November 8th, 2008

Arkane Studios News

Arkane Studios is one of those indie developers who found protection and support from a big one of the gaming industry, and now found themselves kicked out. This wasn't something made on purpose, but simply because of the current economic climate. If you recall it well, a few days ago we were talking about THQ's emergency plan, but they weren't the only one dropping personnel and projects - EA also did this, and Arkane Studios is one of their victims.

Fortunately, there's life after the fall, or at least that's what CEO and creative director Raphael Colantonio thinks - "We're moving on. We do have some reserves, some cash that allows us to wait for a while, to find deals and reassign staff. But the right deals - that's really important, to keep the vision of what our objective is as a company, and what our identity is.

The context right now - the climate, everybody is looking at making sure they'll be profitable, or at least get through the crisis, and we're just one of them. We want to make sure things go fine with us."

Currently, Arkane Studios employs 45 people, and if the name sounds new to you, maybe Dark Messiah of Might & Magic or Arx Fatalis will ring a bell. The bright side of being pushed aside by EA is that more time for other projects is now available, according to the same source - "The positive side is that we have the capacity to work on other projects now. To some degree, although it sounds like a bit of a paradox, all these publishers cutting things right now - I think it will eventually benefit the independent developers," but I only have one question here - what about the marketing power of EA?

After all, that's the best part of working with a big company - you're a small studio, you work for someone big, and you get a lot of media exposure, but once you're out from that relashionship, things can get really rough. Well, this time, it remains to be seen, but I can only wish the best to the French team from Arkane.