Clover Studios, we hardly knew you.
 

Just got word from a friend of mine and it's on a few websites (none of which I can access from work). Looks like Capcom is dissolving Clover studios, whose named was supposedly formed from the words "Creativity Lover." Apparently, Capcom has had enough of creativity and is shutting the studio down, most likely to finance more Resident Evil and Megman games.

The studio was responsible for Viewtiful Joe, Okami, God Hand and, before they had the studio name, Steel Battalion.

Cripes.

They are being absorbed into Capcom
so the talent is still there, the office is gone.

This disappoints me greatly. With Clover and Grasshopper, I really respected Capcoms willingness to fund and publish wildly different projects.

I bet Grasshopper is next, and I will fume.

I am at least glad to hear that they kept the talent employed, but they will likey just throw them on the next Resident evil or whatever.

Sigh.

Yeah, just like when Sega absorbed Smile Bit.. what have we seen from that? Buggy Sonic games?

Yeah, it's a bummer. I saw this on Kotaku a little while ago. I really enjoyed Viewtiful Joe, and I'm having a great time with Okami. I picked up VJ2 at a cheap price but haven't had time to play it yet. At any rate, this is sad news, but at least we were able to get a handful of unique and entertaining games from them while they were around.

Yes, because that always works out so well. Take a small, well-performing group of developers with their own culture and merge them into a large corporate environment. Also, you should probably distribute them around to different projects--after all, it's unfair to have so much talent in one group.

That's a big thumbs down for Capcom.

Apparently, the latest news from Kotaku is that rather than being absorbed into Capcom, the Clover guys might be breaking away and forming their own development studio. Good for them!

Nintendo should swoop in a grab them as a second-party developer.

Sexual Chocolate:

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/02/15/fo...up-new-studio/

You know something's rotten in the games industry when the reward for producing a magnificent adventure like Okami is the complete liquidation of your studio. All is not lost, however, as the former members of Capcom's Clover Studios have moved their aspirations to fresher soil. GameDaily BIZ reports that the team's new studio, Seeds, is currently in the process of hiring new employees to join a current roster of 51.

Amongst those lies a designer trifecta: Viewtiful Joe's Atsushi Inaba, Resident Evil's Shinji Mikami and Devil May Cry's Hideki Kamiya. Seeds has yet to announce any projects, but a cel-shaded, survival-horror title (with a guitar-wielding protagonist) would certainly be a good start.

All I can say is Okami is one of my favorite recent games. It was just beautiful and so well executed. I still think it was way too Japanese for mainstream America but I applaude every publication that awarded it the 2006 GOTY crown -- it deserved that.

Resident Evil is my second favourite series, so good news for me!

Ironic since I think it sold better here than it did there.

I liked Okami even better than Twilight Princess - why does no one ever blame marketing when a great game fails to attract an audience.

I was very happy to hear this news. I loved Okami, and I even finished God Hand just last night. That was FAR more entertaining than I ever expected it might be.

Okami was well advertised. It was on the back cover of EGM, got great reviews and was highly touted in magazines, podcasts, websites etc.

I don't think marketing is to blame. It just wasn't a well known series, wasn't in a mainstream genre etc. so it unfortunately didn't sell anywhere near as well as it deserved.

That's the problem with gaming today, the mainstream snaps up GTA clones and FPS games while stuff like Okami that I adore sells like shit. Thus I seem to have less and less to play every year. :(

It didn't help that they held off releasing Okami until Fall where it had crazy competition, while if they had released it in the summer, it would've had far less competition.

Indeed that was stupid. It would have been even better in say February when there are very few releases (if any) worth playing.

Anyone know why Okami didn't do well in Japan?

Because it wasn't an RPG or on the DS.

I have too many games on my plate as is (I'm just now getting around to playing Shadow of the Colossus), but once Okami drops to $29.99 I'll pick it up. Others like me might be waiting for a price drop.