Company
Screenplay has a new blog entry on the uncertain future for Melbourne developer, Atari Melbourne House. Jason Hill summarises the long history of Australia's oldest game development studio, going through its golden years during the 8-bit era, the aquisition by French publisher Infogrames (now known as Atari), and the quality work it has been putting out since.
However, with the well publicised financial troubles of Atari, and news of the recent offloadings of Atari owned Reflection Studios and their famed Driver I.P, it seems Melbourne House could very well be on the chopping block soon...
Atari is battling hard to remain solvent, last week selling the Reflections studio and its Driver franchise, one of Atari's most successful properties, to rival publisher Ubisoft. Atari has been searching for a buyer for development studio Melbourne House for at least six months after defaulting on loan payments and having its line of credit withdrawn. Atari's net losses in the last financial year were US$69 million.
Unfortunatley, this was easily predictable when the Infogrames takeover first happened. Infogrames was already struggling to produce quality and timely products ("Outcast", was their 'hot, property at the time, three years late and awful controls and storyline, not to mention the outdated look of the voxel engine). Then they decide its a good idea to gobble up as many developers as possible to become as big as they could as quickly as they could. There was never any way that they could manage that expansion. Add to that their arrogance, and the rest is academic.
Melbourne House have made a reputation for making racing sims., with no commitment to diversification (Transformers is an exception, but too late), which has killed them.
BTW, morale has been low there for years, not just recently.
I currently work at Melbourne House, and I wouldnt say morale is low at all. Our new project is coming along well and looks damn good.
It is true however, that things are a bit up in the air in regards to what will happen at the end of the project.
Things are being done by management to alleviate this, though, so with a bit of luck, Melbourne Housr will be around for a while longer yet.
The lack of diversity, unfortunetly, has nothing to do with Melbourne House - the projects they have worked on have been dictated by the parent companies.
Transformers was an example of Melbourne House being given free reign to design a game and look how good that turned out.
Transformers had the problem of being too stuck on the ground all the time, you wish you could get up and fly around. The game definately wasn't bad though and had nice graphics for a PS2 application. I know some of the guys involved with the programming of transformers, all very smart guys.
"Outcast, was their 'hot, property at the time, three years late and awful controls and storyline, not to mention the outdated look of the voxel engine"
Wow - thats almost the funniest thing Ive ever read here on Sumea, in soooo many ways.
It should be interesting to see who buys Melbourne House, personally I think it might be EA who will buy them as they could use MH for doing there current gen ports of NFS and Nascar titles, with EA Canada working on the next gen versions. I can't see THQ buying them as they already have a studio in melbourne, midway won't as they already crashed and burned with ratbag. Activision might , but MH don't have a history with them. Any other ideas of companies you think that could buy MH?
As a AMH employee, and I think I talk for many of them. It's not a matter of being bought or not. It's a mater of keeping together a core on people who have worked together for years to make games. Whether that's a group more to another company or independant funding on a title, it doesn't really matter. In fact a buy out is probably the worst scenario, no chance to lose the dead wood :) That said, a group move would have to not be to a company that past dead wood had jumped to when they thought the ship was sinking.
"Dead wood" eh, you wouldn't happen to be management would you.
Nope, that's where the highest percentage of dead wood is :)
So basically , if things are not going swell with a suitable buyer/or next project then MH core guys will start their own thing working on a game for a new publisher. I could see it's possible they could get a contract with a new publisher to work on a game helping fund there new studio etc.. but I really doubt that Atari/Infogrames would just let this happen? sure the core people of MH want to stay together but Atari wants to sell MH and make something from all the money they have invested into it? they need the money to fund there other ventures? although MH is probably only worth 10 million, If I were an MH employee I would expect a buyout.
I'll bid $1.
What is the value of a studio with past-gen technology, no IP of their own, and a dwindling staff base?
$10 mil, wow, more than they paid for is, profit. Past gen tech? Better get that game off the PS3 dev kits and onto the PS4, didn't even realise it was out. Last I saw the numbers were ramping up in preperation to the next project... odd, better count again, maybe the new guys were some sort of illusion.
hehe - 10 million from who? Trip Hawkins .. maybe.. :) With no original IP and very little original _useful_ tech, there isnt alot to sell. But you see thats why fee-for-service contracts are so very useful. And how they always help improve the companies value...
Maybe they could use some of the $50 million Infogrammes / Atari promised the region late in 2001. It was to be managed by AMH so should still be knocking about somewhere.
Thought it went "missing"
How many people work at MH currently?
About 50.
Decent size then...anyone know anyone who works there? What are their current options given the instability?
Krome will buy them when their next govment hand out shows up.
No they'd probably just spend it all on money hats and tacos.
Mmmmm. Taco hats!
I gots to get me a Taco Hat!
Tacos rule
Money hats!? Now that's what I call a Taco!