IO Interactive Dropped From Square-Enix

Square-Enix put out the amazing Hitman (2016) last year, I love that game and it’s disappointing to hear that Square-Enix is dropping IO and probably will end up keeping IO’s creations:

To maximize player satisfaction as well as market potential going forward, we are focusing our resources and energies on key franchises and studios. As a result, the Company has regrettably decided to withdraw from the business of IO INTERACTIVE A/S, a wholly?owned subsidiary and a Danish corporation, as of March 31, 2017. This decision has resulted in booking of the extraordinary loss amounting to 4,898 million yen, including disposition of the content production account related to the business and impairment loss of intangible assets, in the financial results for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2017.

As a result of this the Company started discussions with potential new investors and is currently in negotiations to secure this investment. Whilst there can be no guarantees that the negotiations will be concluded successfully, they are being explored since this is in the best interests of our shareholders, the studio and the industry as a whole.

That loss is almost 43 million in US dollars. To paraphrase Moe Szyslak, you don’t leave the lid off of a pickle-jar like IO Interactive.


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One response to “IO Interactive Dropped From Square-Enix”

  1. […] Square-Enix recently decided to drop IO Interactive from their portfolio of development studios, which left IO’s series of Hitman (and other games) up in the air. Good news. IO is now the company that owns themselves  and also owns the Hitman “Intellectual Property” according to the CEO’s statement. I have a few questions as to who owns the previous games and the right to publish those, and what this means for the remaining staff at IO after they recently had to lay off some, but I’ll be looking forward to playing the next elusive target. […]

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