It’s once again the time of the week when we turn to what’s been happening on the business side of things, and this week, three studios have been shut down, so we’re off to a pretty glum start already, unfortunately.
A rather bizarre story involving a Polish developer’s odd sauna-based requests for potential staff members also surfaced this week, so it certainly hasn’t been an uneventful few days.
Here’s our latest gaming industry roundup!
Studio closures abound
This week saw three studios shutting down, starting with Wizard with a Gun developer Galvanic Games, which said earlier this week that the game’s sales are “not strong enough to sustain our studio”.
Alone in the Dark studio Pieces Interactive also closed its doors this week, and while no official reason was given, parent company Embracer Group admitted last month that sales for the survival horror reimagining were underwhelming.
The third studio to close down this week was Life by You developer Paradox Tectonic, which was shuttered after its game was rather unexpectedly canceled. The move angered at least one former Paradox Tectonic employee, who took to LinkedIn to share his thoughts in no uncertain terms.
While it hasn’t quite closed down, Venture to the Vile developer Cut to Bits also let most of its staff go this week, in a rather gloomy coda that belies the increasing sunshine (in the UK, at least).
Embracer Group’s report shows a seismic loss of employees
Beleaguered holding group Embracer released its annual report this week, and it was full of info regarding the company’s future direction, including its focus on projects in the pipeline and its embracing (ahem) of AI.
One figure that was notable in the report, however, was the 2023-24 fiscal year’s employee total, which numbered “over 11,100”, according to Embracer.
Compared to its 2022-23 employee count, that means that over 5,000 Embracer employees have been let go, which includes the thousands of employees divested from the company as part of the sale of Saber Interactive.
If you want to know more about what’s been going on over at Embracer Group, I’d recommend this excellent Rock Paper Shotgun writeup, which discusses the death of a possible Red Faction game and the gutting of Chorus developer Fishlabs.
EA executives laugh all the way to the bank
These numbers might paint a pretty glum picture of the gaming industry as it currently stands, but EA’s C-suite has nothing to be sad about right now (except, well, being EA’s C-suite).
This week, EA released its 2024 Annual Meeting and Proxy Statement, and in that document, the company discloses that CEO Andrew Wilson made $25.6 million in the 2023-24 fiscal year.
In total, EA’s NEOs – that stands for Named Executive Officers, in case you thought it couldn’t get any more dystopian – made over $60 million despite the fact that the studio has laid off hundreds of employees this year.
Nintendo is at it again
Nintendo is no stranger to jealously guarding its IPs from, uh, fans who want to do something to celebrate how much they love those IPs, and this week, the Japanese gaming giant was at it again.
Earlier this week, Nintendo sent a DMCA notice to the creators of a Rhythm Heaven fan tool which allows players to create their own musical remixes, despite the fact that the last official Rhythm Heaven game was released in 2015 on a now-defunct console.
The Zelda and Mario studio is renowned for its ruthlessness when it comes to shutting down fan projects, but somehow, this one feels particularly cruel. Come on, Nintendo. Give the Rhythm Heaven fans a break!
A story of saunas
We close today with a rather bizarre story about Polish developer Spectrum Studios, its creative director Jacek Piórkowski, and, uh, saunas.
Earlier this week, Piórkowski found himself in hot water (yup) over a post describing his studio’s new game, which is an ambitious-sounding mix of Life Is Strange, Final Fantasy, and Uncharted, all with added saunas.
Strangely, Piórkowski said in the post that interested applicants for his studio would need to attend “not negotiable” sauna sessions in order to understand saunas, which are a core part of the game since the player will take the role of a sauna owner.
Piórkowski found himself in further trouble when comments he made to writer Aleksandra Wolna, in which he suggested his “narrative girls” had to visit the sauna with him to come up with an “amazing script”, emerged.
Per Eurogamer, Piórkowski has since “apologized”, although his apology contains the usual evasive non-apology statements: “my choice of words was bad”, “I didn’t state my intentions clearly”, et cetera.
For her part, Wolna is sad that the sauna controversy took away from the original reason for Piórkowski’s comments, which were posted on one of Wolna’s posts lamenting a situation of non-payment involving publisher All in! Games.
That situation is still ongoing, and you can read more about it here.
That’s it for another week in the gaming industry. Join us again next week for a fresh look at what’s happening throughout the world of gaming business.
