Housemarque: no more arcade games

[Andy]

These are the guys who did Resogun and Nex Machina.

Letter to the fans

For more than 20 years we’ve been carrying the torch for arcade, bringing arcade coin-op inspired games to the market with a Housemarque twist, and I think it’s fair to say we’ve gotten pretty good at it by now! Our games have received great critical reception over the years, perhaps the best example being Nex Machina, which we published in June to great critical acclaim, garnering a metacritic score of 88. ...

However despite critical success and numerous awards, our games just haven’t sold in significant numbers. While some of them have reached a massive audience due to free game offerings across various digital sales channels, this unfortunately doesn’t help pay for development, which gets costly for high production quality. ....

But now it’s time to move on to new genres. Lackluster sales of Nex Machina have led us to the thinking that it is time to bring our longstanding commitment to the arcade genre to an end. While this genre will always hold a special place in our hearts, the industry is moving more toward multiplayer experiences with strong, robust communities, and it’s time for Housemarque to move forward with the industry. Hence Nex Machina and Matterfall will be the last of their kind coming out of our studio.

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[karmakid]

HashtagThanksSony

 

[Mike O'War]

"the industry is moving more toward multiplayer experiences with strong, robust communities, and it’s time for Housemarque to move forward with the industry."

Huge mistake... Only a select few will succeed. A market full of Me-Too games will cause a lot of Devs to fail

 

[Viktor]

But I love Nex Machina

 

[BUSTERMAN]

I wish I had supported them more. This dev house makes some really good games. But my interest in twin stick shooters has been significantly less these days.

I always wondered why these guys didn't make a Diablo type of game. Its similar to their style of game but with added depth to keep players addicted and coming back.

 

[Andy]

I wish I had supported them more. This dev house makes some really good games. But my interest in twin stick shooters has been significantly less these days.

Yeah, their games looked really cool, but I'm not much into the twin-stick shooter arcade style games.

Well, I wish them luck. They are a talented development house. I find it kind of annoying that they're going in the direction of GaaS, but it doesn't surprise me a bit.

 

[u2popmofo]

Bummer, definitely one of my favorite console exclusive devs.

That said, Matterfall was pretty weak.

 

[The Sunset Limited]

"the industry is moving more toward multiplayer experiences with strong, robust communities, and it’s time for Housemarque to move forward with the industry."

Huge mistake... Only a select few will succeed. A market full of Me-Too games will cause a lot of Devs to fail

I think Housemarque is making this decision because the market didn't support their type of games well enough over the past few years. IE, they already weren't succeeding.

 

[Mike O'War]

I think Housemarque is making this decision because the market didn't support their type of games well enough over the past few years. IE, they already weren't succeeding.

Yes, I guess after Res0gun, their games have fallen in demand, but changing to go with the flow of everyone else doesn't guarantee success either... Especially once the market is flooded with a ton of Me-Too games.