Lionhead Studios

Lionhead Studios
legal form	Microsoft subsidiary
founding	1996
resolution	2016
Seat	Guildford , UK
management	Mark Webley
Branch	Software development
Website	lionhead.com ( Memento from April 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (English)

Lionhead Studios was a UK- based game software company headed by well-known designer Peter Molyneux . Lionhead Studios has been part of Microsoft Corporation since April 2006 and was an external first-party developer for the company. On March 7, 2016, Microsoft announced the closure of the studio.

History of the company

Lionhead Studios was founded in 1996 by Peter Molyneux, after he had sold the Bullfrog Productions development studio, which he had also founded, to Electronic Arts and left it shortly afterwards. Mark Webley, a good friend and work colleague of Molyneux, helped with the establishment, whose hamster was also the namesake of the Lionhead Studios.

The new company's first game was Black & White , a so-called god simulation with elements of artificial life , strategy and beat-'em-up games, which was distributed internationally by Electronic Arts . To maintain and continue the Black & White franchise, an internal development department called Black & White Studios was set up, which was later dissolved.

In Black & White was followed by the expansion of Black & White: Creature Isle . The next release by Lionhead was the popular and controversial role-playing game Fable , which was not developed by Lionhead itself, but by the satellite studio Big Blue Box . In 2005, The Movies and Black & White 2 and their extensions The Movies - Stunts & Effects and Black & White 2 - Battle of the Gods were finally released . In 2008 the successor to the RPG Fable, Fable II , was released exclusively for the Xbox 360.

In early March 2016, Microsoft announced the closure of Lionhead, which took place on April 29th. In May, former Lionhead developers spoke for the first time at Eurogamer . According to these, there were definitely concrete intentions and plans to develop a Fable IV that should contain a gloomy steampunk scenario based on the Unreal Engine 4 with the targeted R rating . However, this was rejected by Microsoft because previous Fable parts, while successful, were not profitable enough. The development of the Free2Play game Fable Legends , which “nobody wanted to do”, was downright “forced” on Lionhead, also in order to be able to benefit from this market and because “pure single player players who are sold in a pack” are out of date. Both Peter Molyneux and art director John McCormack then left Lionhead in 2012.

“I told them just give us four years and adequate funding. Give us the chance that Mass Effect had, that Skyrim had, the games at the time. They received four years and a large budget. Give that to us and we'll give you something to give to your players. But we had three attempts and the income just tripled, we weren't good enough. That annoyed me so much back then. "

- John McCormack

With the discontinuation of Fable Legends , Microsoft lost around $ 75 million that had already flowed into the development of the title. Inquiries from investors to buy Lionhead, including the Fable rights, were denied because Microsoft did not want to give up the brand.

Corporate structure

Lionhead Studios initially built a network of outside developers, including Big Blue Box Studios, Intrepid Games, and Black & White Studios. Both Intrepid Games and Black & White Studios were abandoned in the following years. Big Blue Box, on the other hand, was more integrated into Lionhead Studios as the parent company.

Lionhead was a private company until October 2004 and was taken over by Microsoft in April 2006, after financial difficulties. Nevertheless, Lionhead Studios was considered a largely independent division of Microsoft Studios in terms of financial management.