Word on the street is that Sony is in talks to buy Kadokawa, which you might know as the main shareholder of Dark Souls and Elden Ring studio FromSoftware, but which also owns other video game companies like Spike Chunsoft, Acquire, Gotcha Gotcha Games, and FromNetworks, a substantial chunk of the manga industry, a publishing arm that is responsible for many of Japan’s still-remaining gaming magazines (including Famitsu), and anime studios like Doga Kobo ENGI, Studio KADAN, and Raging Bull. The list goes on. Hoovering up the Japanese mega-conglomerate is definitely an idea, but here’s another: Don’t!
Mergers and acquisitions haven’t been so great for the people who make games in recent times – both in the increasingly un-hallowed halls of Sony’s rivals and specifically at Sony. This year alone, it laid off 900 people – or eight percent of its workforce – across beloved, successful studios like Insomniac, Naughty Dog, and Guerrilla. Bungie, a relatively recent addition to Sony’s portfolio, was also forced to lay off 220 people and beam up into the Sony mothership to churn out live service games. Most recently, Sony shut down Concord developer Firewalk Studios, another recent acquisition, after its costly debut game failed to gain immediate traction.
Sony’s reputation in the anime and manga space has also taken some recent hits. The Japanese giant owns Funimation, which acquired near-ubiquitous anime streaming service Crunchyroll in 2021, after which Funimation shut down its own streaming service, wiping users’ digital libraries and subjecting them to significant price hikes. Crunchyroll management has also recently come under fire for allegedly tampering with a voice actor’s private mail, causing the actor, David Wald, to drop his roles with the company. Other actors have accused Crunchyroll of anti-union behavior.
What if we didn’t feed the aforementioned Kadokawa subsidiaries into the mashing maw of that infernal machine? What if, instead, we broke up both Sony and Kadokawa? Wouldn’t that be fun? More fun, perhaps, than even a sequel to Bloodborne? Alas, this deal will probably sail through without issue, but I can dream.
