Turbine Bought By Warner Brothers

Posted on April 20, 2010 by Scott Jennings| 23 Comments

Press Release

No word on how much the studio went for. (Edit: the Boston Globe quotes an unnamed source at pricing the deal at $160m.)

Presumably no impact to AC, DDO or LOTRO  for now, other then their continued operation. Turbine has been rumored to have had cash flow issues for a while now, something which DDO’s recent flirtation with sleazy lead generation did little to assuage.

The number of independently owned MMO development studios is now one less.

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  • VorpalK

    I hope nothing changes negatively for the Turbies. AC was my first MMO. I’m a lifer for LOTRO, and I’ve enjoyed what bits of DDO I’ve played.

    WB doesn’t SEEM to be as evil as say, EA or Ubisoft, but who knows.

    This could be very good, but as someone who has gone through several aquisitions in his careers, some of them can be very good, some of them can be VERY bad.

    If WB want’s to keep a quality aquisition, they will never introduce a “culture of fear where everyone is constantly worried about getting laid off.” If they’re stupid and do introduce that kind of culture, well… remember people can only be pushed so far.

  • Aufero

    WB is wholly owned by Time Warner, which is as amoral as any other huge conglomerate.

  • http://www.stormhammer.org Naladini

    /tinfoil hat : Time Warner will now increase latency to all MMO servers it does not own for cable customers

  • ToeJob

    Another sad step for those who need cash. I’d played DDO from launch but I was turned off by the total instancing. I have a free account for myself and my son but after playing sub it’s almost an insult, at least I can trade my son all my good stuff and move on to other games.

  • OrderedChaos

    I want Warner Brother cartoon character vanity pets.

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  • Tremayne

    I’m hoping this won’t impact Turbine’s operations too much. Warner Brothers is a big corporate, but theyre not a games company so they may be smart enough to let a games company they own make its own decisions (as long as they deliver the ROI). The problem with EA has always been that they ARE in the games business and so their execs ‘know’ how to run a games company, without appreciating that an MMO is rather different from a console games franchise …

  • Elovia

    What’s next? Lego Middle Earth?

  • Tinman_au

    For some reason, this saddens me a lot.

    Not because I think “WB is evil” or anything, but I always had a lot of respect for Turbine as “the little studio that could”….and now they’re just another cog in a “big content” machine :(

  • http://killtenrats.com Ravious

    @Tinman_au: Yeah… :( If they were having cash flow issues then WB might want to “fix” things… if they oust Steefel or something, I fear the darker path. If nothing much changes, then hopefully it will give Turbine more resources to straighten out their balance sheet.

  • mystery

    Tinman_au: “Not because I think “WB is evil” or anything, but I always had a lot of respect for Turbine as “the little studio that could”….and now they’re just another cog in a “big content” machine”

    You understand that this isn’t the first big company that is working with Turbine, right? Asheron’s Call was a Microsoft product, when it came out, and LOTRO and DDO were both developed under the umbrella of Vivendi.

    That has never stopped Turbine from being one of the most earnest development houses I’ve ever had the delight of meeting.

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  • http://www.arksark.org/blog/ Arkenor

    I would have thought that Turbine’s experience with Microsoft would have put them off this sort of thing. The devs have effectively just gained several more layers of management.

  • http://wowpanda.blogspot.com/ wowpanda

    The number of independently owned MMO development studios is now one less.

    Why such negativity? Turbine’s owner now got a lot of money and they can use that to do a lot of things.

    The independents should either grow big (like MS or google) or sell and enjoy their retirement/new adventure.

    And there will always be new startups, most will fail but some will survive. It is almost like the animal world, except corporations die, but people live on.

  • Informis

    “What’s next? Lego Middle Earth?”

    Harry Potter MMO. Q.E.D.

  • http://geldonsgaming.blogspot.com geldonyetich

    I seem to recall that Warner Brothers has a rather interesting policy regarding their game developers.

    Hall’s strategy now is to turn to game review Web sites — such as GameRankings.com, Metacritic.com, and GameStats.com — that aggregate scores given to games by critics at game sites and magazines. Games based on Warner Bros. licenses must achieve at least a 70% rating, or incur an increase in royalty rates.

    “An escalating royalty rate kicks in to help compensate us for the brand damage that’s taking place,” says Hall. “The further away from 70% it gets, the more expensive the royalty rate becomes. So, frankly, if the publisher delivers on what they promised — to produce a great game — it’s not even an issue.”

    Although that’s for games based on existing Warner Bros IP.

  • Freakazoid

    At first I was going to say I don’t care, because turbine had their shot(s) and didn’t quite make it. However, if WB has any further aspirations in the mmo market, turbine would be experienced enough to deliver something. I doubt they have any cool IPs in mind though.

  • dartwick

    I wonder how this will affect the relationship with Wizards of the Coast especially in light of the lawsuit with Hasboro.

  • Some Guy

    Question: In what sense is ‘cash flow problems’ different from ‘profitability problems’?

    As I understand it, LoTRO is profitable.
    As I understand it, DDO’s freemium model has been profitable as well.
    AC1 is niche with a small crew (that’s done some impressive things, all considered) and probably not a major impact on Turbine’s balance sheet.

    Does ‘cash flow problems’ mean the issue is with cash for development of future MMOs? Because what they’ve got at the moment seems pretty solid.

  • Scatch Maroo

    @ Some Guy: financial mismanagement is rarely about how much a person (or company) makes, but about how much they spend. Live within your means and life is much easier.

  • joker

    This is unfortunate.

  • ethereal.wolf

    i don’t think this will make lotro any better or worse. well they might start with the vanity item microtransctions, i suppose that would make it worse.

  • Tinman_au

    @Mystery
    “You understand that this isn’t the first big company that is working with Turbine, right? Asheron’s Call was a Microsoft product, when it came out, and LOTRO and DDO were both developed under the umbrella of Vivendi.”
    Yes, I know that.  The difference is those guys were publishers for Turbine, not owners, Turbine always ran it’s own internal stuff itself….now someone else can be call the shots (unless they did a “Blizard/Bioware” type deal…those guys seem to be pretty independent of the owner company).