media mega-giant Time Warner has invested $7.5m in mobile games publisher, Glu. As Variety points out:
"Media congloms, led by Murdoch's News Corp., have taken a renewed interest in the Internet and wireless entertainment recently. Warner Bros., Fox and CBS recently appointed high-level execs to oversee their wireless efforts."
Congloms? What an unpleasant abbreviation. Anyway, it doesn't take a genius to work out why the big media monsters are into mobile games. But just in case, here's a quick reminder...
Five reasons why giant media corporations love the mobile games industry 1. The potential audience of billions somewhat dwarfs the reach of the console or PC industries. 2. The quality of the games doesn't matter so much. Mobile downloads are often impulse purchases made by casual users who don't mind if a game produced to tie in with the latest Hollywood action blockbuster actually bears absolutely no resemblance to the source material and is in fact a Space Invaders/Pac-Man/Tetris/Mario Kart [delete where applicable] clone, coded into soporific 'life' by some sweatshop studio in Bombay. 3. Mobile games publishers are still relative small-fry and therefore easier to push around than the likes of EA or Activision. 4. Mobile games take around three to nine months to produce whereas a console or PC game will take 18 months (or maybe twelve if they're really taking the p**s. Which they often are, but that's another story). This means it's much easier to arrange the simultaneous release of a wireless game with a related movie. 5. Mobile games are cheap. An investment of $7.5m into EA would probably buy you a weekly newsletter, a car sticker and a VIP pass to the annual Christmas party.
