For many industries, there are certain “beliefs” that have been built up over the years that some feel are the “endgames” of all people. For example, a singer is “meant” to be picked up by a label so that they can expand their brand. Or an actor will get a chance to do a big Hollywood film or lead a massively successful TV series. In the gaming industry, the “belief” is that all studios are going to get picked up by the big publishers eventually so that they can do even more. But the team behind Helldivers 2 is the latest to note that this isn’t the plan for them. They just want to keep making games.
Arrowhead have been working hard ever since the arrival of Helldivers 2, due in large part to the overwhelming success of the title and the scores of players on both PlayStation and PC that are playing it. Yet, that success isn’t going to their heads. In fact, their chief creative officer, Johan Pilestedt, was actually their CEO until very recently, but he stepped down because he wanted to keep the studio focused on making great games.
To that end, in an interview with Gameindustry.biz, the CCO noted that they’re not focused on acquisition at all:
“We have to see what the future holds, but there’s nothing in the plans where we want to be acquired by somebody,” he revealed. “I want to see how high we can fly. And bringing [new CEO] Shams [Jorjani] on board, we have a good potential to realize that future of turning into the next From Software or Blizzard.”
That latter part is a bit ironic, as Blizzard is owned by Activision, which Xbox owns, but the message is meaningful. They want to be a developer that can continue to crank out great titles and have gamers revel in them. There’s nothing wrong with that, right?
Plus, given recent events, it’s entirely fair for them to want to govern themselves. Let’s not forget that their hit co-op title almost got derailed after its massive success due to the corporate influence and greed of Sony. They tried to force players to have a PlayStation account to access the title, which sent gamers through the roof because not all people naturally had that account, and certain countries couldn’t create one.
Larian Studios was another that stated it’s fine with staying independent, and it’ll be curious to see if others follow suit
