Would you like it if Sony bought Arrowhead Game Studios outright? How do you think Arrowhead would feel about that?
Johan Pilestedt is the CEO of Arrowhead, and he’s been a visible and vocal presence on Twitter since the release of Helldivers 2. Seeing other Twitter accounts claim that Sony actually made an acquisition of their company, Pilestedt made a clear response to the rumor in a tweet:
“This is fake… Unless I’ve missed something.
Also, a really shitty old logo from 2008 or so when we just started the studio.”
While Helldivers 2 is obviously a huge success for the studio, it is important to remember that Arrowhead remains an independent company from Sony. They have a similar arrangement as Nintendo has with PlatinumGames, for titles like Bayonetta 2 and 3, as well as The Wonderful 101.
Arrowhead still have their other franchises to point to, such as their Gauntlet revival for Sega in 2014, as well as their debut title, Magicka, in 2011.
Now, it’s true that Sony has kept them preoccupied, as the two Helldivers games required long term support to keep their live service aspect going. But Arrowhead presumably still has the freedom to pursue other projects outside of Sony in the future.
Arrowhead’s immediate future will certainly be taken up by Helldivers 2. Johan revealed in an earlier tweet that they would be scaling up the company with more employees, to match the scale of the title’s success with their upcoming roadmap.
Of course, the reason we are even talking about this at all is that fans are imagining Arrowhead would see their greatest success once they finally become a first party studio for PlayStation. But, once again, this is a similar situation that PlatinumGames has with Nintendo. PlatinumGames clearly likes working with Nintendo, but they also value their independence, and the same is obviously true of Arrowhead.
We have simply been learning about too many stories of game studios that have turned out for the worse after they were acquired. In fact, we had also recently been covering stories of Toys For Bob and Saber Interactive successfully negotiating to turn independent from Microsoft and Embracer Group, respectively.
In any case, if anything, Sony may want to reconsider if their studios are better off remaining under their ownership, as the likes of Insomniac and Bungie may be making better games for PlayStation if they were allowed to operate independently. Arrowhead Game Studios has demonstrated that second party games can be more successful than first party titles, if not more so. Maybe that’s the direction they should be taking their exclusive games in the future.
