Former Nexon CEO Owen Mahoney believes he knows why Arc Raiders developer Embark has been so successful compared to other veteran-led studios: because the people in charge actually care about something other than money. And Mahoney would know – under Nexon he bought Embark Arc Raiders studio thanks to the promise of a real-time game.
I'm talking to Gaming businessMahoney was asked what separates a certified live-action hit like Arc Raiders from a huge bomb like PlayStation's Concord. Both games were created by studios led by developers with experience working on beloved IPs: Arc Raiders developer Embark is made up of former Battlefield developers, while the now-defunct Concord team was an all-star cast of former Banguirevival and Bioware developers – and yet, one game was an undeniable success, and the other became one of the biggest failures of the last few years.
“The examples you just gave were, 'We bought this company because they made some game five years ago, so they're good.' That’s not how it works at all,” Mahoney said.
Currently at Hasbro, Mahoney is a certified video game industry veteran, having served as EA's head of corporate development from 2000 to 2009 before joining Nexon as CFO in 2010. Mahoney uses Embark CEO Patrik Söderlund, whom he met while working at EA, as an example of a lead developer who followed his heart and found great success with Arc Raiders and before that The Finals.
“The industry gets it wrong sometimes,” Mahoney added. “They are so excited about the banking system. People start counting money. They talk about integrating phone and database systems and all that stuff. And all these things that really matter, where value is created, just get completely forgotten.”
If I understand correctly, Mahoney is simply saying that games are more likely to be successful if they are made by people who aren't just trying to please investors or use more established IP, and that companies buying up studios are more likely to get a return on their investment if they give developers the freedom to explore ideas that really interest them.
He singled out Embracer as a company that apparently failed to do so and faced serious consequences. Unfortunately, it appears that the brunt of these consequences has been borne by the thousands of individual developers who lost their jobs following Embracer's restructuring plan due to a failed $2 billion deal with Saudi Arabia's Savvy Games Group. But that's another story.
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