10 Beloved Video Game Studios That Publishers RUINED

9. High Moon Studios

Transformers Fall of Cybertron
High Moon

One of the many casualties of Activision's cutthroat approach to video game development, High Moon studios was effectively killed in 2013 when the publisher laid off 40 of its employees. Instead of leading development on its own games, the studio would be reassigned to lend support to Call of Duty and Destiny, a sad indictment of Activision's greed.

High Moon's Transformers games weren't incredible, but they were great. Starting first with War for Cybertron, the studio carved out a niche with one of the best developed license titles of the decade, bringing the Transformers back to their eighties roots by divesting from Michael Bay's films, which were still dominant in 2010.

It was everything that fans wanted and more, and it only improved with the sequel. Fall of Cybertron introduced the Dinobots, and chronicled the cyber-planet's dying days. It also included an enjoyable multiplayer mode, co-op survival, and pretty much every fan's favourite Transformer. The game even ended with the Transformers heading to Earth, but High Moon would never get the chance to finish that story, with 2013's Deadpool their final release.

It's a familiar story by now; Activision-owned studio produces several great games, before being restructured and sent to do nothing except support Call of Duty. Awful, awful stuff.

[Ewan Paterson]

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.

Contributor

Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked full time as a content producer at WhatCulture for nine years. In that time he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple channels, specialising in subjects such as gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 most listened to gaming podcast in the UK that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, covered breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.