FoxNext Games, the division of 20th Century Fox dedicated to the publishing and development of videogames, might soon be on the market. That's because it is part of the many bundled Fox assets acquired by Disney in the $71.3 billion transaction that closed a few months ago.
According to a report by Bloomberg, while executives like Chairman of Direct-to-Consumer & International division Kevin Mayer discussed the option of keeping FoxNext Games into the fold, Disney CEO Bob Iger ultimately decided against it.
Indeed, it is a decision that is consistent with the latest strategies employed by Iger when it comes to videogames. As you might recall, Disney decided to sell all of its game studios, including Avalanche Software which made the Disney Infinity series. Bob Iger decided to focus entirely on licensing the many IPs owned by Disney to other publishers and developers, as he himself explained in a recent conference call.
Over the years we've tried our hand in self-publishing, we've bought companies, we've sold companies, we've bought developers, we've closed developers. And we've found over the years that we haven't been particularly good at the self-publishing side, but we've been great at the licensing side which obviously doesn't require that much allocation of capital.
As to FoxNext Games, we know that it owns Cold Iron Studios, the California-based studio that's working on an Alien MMO shooter we haven't seen yet. FoxNext Games also founded Fogbank Entertainment, another California-based studio; though we know nothing of their first project, we did learn about a year and a half ago that acclaimed video game writer Drew Karpyshyn had joined Fogbank.
Aaron Loeb, president of Studios at FoxNext Games, said at the time:
FoxNext is committed to developing quality gaming experiences, and Fogbank is going to help us to develop an interactive storytelling platform that allows us to expand on Fox’s catalog of entertainment while also developing new, unique fiction. Narrative and story-driven games continue to rank among the top grossing and most downloaded games across industry standards, and we’re assembling a team of people dedicating to furthering the form.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
