Playtonic developing other external franchises and I.P?

[mickeythelegend]

I am thinking how Double Helix took on the Killer Instinct franchise from Rare. I wonder if Playtonic could potentially team up like this for a Banjo game, a racing game with characters exclusive on the platform the game is on or perhaps take on Donkey Kong again for a sequel to DK64 - despite all the hate it is my favourite DK game. He doesn't suit any other voice other than Grant Kirkhope's either Ok!

[Scrubber]

I suppose they could. But I don't think they would.

[Rueckkoppler]

That's probably the best case scenario for the franchise. But just like Scrubber said, they probably wouldn't want to be involved with any big studio that diminishes their independence. What I know for a fact is that Grant Kirkhope would be on board for a new Banjo, since he stated that on Twitter. That's probably an easy thing to do for a freelancer, just look at David Wises involvement in DKC: Tropical Freeze.

[Scrubber]

Not only that but they have their own characters that fully belong to them and they were created to be a replacement for Banjo-Kazooie. So why would they then abandon making a sequel to a platformer with their own characters, to make one with characters that somebody else owns only for a big company to make the profits.

Don't get me wrong, if I had to choose between playtonic making Yooka-Laylee or playtonic making Banjo-Threeie I would choose Banjo every time. But that would never happen so I'm more than happy to play Yooka-Laylee instead. I'd also be more than happy for Rare to take a stab at making Banjo-Threeie too.

[GeneralWalnut]

So why would they then abandon making a sequel to a platformer with their own characters, to make one with characters that somebody else owns only for a big company to make the profits.

Same reason any developers agree to make licensed games: $$$$$$$$$$$$$

[Pgcrooner]

Well I hope that Playtonic continues to grow and hire more extraordinary talent. I like their idea of having small teams of 15-20 people work on games so ideally I would like to think they could have 4 teams of 20 working on different projects.

2 for Playtonic originals, and 2 for licenced games. So you could theoretically havery one team work on Tooka laylee, one work on a diddy kong racing successor, maybe nintendo could have one of the teams doing a new DKC for switch, and another team work on a Rare licenced game for microsoft.

The only thing is though, each team would have to have a veteran playtonic dev supervising. Like, I could see Chris Sutherland developing their next original title but also going in to supervise the DKC game as well in this hypothetical.

[Scrubber]

So why would they then abandon making a sequel to a platformer with their own characters, to make one with characters that somebody else owns only for a big company to make the profits.

Same reason any developers agree to make licensed games: $$$$$$$$$$$$$

Which would be going against everything playtonic stands for.

[Rueckkoppler]

Well I hope that Playtonic continues to grow and hire more extraordinary talent. I like their idea of having small teams of 15-20 people work on games so ideally I would like to think they could have 4 teams of 20 working on different projects.

2 for Playtonic originals, and 2 for licenced games. So you could theoretically havery one team work on Tooka laylee, one work on a diddy kong racing successor, maybe nintendo could have one of the teams doing a new DKC for switch, and another team work on a Rare licenced game for microsoft.

The only thing is though, each team would have to have a veteran playtonic dev supervising. Like, I could see Chris Sutherland developing their next original title but also going in to supervise the DKC game as well in this hypothetical.

I guess 2 teams (with shifting quantities of involved developers) are the most they could get out of that studio, especially if they want to keep that "90s-vibe" they're appreciating so much in every interview But I guess a licensed game could work very well if the funding is decent - since they're probably facing a smaller install base (in a possible Nintendo partnership, for example) and probably spent even more time on such a title.

edit: Okay here's a new statement on this, regarding the next thing in Playtonics plans:

"It’s always been our intention to make Yooka-Laylee the first act in a much bigger universe of shared stories and characters and naturally that gives us a lot of possible directions, but we’ll probably have to grow the team a bit more in order to get more games out there in different genres sooner," he says. "Ask us this question again in a few months and we’ll try and invent another way of avoiding it, or get us blind drunk!"

http://www.redbull.com/en/games/stories ... bull-games

[GeneralWalnut]

So why would they then abandon making a sequel to a platformer with their own characters, to make one with characters that somebody else owns only for a big company to make the profits.

Same reason any developers agree to make licensed games: $$$$$$$$$$$$$

Which would be going against everything playtonic stands for.

I think you are projecting a bit with "everything playtonic stands for" and would go so far to say all they "stand for" is that they wanted to get together and make the kinds of games they wanted to make. If somebody came along with a license they were interested in I wouldn't have any problem with them deciding to give it a shot.

I also wouldn't have any problem with them not doing any of that. Whatever project they end up working on next I'll probably be curious, at the very least.

[Rueckkoppler]

Of course. The best example of such case would be the Donkey Kong Country series. Foreign IP, reinvented.

[NPChilla]

That might the first step to becoming a Nintendo second-party: take on an IP and make it fresh again.
It's what put Rare on the map.

[Rueckkoppler]

I wonder which Nintendo IPs might be suitable for this...

[NPChilla]

I wonder which Nintendo IPs might be suitable for this...

Possibly one they've not done before - maybe even a revival of a dormant one, like Kid Icarus Uprising.

[Rueckkoppler]

I wonder which Nintendo IPs might be suitable for this...

Possibly one they've not done before - maybe even a revival of a dormant one, like Kid Icarus Uprising.

I guess only NES/SNES enthusiasts will know some of these lesser known IPs. I really can't think of any. Ice Climbers would be more suitable for a Sakurai game eventually.

[NPChilla]

This could be a good way of raising funds for future projects once Yooka-Laylee has finished:

A kickstarter for a second game would likely go down badly, but going to a major player with the offer of reviving an old IP or some such would go down better.