Lionhead Studios became famous with the “Good and Evil” series and became a large-scale studio after the release of “Fables of Gods and Ghosts”, which allowed the very popular creator Peter Molyneux to be promoted to a Microsoft game studio European creative director. But when Kinect was launched, Lionhead Studio’s mission was to make the Kinect game “Fables of Gods and Ghosts: A Magical Journey”, which received fierce criticism.
After that, they tried to develop an asymmetric multiplayer game “Fable: Legends”, which was never officially released before the studio was finally closed, and was widely regarded as one of Microsoft’s worst decisions. Microsoft seems to think so too. In the Xbox 20th Anniversary series of documentary “Power On”, Shannon Loftis from the Xbox team bluntly said:
“One of the biggest mistakes we learned from the past is Lion Head Studio. We had already launched “Fable 1” and it was very popular… People wanted more, so we bought Lion Head studio. It was a good time. But after “Fables of Gods and Ghosts 2”, Kinect appeared, and the Fable-Kinect marriage never really worked. Then, “Fables of Gods and Ghosts: A Magical Journey”, for many people I say this is a passionate project, but I think it strays from the pillars that made “Fables 1 & 2″ so popular.”
Another Xbox executive Sarah Bond said that Microsoft has been trying to learn from the failure of Lionhead Studios:
“We acquired Lionhead Studios in 2006 and closed the studio in 2016. A few years later, we reviewed the experience. What have we learned and how can we not repeat the same mistakes?”
Fortunately, this story may bring some benefits. Today, Playground Games is developing a new “Fable of Gods and Ghosts” game, and some former developers of Lionhead Studio are also participating. Xbox boss Phil Spencer said, this is the lesson they learned from this sad story:
“You acquired them because of what a studio is currently doing well. Your job is to help them accelerate what they do, not let them accelerate what you do.”
Basically, Microsoft is very clear that they have not dealt with this issue in the right way, and hope that it will not end that way in the end. Or as Loftis said:
“I really hope Lionhead Studio is still a viable studio.”
Thanks IGN