Having been a pillar of the British gaming community for 20 years, Lionhead’s closure came as a shock. For whatever reasons, Microsoft decided that the near complete Fable: Legends was to be cancelled and that Lionhead would have to close as a consequence.
As mandated by UK law, a consultation period had to be held prior to the studio’s closure at the end of April, and Kotaku UK are reporting that a number of parties were interested in taking on the studio and letters of intent were filed. Sadly, none of these offers managed to save the team in time.
Discussions of this kind are almost bound to happen, but the main sticking point according to one source was that Microsoft were unwilling to part with the Fable IP. In other words, had another publisher then seen Fable Legends through to release or intended on making a Fable 4, it would have been under license from Microsoft.
This was even with offers that apparently sat in the range of hundreds of millions. “90% of the people interested just walked away at that point,” Kotaku’s source said.
Naturally all of this is still hugely disappointing, but it’s hard to blame Microsoft for wanting to protect the IP that they’ve fostered for over a decade. The real test is to see if they revive it with another studio or succumb to the typical trend which is to simply hoard and keep the license to themselves.
That’s the kind of thinking that has meant Crash Bandicoot, Heavenly Sword, Monkey Island and countless other popular games have lain dormant for years and years.
Source: Kotaku UK
Avenger
I don’t quite understand this. So the other parties were more interested in the Fable IP rather than Lionhead studios?
I’m pretty sure most studio shutdowns/splits usually end in the IP being left in the publisher’s hands, did other parties really expect a serious opportunity to grab the Fable IP.
Stefan L
But who’s to say that Microsoft wouldn’t consider parting with it? Especially when talking about sums in the “hundreds of millions” range?
The real factor is that any new buyer would have wanted to try and salvage Fable Legends, get it out of the door and making whatever money it could make, allowing Lionhead to have a soft landing and time to find what’s next.
Starman
Well there’s nothing to stop them hiring the former lionhead staff now, if that’s what they were actually interested in at all. I’ve seen a few suggest they should have Rare do Fable 4, and that sounds like a good fit to me.