Eidos Absorbed

The buyout of British publisher and home of Lara Croft by the Japanese purveyors of numerical battling systems and androgenous protagonists is old news. Square Enix own Eidos now. We’re over it. We were just happy that Eidos got the chance to continue when so many other industry stalwarts have gone to the wall recently (and Midway Newcastle is soon to go, unless someone steps in).

Today’s news is about what Squeenix are doing with the company now they own it. The short answer is “renaming and restructuring” but we prefer the long, more accurate answer: dissolving the talent and knowledge base into a new company by the (temporary) name of Square Enix Europe and taking the opportunity to reduce staff numbers. So as happy as we were that Eidos did not go belly-up we have to admit to being a little bit disappointed at the loss of the publishing brand and the fact that some (as yet an unspecified number) of the staff will be losing their jobs.

One small consolation for lovers of the Eidos name will be the fact that Square Enix Europe will still be branding products made within former Eidos development studios with the British developer’s moniker. So the name won’t be totally disappearing from product.

We would like to wish the newly restructured and renamed company all the best for their future projects. We would also like to state that our thoughts are with those unfortunate enough to be losing their jobs as a result of the restructuring.

Source: MCVUK