According to a report from Kotaku UK, more than one buyer expressed interest in saving the now-defunct Lionhead Studios, the creators behind Black & White and the Fable series. However, buyers allegedly backed out after Microsoft refused to sell the rights to Fable.
“We can confirm that after much consideration over the six week consultation period with Lionhead employees, we have reached the decision to close Lionhead Studios,” said a Microsoft rep in a PR statement to Eurogamer. “We have nothing but heart-felt thanks for the team at Lionhead for their significant contributions to Xbox and the games industry."
While specific publishers couldn’t be confirmed, the report from Kotaku UK states that “potential buyers included some of the biggest names in video game publishing.” Letters of intent were filed with offers ranging “into the hundreds of millions.” But without the rights to Fable, deals allegedly fell through.
"90% of the people interested just walked away at that point," said the source.
There’s little point in purchasing Lionhead without owning the Fables IP. In order for the new owner to publish new Fable games or even complete Fable Legends , a licensing agreement would have to be reached with Microsoft, cutting into any future profits. Naturally, this isn’t an attractive prospect to potential buyers.
Might Lionhead have been saved had Microsoft let Fable go? Unfortunately, we’ll never know. Fable Legends seemed close to releasing an open beta, judging by this confident statement from Lionhead Studios last December:
"Fable Legends is coming together well and it’s a lot of fun. But we think that we can make it even better. So we’ve decided to extend our closed beta to continue to listen to feedback from our players and add features and polish that will make a real difference. This means Fable Legends won’t release into open beta this holiday as previously announced.”
In a statement to PC Gamer, a Microsoft rep stated only, “we have ceased development on Fable Legends, and are in discussions with employees at Lionhead about our proposed closure of the studio as well.”
