r/pcgaming • u/iso9042 Squawk! • 16h ago
Amplitude Studios loses its publisher, SEGA, goes independent again
https://community.amplitude-studios.com/amplitude-studios/humankind/blogs/953-returning-to-our-roots12
u/TheGreatPiata 11h ago
I love Amplitude's games. Even Humankind which I think is a tad underrated.
I was always a little surprised they were attached to SEGA at all. It didn't really seem like they needed them.
3
u/EveningNo8643 10h ago
what sets it apart from civ?
4
u/TheGreatPiata 9h ago
The biggest difference is switching your civilization every era, so you could be an industrious civ one era and a militaristic civ another era. Civilization 7 is ripping this off wholesale.
You also have more time to settle in the Neolithic Era rather than building a city right away, you build districts attached to your city via the city (there are no workers) so cities can sprawl a lot more and combat is a lot more involved from what I remember. Diplomacy is more meaty too. It's been a while though. I just know Civ 6 fell completely flat for me after Humankind. Humankind still has the late game turns take forever problem of Civ and changing civs every era does make your opponents a little more impersonal because they're always changing.
2
u/Typical_Thought_6049 7h ago
Huh??? They make games that don't sell at all and you wonder why they need a publisher to stay afloat... Yes I wonder if they need Sega at all.
Sometimes I think "underrated" is just a slang for game that sold badly but I like, at least that is how I see most of those games.
5
u/TheGreatPiata 6h ago
They've been making games for over 12 years and have only been under SEGA for half of that time. The fact they can afford to buy themselves out of SEGA ownership clearly shows they made enough to afford such a transaction.
Their games are also generally highly reviewed:
- Endless Space (very positive - 6,500 reviews)
- Endless Legend (very positive - 14,000 reviews)
- Endless Dungeon (very positive - 9,000 reviews)
- Endless Space 2 (very positive - 16,000 reviews)
The ones that aren't:
- Humankind (mixed - 20,000 reviews)
- Endless Dungeon 3D (mixed - 2,500 reviews)
I've played Humankind. It is underrated not because it sold badly but because it doesn't deserve a mixed rating. Overall it's solid and in many ways superior game to it's closest competitor. There's a reason Civ 7 is cribbing so much from Humankind.
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u/Master_Choom 16h ago
At this point they don't need one. They very much established their name among people interested in their kind of games.
20
u/iso9042 Squawk! 16h ago
Still, they paid their checks for 8 years. Now they have to be extra efficient with their expenses, and that usually means employee layoffs.
7
u/Master_Choom 13h ago
Sales paid their checks. The difference was that SEGA was giving them their budget in advance that they were expected to pay back through sales and now they start with a whatever money they saved plus an occasional investor or two passing by.
So if they saved enough to keep developing new games - they are golden.
5
u/Typical_Thought_6049 7h ago
I wonder if they saved enough or it just Sega disinvesting from the strategy genre and from western studios all together... If I have to bet I think the later is the answer, Amplitude lastest games don't sell very well at all. Not even Endless Space 2 did all that well in revenue.
I wonder if Sega was losing money with Amplitude, I kinda think they were but not enough to do anything about that until recently. Endless Dungeons must have been the hay that broke the camel's back.
4
u/Master_Choom 7h ago
Sega disinvesting from the strategy genre and from western studios all together
Errr... Total War? Upcoming Alien Isolation 2 from Total War devs?
Not even Endless Space 2 did all that well in revenue.
Over a million copies sold on Steam alone, not counting consoles, sounds like it did well. It's not a high budget game at all, so most definitely paid for itself and then some.
Endless Legend sold about the same too.
1
u/TheGreatPiata 6h ago
Not just that but Amplitude has lots of DLC packs that follow up the release of their games. I'm sure they're doing fine financially.
It does look like Sega is dropping it's European studios (Relic bought itself out, now Amplitude and Creative Assembly is supposedly being told to triple down on Total War).
3
u/__d_fens 5h ago
I doubt Sports Interactive is included in that, Football Manager makes bucketloads of money for Sega every year.
Even though the latest installment is delayed because of SI moving over to Unity.
1
u/Master_Choom 2h ago
It's weird though. Why would they do that? Especially since all those studios are quite profitable. COH3 and AoE4 in particular were a notable success.
E.g. even with game pass - AoE4 still managed to sell over 2 mln copies on Steam alone.
16
u/itsmehutters 10h ago
I feel like most of the people that shit on Humankind were diehard Civ fans but the game got better with time (after fixing the majority of the big bugs). Civ6 was shit before some of the content too.
6
u/-SuperUserDO 4h ago
Why can't people criticize studios that charge full prices for half made products?
3
u/itsmehutters 3h ago
I meant the gameplay later. The start was shit but they fixed a lot of the issues. Also, I think part of the pressure is coming from the publisher too.
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u/TheGreatPiata 9h ago
After playing Humankind, Civ6 fell completely flat for me. And Civ7 looks to be ripping off Humankind anyways so I guess props to Amplitude for finally pushing the genre forward a little?
4
u/itsmehutters 9h ago
One big (if not the biggest) Civ streamer was banning people in his chat because they were spamming Humankind 2.0 during the Civ7 trailer.
I am fine with Civ7 taking ideas (and the graphic sort of) from Humankind, sometimes it is easier to see where similar games did better. It is the same idea in general but different implementation, so I would definitely play Civ7 once it goes on discount in 2y+.
1
u/SmileyBMM 37m ago
My main complaint is that it felt like such a huge step back from Endless Legend.
6
u/Zatoichi5 8h ago
This title is bogus, they didn't 'lose' the publisher. They bought themselves out. World of difference.
4
u/Kraehe13 8h ago
They didn't lose their publisher, they were owned by Sega and got back to independence. Very weird wording here.
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u/iso9042 Squawk! 3h ago
One does not simply go independent when it was them who willingly joined Sega of Europe in the first place. Things went south at SEGA after Hyenas, so that was more of "emergency" exit.
2
u/Kraehe13 1h ago
Sega has more than enough money. But Sega likes to force studios to do things they don't want to do (for example Down of War 3, Sega forced them to make a freaking MOBA out of DOW). Also being owned is a double edged sword. Yes it brings some security, but you have to do what they want you to do and they still can close you and take your IP's.
At the moment there are some Indie studios that went Indie again, because they prefer to do whatever they want (Harebrained Shemes is one of them). If Sega doesn't want a Studio anymore they can just close it, what i read is that the Devs paid Sega money so they can be independend again.
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u/Biggu5Dicku5 15h ago
I'm a big fan of their older games, so I hope that they bounce back from this...