Housemarque Canning Coin-Op After Commercial Flops

Damn, that's sad, I really enjoyed what I saw of Nex Machina. Will have to give it more serious consideration as a purchase in the near future.

Bought nex machina on the launch day, I've already done my part, too bad not many people bought it

I honestly dont see the appeal and praise critics pour on their games, I tried Alienation when it was free on PS+ and it was a horrible experience. But, its always sad when people who are passionate about the games they make realise they aint selling, although it is good they have addressed it and moving in a different direction, I really hope it works out for them!

@gmxs Well you tried one that was not the loved ones. Nex Machina was awsome Stardust, Resogun hard but it was fantastic.

They're a talented studio. With their new found direction, I'm looking forward to seeing what they do next. I'm also glad that they've stopped making these 'arcade' games, as "I hate thems" (in a Gollum voice).

Interested to see them do something outside of their comfort zone. They did pump out a lot of good arcade style games in a short period of time, perhaps too quickly for people to actually want more.

It's a bummer indeed but also exciting! They are very creative with their game ideas and visuals so I can't wait to see what they do now

@gmxs Play resogun (defender) or nex machina (smash tv). If your avatar is anything to go by you WILL gush over them. Both are amazing old and new skool mashups.

@kyleforrester87 absolutely. The store needs curation. Indies have fallen off a cliff in quality.

I must admit, I don't want to play the type of games that Housemarque have been producing. Not saying that they don't look good or capture a certain era of gaming excellently but I don't want to play those anymore. I grew up on 'coin-op' arcade games and now look for games with 'depth of story, characters etc.

Its still a shame that one of the best in the business is now finding it difficult to make these types of games as I am sure there is a market. Maybe they should of opened up their library to all platforms - I am sure the Switch would be a great platform for this type of genre. Add in Xbox too and they may of got enough sales to make it worthwhile...

AQUIRE THEM ALREADY, SONY!

@kyleforrester87 nonsense, theres always been duff games littering sales channels be it in store, steam or the PS store since day dot.

The cream always rises to the top.

@themcnoisy I don't know that Indies have fallen of the cliff so to speak, but now seem to want to copy those that were 'successful' and so inundated with 'similar' looking and playing games. Part of what made those 'indies' great, was that they were 'unique' which added to their charm but if you have 10+ similar games, the feeling of deja vu sets in. You end up comparing it to the 'first' game you played and even if its technically superior, it lacks something that the 'first' had, that new and unique feeling.
Look at how many games now have the visuals of something like Journey for example.

“The day the music died...”

Gutted. Loved Resogun, Dead Nation and Nex Machina. Alienation was great fun as well. What comes next I wonder?

I bought Super Stardust Delta, Resogun & Nex Machina.
Have only got around to the former which I enjoyed.
Sucks. The more diversity the better.

@kyleforrester87 I dunno, I see your point however I think the question that should be asked is. If the games that we got from Housemarque werent on PS Plus.. would I or most people spent money on it?

The answer unfortunately is no and clearly by their decision it shows that even with the exposure of being given away for a month the buzz around them didn't generate money to carry forward as they've hoped. Even if I did buy the DLC for Resogun. They're titles that I was happy to play for free for a few hours but would have lived without and certainly not spend £20 on.

Games like Rocket League which is very much in the same bracket has done very well.. simply due to it being a truly brilliant title and still selling big regardless of being initially given away for free, because of player word of mouth.

Its great that Sony have pushed indie titles but it doesn't make them any better and it doesn't mean they should be pushed more than they are.. I think Sony has done a decent push with genuinely good indie titles being shown off on the store front.

The problem is that a lot of even the "good" titles just aren't good enough in the first place to sell big enough numbers to be sustainable, hence their decision to move to a different style of title going forward. Its just flogging a dead horse otherwise to push indie titles that don't merit that push.

What more can Sony do, there's already a digital only section which shows off indie titles and titles that get a bit of buzz get screen-space on the main store.

There may be a silver lining to this eventually. If they step away from retro coinop games and do something more contemporary with their very skilled gameplay mechanics it could be just what they need to shine. Will def keep an eye out and hope for the best.

There's a comment above that suggests that Alienation was a Plus game.

Was that true in The States? I don't remember that one...

EDIT: I googled it, we didn't get Alienation on Plus here. I'm fan of local co-op, so I'm going to check out the rest of their games.

@kyleforrester87 Yea it goes in cycles.. a few indie titles are hits and devs try to go it alone and create their own indie studio and try and cash in then we see the deluge of titles. Admittedly this is new for the PS environment but isnt new in the PC world. Its not to dissimilar on how big devs view loot crates and that today. They work now for some games, that'll evolve on to something else in the future/

Give it a few years another few indie titles will pop up that are genuinely good and it'll all start again.

After we got Fez, Rocket League and the other big hitters on plus look at the state of a large chunk of the digital only titles we got and just came out on general sale. Mostly utter garbage playing on nostalgia from the 16 bit era.

Im sorry if that annoys folk but these games just dont cut it for the majority and wont sell big enough to be sustainable.. no matter how much we like these developers with humble backgrounds.

@Tasuki Big studios offer titles when the sales have died a death anyway. They put big titles out to flog DLC/microtransactions on the existing "free" game, thats a fairly painless business practice to generate sales and in the case of an online title.. keeps the servers busy enough that the dedicated players keep piling money in.

Your statement is laughably wrong. See: Rocket League.

Again, as ive said already in here.. if a game is properly good and not just decent. It'll sell.

@GamerDad66 I'm almost certain it was in Europe, because I have it on my hard drive.
I think that was the month you guys got Abzu instead for some reason.

They should have included loot boxes in their games, everyone loves those!

Resogun is my personal favourite from them.

@adf86 I know they were PS exclusives but that also contributed to their sales issue. The point I was making though, is that IF they could of sold to other platforms, their 'niche' market base would be a lot bigger and I really do think that the 'Switch' would be an ideal platform for their 'coin-op' games. I think they would suit the 'hand-held' market better. Also the fact that they would sell more if their potential market was bigger. It may only be a 'few million extra copies but that may have been 'enough'.

I know there are differences between each game but there are also a lot of similarities too. I still think though that there is a market for 'coin-op' style games but are being swamped by so many wanting to develop that 'style' of game. Its 'bedroom' development games. I don't mean that negatively but its not like you need a script writer, voice actors, mo-cap artists, story boarders, animators etc etc. I know 'some' of these may be incorporated into these games but some games just use 'Sprites' with certain 'patterns' of movement - not unlike Galaga for example - albeit with much flashier graphics.
The point is, these are much simpler and cheaper to create - so much so that a single person could build these type of games and if Housemarque are the 'masters' of doing this now and successfully, then their will be a lot of small indie teams/bedroom developers also making their versions. Maybe not to the same degree of perfection but you still end up with a lot on the market place. Trying to stand-out, bring something 'different' without retreading old ground isn't easy if you stick to that formula. Why would someone want to buy Nex Machina if they have Alienation for example. I know they are 'different' but they both look 'similar' in a lot of ways too and if you weren't overly keen on Alienation, then maybe you won't like Nex Machina so don't buy.
Its also not helped by PS+. The feeling maybe that you will wait for Nex Machina to be offered free rather than buy it.
Whilst I think its a shame that Housemarque are moving away from what they are best known for, something that have been critically acclaimed for, I also think its great that they are looking to evolve - much like the studio's in the 80's evolved from 'coin-op' games too.
I still think its inevitable that those indie devs that are making 2D platformer/side scrollers will move into 3D - just like those 2D devs moved into 3D in the 90's

Bittersweet news. I’m surprised that Sony or any another big publisher didn’t buy them. Imagine if Capcom decided to do a 3D Megaman, and assigned Housemarque to develop it. Not likely to happen though. But it’ll be a perfect marriage.

Makes sense. They've been mostly exclusive to Sony consoles since 2008, are independent, and Resogun launched as a free PS+ game. Add to that the current developer fad of style over substance, and you get a studio that's really good at not covering the costs of production.

So now instead of switching around and making a game with substance first, for a range of platforms...it'll be an MP-focused lootbox-a-thon. Let's hope it isn't The Tomorrow Children 2 and closed by Sony in a few months.

I absolutely love dead nation. Would have LOOOOVED a sequel 😞 though id be all for a 1st person, open world sequel!
They should just make an online social hub type experience like what Home was for ps3 but minus all the stupid filler. Then they could sell their arcade style games as in game micro transactions. Basically make a mega virtual arcade!!! Thatd be amazing! HouseMarque ARE YOU LISTENING?!?

Well that sucks. I own every housemarque game in PS4. They are very fun, and pretty challenging. But I can see them not having a large audience.

@kyleforrester87 they have been around for 10 years so thats longevity for starters.

Resogun released at a great time, often lauded as the best game on ps4 for the first 6 months and if that struggled to earn bank then, I doubt there is big money to be made in shoot em ups.

So singleplayer arcade games will be replaced by online only multiplayer 'experiences'? RIP Housemarque.

Sony should buy the studio to allow those games to continue, I'm not a massive fan of the genre but they may excellent A star quality arcade games.

i have super stardust hd (PS3, and free on PS4 via cross-buy), dead nation (PS3 - free from the giveaway when psn got hacked, and free on vita and PS4 via cross-buy), resogun (PS4 free with PS+, and on vita - can't remember if it was free with cross-buy or not), and alienation (bought on sale) - so although i have several of their titles, most of which i like, i haven't actually spent that much money on them. nex machina looked good, and has a high metacritic rating (88 on PS4 i think), but probably like a lot of people, i think it'll end up on PS+ or on sale for under a fiver at some point, since that precedent seems to have been set, which is not ideal for the studio to be fair. matterfall didn't look like that great to me, and seems to have the weakest reviews amongst their games.. so it's not really surprising it didn't sell significant numbers.. it looked too familiar, and hasn't been nearly as well received as its predecessors. there's also the fact that psn now has sales almost every two three weeks, so you can get year old big AAA games for not much more than the £16-£20 that these games are costing. that wasn't the case in the first couple of years, not to mention some free-to-play stuff that's become very popular. the amount of people on my friends' list playing fortnite:battle royale exceeds any other game at the minute..

i really liked resogun and dead nation on both PS4 and vita though.

@BAMozzy "Also the fact that they would sell more if their potential market was bigger. It may only be a 'few million extra copies but that may have been 'enough'." — nex machina has sold an estimated 40K on PC.. don't know about PS4, but even if it had been on switch and xb1 too, it wouldn't have taken it to anywhere near the kind of sales you're thinking of.

as for the exclusivity of some of their games, they were published by sony, and partnered through their xdev program i think. it's likely that sony funded the games, but housemarque would not have seen any money from sales until sony's investment had been recouped first. that can be beneficial for both parties, housemarque has the funding security required to make the game, and sony gets an exclusive game out if it. i think the problem for housemarque is if the game doesn't sell enough that it starts to make extra money for the studio, it can't really grow or fund its own projects without external help.

sony's probably pretty happy with the quality of the games from the studio, and even if they weren't particularly profitable, the investment was probably small by comparison to their first party AAA projects. i know a lot of people thought sony should have tried to acquire the company and bring it into WWS, but housemarque has only about 50 people, and tasking it with creating a large-scale console game when it has no track-record of that would involve quite an element of risk/leap of faith.

Kind of disappointing but to be honest they were making a bunch of samey shooters. Don't get me wrong they were all excellent in their on way and each of them unique. They definitely need to try something new. I'm looking forward to their next game.

This is very sad news indeed. One of my most beloved developers turns its back on what it does best, just to go down the multiplayer route ... wow.
I just hope they will find their way (and money) to survive in this confusing gaming industry.

I bought every game for PS3 and PS4 from Housmarque except for Matterfalls because of the too complex controls. I love their games. I like coop but don't like pvp multiplayer. I think their is not a lot of room for many pvp games out there because if the player base is small, a game dies very quickly, quicker than any single player game. So pvp multiplayer is not the solution for every game.

What a shame! Like music in America, the young population don’t have a clue. I like multiplayer games but not as much as solo or couch co-op!!

I wouldn't mind a lack of arcade games if we got another game like Outland because that was great.