Tales Studio, the Namco Bandai subsidiary responsible for the long running Tales series of RPGs, has been revealed to be in dire financial straits.
The company is 100% privately held by Namco Bandai, so its public reporting of accounts is limited, but what it has published recently is none too promising:
These figures essentially show an annual loss of 1 million dollars and an accumulated debt of 21 million dollars, exceeding their total assets – the company will either go bankrupt, “restructure,” or go cap in hand to Bandai bosses begging for more cash based on promises of future success – which may be problematic considering the size of the loss they are dealing with themselves.
An alternative might be a re-absorption into Namco Bandai, although this would not guarantee any success in actually tackling the decline of the franchise.
Even amongst Japanese RPGs the Tales series stands out as being devoid of innovation and consisting of little more than an interminable series of rehashes, remakes and spin-offs. Whether the company’s decline can be arrested before bankruptcy or dissolution seems doubtful considering its parent company is hardly managed any better.
This is bittersweet for me. The Tales series is great, but I have two words for these guys………………….BAD MARKETING!!!!! I want to see the series continue, but it needs to be in the hands of people who can not only create fantastic games, but also use proper marketing strategies to get the games “out there” like they should be. Advertising would be a start. DUH! The lack of localizations didn’t help their wallets either. Their talent for making games is useless if they don’t make profit, but the Tales series is obviously not why they’re failing. This is the result of top notch stupidity on their part. If the continue to hold on to the rights for the series, then it’s doomed. Give up the rights. You guys don’t deserve the rights after sinking into such a deep unacceptable financial hole. It’s a disgrace. We want Tales games and we want them localized as well. I am keeping my fingers crossed that someone else takes over the Tales projects and soon. These guys are clearly done. What a shame.
Step 1: Hire translator team for all previous Japan-exclusive mothership titles. And spin-offs. And don’t bother re-voicing everything.
Step 2: Sell games outside of Japan.
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit.
“You reap what you sow” would be the proper phase to address scamco here and you’ll get no sympathy from me. This is what they get for bad marketing, not advertising better and most of all, NOT OUTSOURCING/LOCALIZING MORE. Really, there is absolutely no excuse for games like ToDR, rebirth, destiny 2 and the like not reaching other parts of the world while allowing some entries to go without a hitch. As far as I’m concerned they can go under for all I care. Hopefully some other company will buy the rights off of them and actually DO something with it.
that’s what they get for getting vesperia available in xbox360. its been pirated to death.
Fanboy much?
What a sad news …. I love tales series game ….