Toys for Bob, which has been developing games for 35 years, developing Skylanders, Spyro, and Crash Bandicoot, announced that it is leaving Activision and going indie.
Toys for Bob’s CCO Paul Yan and co-studio head Every Rodato posted an article titled ‘WE’RE GOING INDIE!’ on the official website on February 29th local time. As the title suggests, the announcement states that Toys for Bob will leave Activision and become an independent game development studio.
Representatives of the two studios described their time under Activision, saying that they pioneered a new IP called Skylanders and that the new Spyro and Crash Bandicoot games received positive reviews, taking the company to a higher level. Afterwards, the company said it would start anew as a small, independent company capable of making agile decisions for the studio and future games.
Additionally, Toys for Bob is leaving Activision, but is said to be exploring a possible partnership with Microsoft. He also said that although an announcement is still a long way off in the early stages, he is excited to be able to create a new story, characters, and gameplay experience with the new project. However, the separate sale amount was not disclosed.
Toys for Bob left the company about four months after Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard was finalized. Toys for Bob’s departure is believed to be due to the ongoing restructuring of the studio and the standardization of development among studios under Activision.
Last January, Microsoft listed 1,900 employees of its gaming division, including Activision Blizzard, for layoffs. Toys for Bob, which was developing a relatively low-profit game, could feel pressure.
A free development environment was not guaranteed under Activision. Activision has been pushing a number of its affiliated studios into development work to develop its core franchise, Call of Duty. In particular, Toys for Bob, which was the only company that had not participated so far, will participate in Call of Duty development starting in 2021. This means that Toys for Bob has developed a completely different type of game than the ones that have shown its strengths so far.
Toys for Bob, founded in 1989, received a lot of attention with its first product, the Star Control series, released on the market in 1990. In particular, Star Control 2, which contains free exploration of space and strategy elements combined with various genres, is a title that has received favorable reviews and has been listed numerous times on the list of the best games of the 20th century selected by various media outlets.
Afterwards, Toys for Bob, a collaboration with Crystal Dynamics, was acquired by Activision in 2005 and achieved great box office success with Skylanders, a spin-off of the Spyro franchise. Skylanders, which was later released as a separate franchise, also achieved high sales. Afterwards, Toys for Bob focused on the Skylanders series and developed a remake of Spyro’s Trilogy, a port of the Crash Bandicoot Trilogy, and a new series game, Crash Bandicoot 4. Toys for Bob received high praise for all three works despite not being the original creator of either franchise.
Meanwhile, on this day, in addition to Toys for Bob, there was also a report that Saber was being sold by Embracer. Saber was also acquired by Embracer during a period of large-scale mergers and acquisitions. In addition, there has been a loss of employees due to the recent restructuring of the parent company.
