Tokyo Game Actionand 3D Realms (Duke Nukem) also shut down.

This doesn't say much if you can't compare it with last generations.

- dupe.

I'll look for Tokyo Game Action, thanks. 3D Realms didn't shut down, they just laid off the DNF team (at least that was the official statement).

True... I think mergers and buyouts have been common for a long time, with publishers like EA buying a lot of smaller publishers and developers.

I doubt the layoffs and studio closings were as common during the previous gen though... maybe one day we can make a comparison if someone gathers the data.

Nice thread NJ5! Interesting subject, the worst news concerning developers this gen was Free Radical being bought by Crytek imo.

Uhu, I am reading a magazine called retrogamer a magazine that talks about games of the 80's-90's.  Every month their is ton of news in about companies who got bankrupt during those years.  I shall ask it on their forum.

Yeah, this doesn't even tell the story of how much worse this gen is from previous gens. If you started adding the red ink at the major pubs (EA, Take-2, THQ all bleeding quarter-in and quarter-out... Not to mention Sony and often Microsoft), the shake-ups in Take-2's management... Will Wright leaving Maxis, even Nintendo having trouble with Retro...

Developers get eaten up and chewed out every single year, but right now 3 of the 5 big western pubs and 2 of the 3 console makers are having troubles. Basically the companies who were gobbling up developers and becoming known as gaming giants are now in danger of collapse themselves.

Added EA's Maxis studio layoffs.

Further poof that the industry couldn't continue in the direction it's taking.

shouldn't Ensemble studios (Halo War devs), and ACES (Flight Simulator) be added?