There is demand for games that hark back to a certain demographic's childhood, as has already been proven with the huge success of the Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy and the ongoing popularity of Super Mario 3D All-Stars. It's not just the licence that drove the success of Battle For Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated, but also the nostalgia it taps into. We're working on some of those right now."īattle For Bikini Bottom is yet another example of titles tapping into nostalgia for past generations of games We can do that with relatively low volumes, so that's why we think we can recreate the success we've had with SpongeBob with other licences in future. But at THQ Nordic, we're not going for the super AAA stuff where we need millions and millions to be successful. "I think maybe in the licence business there has been a bit too much emphasis on free-to-play and the premium model was not so popular in the last five to ten years. "I think there's a market for those kind of games. "It was a fantastic success for us, with sales of more than one million units - and I wouldn't be surprised if it reached two million one day," he says. Those that were still interested in traditional video games have also shifted towards longer projects with higher budgets, resulting in the likes of Insomniac's Spider-Man titles.īut THQ Nordic's current output harks back more to the early 2000s, and Kreuzer believes the reception to SpongeBob's remake proves there is demand for such titles. This has changed a great deal in the last two decades - as we covered with one prominent example last year - as IP holders became more guarded with their franchises or turned to the more lucrative free-to-play market on mobile. That's why we think we can recreate the success we've had with SpongeBob" "We're not going for super AAA where we need millions to be successful.
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Tie-ins and adaptations were rife, with much of the biggest IP from the worlds of animation, TV and film appearing in video games on an annual basis. The landscape for licensed video games was very different when Battle For Bikini Bottom first released in 2003.
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No figure for the acquisition has been disclosed, but Kreuzer describes it as "a good deal for the previous owners and a good deal for us." Purple Lamp is now hard at work on three projects: the ongoing development of The Guild 3, plus two unannounced licensed games.
"Luckily, the team was fired up about joining us so we made the deal in a couple of weeks." "We could either make an offer to the Purple Lamp founders, or start a whole new studio, which takes time to set up and you need to be patient," he says. Kreuzer adds the deal was a "no brainer" because the opportunity arose at a time when THQ Nordic had decided to ramp up its efforts in developing and releasing licensed games, for which it needed a team with certain expertise. "What we liked about Purple Lamp is they have the passion to work on big licences and they're able to deal with those companies - as you can imagine, some companies can be a bit picky because the IP is one of their major assets. "The team was familiar with working with these big licensor companies, and they showed it once again when we collaborated on SpongeBob, where you have Viacom and Nickelodeon people in the background," he says. Given that Purple Lamp only began working with THQ Nordic in January 2018, it's clear the studio made quite the impression on its new owner, not only bringing the beloved SpongeBob game back to market but also assisting with the Early Access development of The Guild 3.įor THQ Nordic CEO Klemens Kreuzer, Purple Lamp's performance with the SpongeBob project made it an essential purchase. The team of 38 is now 100% owned by the game's publisher, THQ Nordic. The Embracer Group spent the best part of the last decade buying up a wide variety of development studios and games IP, culminating in November's announcement that it had purchased 13 companies - the firm's biggest wave of acquisitions to date.Īmong them was Purple Lamp Studios, the Vienna-based developer behind one of the group's bigger hits of 2020: SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated, which launched in June.
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