Today, Square Enix has announced that it will cease to use the recently acquired Eidos brand for publishing. In the United States, all current and future publishing, marketing and distribution responsibilities have officially been transferred to Square Enix America. For European territories, a new corporate entity will be created, Square Enix Europe. Similarly to the United States, this entity will take over all duties of Eidos in Europe, and will function as Square Enix’ new European division.
While the Eidos brand will no longer be associated with published games, the name will be maintained for any existing Eidos development studios. Franchises that have been historically published under the Eidos logo include Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Hitman and the Thief series.
Eidos Interactive was officialy taken over in April 2009 by Square Enix, which wanted to use Eidos’ franchises and resources to further establish Square Enix’ position outside Japan. The move to drop the Eidos brand makes sense for that reason, as Square Enix would be able to gain more exposure as a brand by publishing more ‘western’ video games, rather than Japanese games only. However, Game Industry website Kotaku reported in late April, that Square Enix wanted to keep the publisher brand intact as Eidos spent around two decades to develop its own brand identity. It is currently unclear what caused Square Enix to reverse this decision.
While Square Enix has stated that some jobs will be directly affected by the moves, both in Europe and the United States, it seems unlikely at this point in time that the move will have important consequences for both the employees of Square Enix or consumers, other than the change in name for the publishing entity.