Companies were offering a single dollar for Hitman dev IO Interactive when Square Enix was looking to offload it
It might be strange to recall after Hitman 3's stonking success, but series developer IO Interactive was in a very precarious situation not so long ago. When 2016's Hitman failed to please IOI's owners at Square Enix, the corporation began scrabbling around looking for someone to take the studio of its hands.
We know how that turned out—thankfully, IOI eventually managed to buy itself out from under Square—but a recent feature in Edge magazine has cast a little light on just how much worse things could have been for Hitman and IOI in general. We're talking free-to-play Hitman, companies-offering-$1-for-the-whole-studio levels of grim.
«I didn't even have 90 days into taking over [as CEO],» IOI CEO Hakan Abrak told Edge, «and then I got the call from [Square Enix president] Matusda-san: 'We have to divest IO'.» It came as a shock, but the nasty arithmetic of it all shook out. «Looking at the books, IO had not made money for almost ten years in a row» by the time Square Enix started looking to divest it, said Abrak, and that fact made acquiring it an unappealing prospect for other potential owners.
«Some companies would offer $1 to take over IO, because of the responsibilities and running costs,» said Abrak, while others discussed the possibility of reducing the studio to a fifth of its size and «just [doing] free-to-play with Hitman.» Abrak wasn't enthused, telling Square Enix that if that's what the company wanted, «I will do everything I can to make the transition as smooth as I can—but I don't believe in this and I will not be part of it.»
In some parallel universe, Square Enix washed its hands of the whole thing by selling IOI to one of its myriad underwhelming suitors, and the recent Hitman renaissance died far too
Read more on pcgamer.com
