After putting forward his company’s likely takeover of Eidos, Square Enix president Yoichi Wada said “Eidos’s products are highly complementary to our business and will accelerate our aggressive expansion into Western markets.” The Eidos name is recognisable in the West, primarily in Europe because of Championship Manager – but highly complementary? Eidos and Square Enix are an odd fit, with the former’s traditional Western series like Tomb Raider, Thief, and Deus Ex sitting awkwardly next to Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, two Square Enix series that epitomise Japanese RPGs. It’s not the games that are the oddest fit, however; the tarnished reputation of a creaky, former giant like Eidos does not marry well with Square Enix’s clean, presentable outlook. This is something akin to Beauty and the Beast, but maybe without the happy ending.

Ten years ago the two companies were far better matched. Whilst Square Enix revelled in its ascent to global prominence via the success of Final Fantasy VII, Eidos’s share price had risen a staggering 400 times between 1993 and 1999. This was thanks to the exponential success of two key intellectual properties, Tomb Raider and Championship Manager.

Released in 1996, Tomb Raider sold over 7 million copies on the PlayStation alone, its sequel going on to sell over 8 million – only the first two Gran Turismo games and a certain Final Fantasy game sold better. That unexpected success spawned the Tomb Raider film five years later. Despite being a strong contender for the worst film ever made, rightly critically slammed from here to high heaven, Tomb Raider somehow grossed $300m worldwide, and remains the most successful video game film adaption to date.

As for Championship Manager, the Sports Interactive-developed soccer management sims topped the European PC charts throughout the 1990s, and produced huge sales relative to the minuscule development and publishing costs. At the close of the century, this once tiny company that used to create video compression software were now a huge force in the world’s fastest growing industry. Where did it all go wrong?

Answer: everywhere. Primarily, there was a failure to innovate the Tomb Raider series. Released in 2000, Tomb Raider Chronicles lacked originality and polish, despite an improved graphical engine. GameSpot famously described it as feeling five years old, and coupled with a mushrooming public intolerance for how Eidos were marketing their buxom lead with saucy photos of real-life Laras, this damning reception led to sales that dwindled heavily. Three years later, Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness barely registered on the sales charts, and by 2005 Eidos had stagnated what was an unstoppable global phenomenon just six years earlier.