Like any business the gaming industry is full of significant challenges, especially for small-to-medium sized companies. It isn't particularly surprising, then, when those with a little more success look to expand through acquiring smaller businesses, as now appears to be the case with Maximum Games taking over Avanquest Software Publishing.
Eager followers of the eShop may recognise the names. Examples of titles that Maximum Games has brought to 3DS include Putty Squad, Myst and Safari Quest; Avanquest has developed and published Jewel Quest games in addition to licensed titles such as Disney Frozen: Olaf's Quest.
The acquisition means that Avanquest will now operated fully under the Maximum Games name, with the US-based company highlighting the deal as an opportunity to expand its reach and business in Europe.
Both of these companies have brought a host of titles to Nintendo's current-generation hardware, and it'll be interesting to see whether that continues in years to come.
Comments 10
.................yet their games are mediocre.....
Hey it's not just people who waste money on worthless garbage!
Companies do it too!
Who takes over wha..?
That port of Myst on 3DS has to be one of the worst-made games in the 3DS library. I bought it and played for maybe 30 minutes before deciding that the control scheme and presentation were so poor as to make this version nearly unplayable. A shame since the original was apparently well-regarded for its time, and I had been looking forward to finally playing it.
Just looked up both companies as I had never heard of them....
My response to this acquisition = meh.
But it is interesting to see that what is happening now in the indie scene was happening in the early to mid 90s. Small developers being bought by larger indie developers whom grow to become today's major triple A publishers. Can see that happening with some of these companies.
@RoboBubble The Nintendo 3DS version of Myst is pretty much a lazy port of the Nintendo DS version. They only adjusted the display for the wider top screen, and that's pretty much it!
Maximum basically mastered the art of terrible bad games on the 3DS with Myst 3DS. The port is so bad, a good chunk of the game is actually completely unplayable.
Though their other games for the system aren't that much better. Except Puzzler World.
@RoboBubble Myst has always had the playability of a slide projector!
@GrailUK no, you see, this particular port of Myst is both graphically ugly and compressed (you can't make out most fine details), and completely uncontrollable. They decided to implement the worst possible kind of control scheme, and as such, some puzzles that require precise movements are completely impossible to beat.
The touch screen menu goes for that classic "small compressed icons on solid black background"-look, and is mostly useless.
And it isn't even displayed in 3D.
It's a text book case of "they didn't care, at all".
@Meowpheel Wowsers! That's terrible!!
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