Krafton acquired Tango Gameworks to “maintain” its legacy rather than cash-in

Krafton’s acquisition of Hi-Fi Rush studio Tango Gameworks was motivated by the desire to maintain its legacy, rather than actually make money.

Krafton boss Changhan ‘CH’ Kim spoke to Game Developer about the “last minute deal” after the studio was closed by Microsoft alongside Arkane Austin and Alpha Dog Games back in May.

Tango was acquired by Krafton last month, although only 50 out of the original 100 staff will transfer over.

“We wanted to maintain their legacy,” said Kim. “Although they didn’t have a big success in their games, we saw many creatives worth pursuing. That’s why we wanted to work with that organization.”

Kim also confirmed Krafton has acquired the IP rights to Hi-Fi Rush, because “fans really want to see sequels”, but the deal does not include The Evil Within or Ghostwire Tokyo.

“If we were to acquire all IPs, I think it’s going to complicate the deal too much. Krafton is a pretty big company, but Microsoft is very complicated,” he said. “We wanted to help the team continue developing their games, but especially Hi-Fi Rush. When I think about our fans, I think what they really care about is Hi-Fi Rush sequels.”

Kim also discussed the transfer of staff and how the studio will now rescale.

“I think a minimum of 100 people [is what we’re aiming for]. We have to scale it to around that size. That’s a minimum requirement to continue developing the franchise. Or perhaps they’ll need a bigger team. We haven’t decided on that, but we don’t plan to reduce the size of the team at all,” said Kim. “They have to work on new projects as well, so there is a great possibility the team will scale up even further.”

However, the CEO doesn’t actually expect a Hi-Fi Rush sequel to make money.

“We can’t acquire Tango Gameworks based on their financials or their numbers, right? We don’t think Hi-Fi Rush 2 is going to make us money, to be frank,” he said. “But it’s part of our attempt. We have to keep trying [to develop games] in the spirit of challenge-taking.

“Tango Gameworks are creative. They want to try something new, and we want to do more of that. [Making] video games is really a hit or miss industry, and that is risk taking. But having more project lineups is actually a way to mitigate risk, because one of them might work out.”

As such, Kim believes game corporations shouldn’t unrealistically aspire to constant hits, but should “break even” while nurturing creativity.

“The big hit shouldn’t be your goal,” said Kim. “If you think about it that way, Hi-Fi Rush might have brought in a little bit of a minus in terms of the financials, but it’s a team that should be encouraged to create something new and continue their journey. We want to have more teams like that under our umbrella.”

It seems, then, a sequel for Hi-Fi Rush is on the cards for Krafton, which is good news for fans of the game.

Even Tango Gameworks founder (and Resident Evil creator) Shinji Mikami thought the studio would be safe from closure “as long as they continued to make Hi-Fi Rush games.”