Fallout 3 distributer Red Ant squished

Mike Bantick
Thursday, 22 January 2009 03:23

Opinion and Analysis

Video games are big business, in Australia alone, the interactive entertainment industry spins out more than twice the cash than the movie box office.  But still there are victims, the latest one?  Konami, Capcom (Resident Evil 5), Midway and Fallout 3 creator, Bethesda’s distributer Red Ant.

It is pretty obvious that the interactive entertainment industry remains buoyant.

Yet these are tough economic times, and recent headlines have shown that the games industry is not completely immune from revenue woes, developer Pandemic being released by Electronic Arts being the most recent example.

Distributer Red-Ant is a small operation but looks after some big AAA gaming IP.  Bethesda’s Fallout 3 for example, along with Konami, Midway, Deep Silver, SouthPeak and creators of the upcoming Resident Evil 5 and Street Fighter 4, Capcom.

The independent distributer has been rumoured of late to be having issues, and according to a report on arnnet.com.au , Deloitte Touche has now been appointed receiver to the company.

Co-Receiver, David Lombe pointed the finger at the decline in the Australian dollar as a significant contributing factor;  “Red Ant was hedging on the Euro, which amounted to a huge currency loss when the Australian dollar lost value,” Lombe said.

With Resident Evil 5 about to hit Australian shores, Capcom released a statement for the consumption of RE fans:

Certain recent news reports have speculated that owing to the financial status of Red Ant, Capcom’s distributor in Australia, that the release dates of Capcom’s forthcoming titles in this territory may be delayed. Capcom would like to state it does not expect any such delays and to reconfirm the following release dates: Street Fighter IV (PS3&360) – February 20th, Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop (Nintendo Wii) – February 27th, Resident Evil 5 (PS3 & 360) – March 13th. Future titles such as MotoGP (Nintendo Will) and Neopets Puzzle Adventure (DS, Wii & PC) are all scheduled to release in line with other PAL territories.

Rival software publisher and distributor Manaccom managing director Ian Mackay has expressed interest in picking up the Red-Ant stable of game publishers.

We were involved with games a number of years ago, but felt the market had become very crowded,” he said. “We see this as an opportunity to become involved again – there are not many independent distributors in Australia.”