Housemarque: “Arcade Is Dead”

Housemarque, creators of some of the best arcade action PlayStation 4 and PC games, have stated that they are moving away from the genre. They state that “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,” and that their next game will be in a totally different genre.

To be honest I did feel that Nex Machina was a retread of many concepts that had been used in previous Housemarque games and it was a “greatest hits” package so although I will miss their arcade games I am looking forward to what is next.

Here is their full statement.

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 beingNex Machina, which we published in June to great critical acclaim, garnering a metacritic score of 88. Nex Machina was a dream project, as we got to work with our hero and arcade gaming legend Eugene Jarvis, who is responsible for some of the most revered arcade games of all time such as Defender, Robotron 2084 and Smash TV. He has had a tremendous impact on our games, including Resogun and Dead Nation.

 

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. We are extremely grateful to our fans and partners, who have enabled us to work on awesome games like Super Stardust HD and Outland. For your unfailing love and support we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

 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. Our purpose as a company remains the same, however – to create enjoyable and memorable gaming experiences for players while simultaneously creating a great workplace that allows people to flourish both professionally and personally.

Looking ahead to our next projects, we are exploring something totally different than what you might expect of us, but we believe this will lead to the creation of even more engaging gaming experiences. Our core values remain the same – gameplay first with first class execution. We are really excited about our new projects and look forward to unveiling our first game from the new era of Housemarque.

Whether you have been a fan of Housemarque for years or have just played a few of our first games, we invite you to join us in discovering new gaming frontiers! Stay tuned!

Ilari Kuittinen

CEO

UPDATE: An interview with Kuittinen on Gamasutra has revealed that whatever Housemarque are doing next it will heavily feature multiplayer, and launch on Steam Early Access first.

“We want to explore, hopefully in the very near future, getting something out quite early – much, much earlier than even we ourselves are comfortable with, to see if that’s something that gets any traction,” he said. “That also leads us to another kind of model: games as a service, and getting more in touch with the community, before the game is even half-finished. It’s totally the opposite of what we have been doing. It’s quite exciting, and scary at the same time.”

Source: Housemarque (via email) / Gamasutra