Krafton Doesn't Expect Hi-Fi Rush 2 to Turn a Profit

"We wanted to help the team continue developing their games"

With the Hi-Fi Rush IP secured by publisher Krafton at the eleventh hour, Tango Gameworks was saved from the cutting room floor, a victim of Bethesda's bloody Microsoft-mandated restructure. In a year full of layoffs and studio closures, it remains one of the few positive industry occurrences, and the love fest continues, with Krafton pledging the developer its unstinting support.

It's not something you see every day, and Krafton CEO Changhan Kim spoke to Game Developer about the "last-minute deal". Kim said that "we wanted to maintain their legacy" by "[acquiring] as many people as possible", but as time was of the essence, the PUBG publisher didn't fight for Tango's other IP (like The Evil Within or Ghostwire: Tokyo).

While the Tango Gameworks deal is still being finalized, Kim could not comment on how much Krafton spent on the acquisition, but he did say: "[It was] not too expensive, or too cheap, either. We cannot really translate the volume into money. It's more about the significance; the dollar amount was not really important to Microsoft."

Encouragingly, Kim wants to champion creativity without fear of failure and, in a rare move, appears to have given the studio a blank cheque. Noting that Tango's previous games "may not even have broken even", Kim concludes: "We can't acquire Tango Gameworks based on their financials or their numbers, right? We don't think Hi-Fi Rush 2 is going to make us money, to be frank. But it's part of our attempt. We have to keep trying [to develop games] in the spirit of challenge-taking."

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Are you surprised by Krafton's goodwill towards Tango Gameworks? Ride off into the sunset in the comments section below.

[source gamedeveloper.com]

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About Khayl Adam

Khayl Adam is Push Square's roving Australian correspondent, a reporter tasked with scouring the internet for the richest, most succulent PlayStation stories. With five years of experience as a freelance journalist and mercenary wordsmith, RPGs are his first great love, but strategy and tactics games are a close second, genres in which he is only too happy to specialize.

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Comments 6

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• Fighting_Game_Loser
• 4:16am

I mean with all of the publishers out there wanting to always turn a profit, and risk takers don't mention said out-there endeavors, it's nice that Krafton is mentioning this in reference to a game like Hi-Fi Rush, which means I bet they're probably gonna let Tango go crazy. Can't say the same as a whole with The Callisto Protocol but hey, at least that didn't turn them off from being creatively risky

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• Bigmanfan
• 4:38am

I think the bigger story here should be HiFi Rush 2 confirmed. We knew it would probably happen, but this all but guaranteed the game's in development.

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• PegasusActual93
• 5:17am

@Fighting_Game_Loser
Considering how much of a cash cow PUBG was, they can go for a while on sheer good will but money runs everything and when their wallet will eventually start to get thinner will they keep holding on to that goodwill? Time will tell.

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• NomNom
• 5:27am

It's nice to know good will exists in this industry despite the massive turnover.

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• yazzika
• 8:32am

I like that. The game is kind of an indie-movie. It's important that it exists, it makes a lot of people happy. But everybody can be really happy if they are not losing money in the end.

So what this publisher die is a really amazing move and I hope it will be appreciated by the community and press in the long run.

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• Rich33
• 8:56am

A good news story!

(This is not a sarcastic comment on Pushsquares reporting but on the state of the industry in this area)

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