As many of you read in the news our publisher Gearbox got acquired by the Embracer Group. I am Creative Director at Stratosphere Games on our project Homeworld Mobile we develop for Gearbox, so this might have an effect on our game, right?
Usually when your publisher gets acquired it might a large impact on your game. Actually shit can hit the fan if that happens.
Why?
Suddenly new stake holders enter the game. There might be conflicting interests or views. There might be change in resources as divisions of your publisher gets replaced or consolidated. There might be different accounting and delay your invoices. The worst case is a new producer is assigned and has a very different view on what your project should be.
Many things can happen and usually it delays a project.
If you ever are in a situation like this start to manage this as soon as possible. Don't wait until your publisher or the new owner makes the move. You might be way down on their priority list and feel the consequences but don't get the attention to solve your problems.
So, push and make sure the changes won't effect your product. Make contingency plans, communicate.
In our case we are lucky. Embracer isn't reorganizing their acquisitions. They want to foster synergies among their companies but they don't force it on you. Read some interesting views from Randy Pitchford here for his insight about the acquisition.
So from our standpoint as Stratosphere Games not much changed. With time we get access to Embracers network of companies to look for synergies to make Homeworld Mobile even better. The most important thing for us is that our mobile game became more important in the portfolio, if you have seen the investor presentation video you see it prominent in their slides (11m 33s in). This is good right?
Oh, did you know you can sign up for our closed tests of Homeworld Mobile here? Please do so and give us feedback!
