Empire acquisition gets closer

More names are associated with possible Empire buyout. SCi is emerging as the most likely candidate. Grabbing dominant market share by buying out competition is the oldest trick in the CEO book of “Ways to make money”. Let’s hope that further game industry consolidation in U.K. will eventually lead into continuous game industry evolution and not just inefficient monopoly stagnation.

One more thing, it really pisses me off to read about how SCi managed to turn around the faltering Eidos. Eidos had good product slate and they just needed money to monetize their titles - SCi brought money to the mix and magical potion was ready to be served for investors.

Game industry integration

The other day I was minding my own business and shuffling through the pages of local newspaper. I haven’t been paying attention on games market for a while, as my day job has become an activity that incorporates most of my time. Anyway, it stroke me... game publishing is really a very centralized industry. On one page there were tens of different games on display but they were divided between four different publishers. What is the meaning of this? Just that those big players have the contacts and financial means to promote their games for thousands and thousands of curious eyes.

This is of course something I have known for a long time, but only just now it HIT me. I suppose that time outside game industry has done some good for me. Now I understand outsiders’ point of view much better. Only games related information that one gets from mainstream media are paid advertises that are stuffed between economy and sports pages.