Topic: If you had 1 billion dollars, which company would you rescue from bankruptcy?

I know, most people would say they'd spend the money on women and booze or travel the world, but this is a serious question.

I'd save these three developers:
1- Factor 5: I was curious to see what Thornado (the spiritual successor to Turrican) and the Pilotwings game they were working on were going to be like.

2- Free Radical: They were working on Time Splitters 4 and Star Wars Battlefront III before disappearing (I'd cancel Time Splitters Online).

3- TAD Corporation: This short-lived company impressed me with Toki, Cabal, Legionary, Blood Bross, and Heated Barrel.

None of these are actually bankrupt

3. Toby Fox - give him some more money to work on deltarune
2. Team Cherry - See if I can get their next game out before 2030
1. Nintendo.

@MoldyPasta none of those three lack money

This is all hypothetical, but if a scenario like that did happen, I guess I'd go with Compile Heart and Idea Factory International, though neither of those companies seem like they'll be bankrupt any time in the future.

I wonder if anyone would help bring Silicon Knights back.

@FawfulsFury

None. I would create a new gaming studio and try to make games that I want to make

None, I have more important things to spend that money on then rescue a developer that more then likely brought this upon themselves with poor management.

For one I would buy some land and build my dream house pay off all of my own debts and put some money away for my son so he wouldn't have to face the same problems I am now.

I'd probably just give money to all the cool mid tier Japanese companies so that we don't have another "If Hundred Line doesn't sell our company is done!" scenario. Both because it would obviously be bad it would happen but also because its annoying to hear about in the first place.

And maybe Yacht Club Games in case Mina underperforms. Honestly that would be it, half a billion to the mid tier Japanese game companies, and the other half as back up donations to cool indie devs if they end up in trouble.

Though if we're talking purely being the deciding factor on whether companies live or die, Factor 5, Hudson Soft, Treasure, all the companies Amazon and Microsoft ****ed over, maybe Silicon Knights if Dennis Dyack is no longer in charge.

In terms of defunct studios to rescue? I lean in the direction of Quintet, since their library is perhaps one of the most notable cases where things are "lost to the present" due to IP issues. Saving them from bankruptcy would at least keep their catalog from vanishing.

Realistically, though, if I had a billion bucks and a penchant to investing in video game developers? I'd probably just buy a huge chunk of Falcom, and serve as a silent investor whose only real concern is making sure they remain a healthy and functioning studio indefinitely.

If I get $1 billion and decide to use it to rescue a company, please push me into Mount Doom.

No!!! It was because they had so much money that Silksong took so long! If you give them that much money, we'll be lucky if we get another game this millennium!

Team Cherry are very dedicated. Silksong took so long, because they insisted on doing as much as possible in house, and only farming out work like localization and testing. The sales of Hollow Knight gave them a nice cushion, so they didn't have to rush things, but you've got to respect them for staying true to their indie roots and not going on a massive hiring or outsourcing spree. They don't need money though, and I doubt that they'd sell.

Instead, I'm buying Tango Gameworks. After being practically thrown out with the trash by Microsoft, they're not exactly living it up under the new ownership of Krafton, who don't exactly have the best reputation for nurturing their studios. I'd give them a blank check to make Hi Fi Rush 2, or whatever else they can pitch me. They deserve so much better.

And if there's any left, I'll do the same for Roll7. They're another studio who never made a bad game, but appear to have suffered by just not being big enough to survive the reshuffles at Take Two that resulted in the closure of Private Division.

@Matt_Barber No joke I was going to say the exact same thing about Tango. I was ecstatic after they got revived by Krafton, but since then I learned how much Krafton completely sucks.

I think the best use would be to put it in some general grant to help small indies.

@FishyS Yeah, you could probably finish off a thousand indie games to a high standard with that kind of money, but maybe ten AAA ones, if you were lucky.

Still, I'd think that scouting out all the potential projects would be the tricky part. You've already got the likes of Annapurna, Kepler and Devolver doing that too, so it might still be difficult to get in on the ground with something that's really great, before one of those snaps it up.

On the matter of scouting. . . honestly, with various small scale publishers already in play? I almost think the best way to handle a potential funding grant would be a lottery. Which is to say, set some kind of minimum application standards ( and a committee to assess applications ), but from all indie game proposals that meet the standard? Pick recipients by chance.