Krafton CEO says it acquired Tango for its creativity, even if Hi-Fi Rush 2 won’t make money
The CEO of Krafton says the acquisition of Tango Gameworks was designed to add more creativity to its portfolio, rather than to make big money.
Microsoft announced in April that Tango was one of four Bethesda developers it would be shutting down, and the studio seemingly closed its doors in June.
However, last month South Korean publisher Krafton, which also owns PUBG Studios and The Callisto Protocol studio Striking Distance, announced that it had acquired Tango Gameworks, seemingly rescuing it.
Now, in an interview with Game Developer, Changhan Kim has explained that the decision to acquire Tango wasn’t a financial one but a creative one, and that having Tango’s developers on board would lead to a greater variety of games, even if they didn’t make a fortune.
“We wanted to maintain their legacy,, “Kim said. “Although they did not have a big success in their games, we saw many creatives worth pursuing. That’s why we wanted to work with that organisation.”
Because the move is still being finalised, Kim did not tell the publication how much the acquisiton cost, simply saying that it was “not too expensive, or too cheap either”.
However, he reiterated that money wasn’t the driving factor in the deal, and stressed that even if the studio’s future games didn’t make money, he wants them to take risks and push innovative ideas without the fear of being punished for failure.
“We can’t acquire Tango Gameworks based on their financials or their numbers, right?” he explained. “We don’t think Hi-Fi Rush 2 is going to make us money, to be frank. But it’s part of our attempt. We have to keep trying [to develop games] in the spirit of challenge-taking.
“Tango Gameworks are creative. They want to try something new, and we want to do more of that. [Making] video games is really a hit or miss industry, and that is risk taking. But having more project lineups is actually a way to mitigate risk, because one of them might work out.”
Kim added that even if Tango’s projects fail to make money, if
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