Lionhead: cancel the game, close the studio, keep the name
Microsoft cancelled Fable Legends and closed Lionhead Studios
The market's verdict: +2.2% on MSFT in the week after.
What actually happened
On March 7, 2016, Microsoft announced it was cancelling Fable Legends, a free-to-play game then in open beta, and proposed closing Lionhead Studios, the British developer behind the Fable series, after nearly twenty years. Open beta players lost access when the servers shut down on April 13, and everyone who had bought in-game gold got a refund, which was decent of a process that had just torched a reported $75 million budget. Microsoft kept the Fable intellectual property. The studio formally closed on April 29, 2016. The IP then sat in a drawer for years, presumably next to the receipts.
This one is officially acknowledged.
They did it more than once
Close the studio, keep the IP. Eight years apart, same envelope.
Links
↳ caused by Lionhead closure / Fable Legends cancellation
Timeline
- Mar 7, 2016 Stood by it Microsoft stood by it.