Noting the string of studio closures lately, the chief of European operations for Epic Games says there's a pretty simple cause for them.
"It happened because of stupid acquisitions," Mike Gamble told Eurogamer at the Unreal Engine University Day in London.
"What was the point of a well-known children's IP holder buying a hardcore racing studio?" he said of Disney's acquisition of Black Rock, which had developed Pure and Split/Second[pictured] "It doesn't make sense."
"A lot of the pain we've had in the last 18 months has been down to the economics of games development, which has changed," Gamble said. "Big publishers have had to pull back in money wise and the casualties of that are the studios that haven't performed for them because the industry has changed."
The upshot of that, while many developers have lost their jobs and left the industry altogether, some have stayed, forming independent shops from the remnants of closed studios. Gamble called it "sad in a sense, but it's fantastic in a whole other way," praising the quality of indie games he's seen from workers who had been let go when a major publisher closed their studio.
Epic: Good Can Come From Studio Closures [Eurogamer]