Until Dawn devs Supermassive announce layoffs, with 150 jobs reportedly at risk (www.rockpapershotgun.com)

submitted 6 months ago by simple@lemm.ee to c/games@lemmy.world

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[-] echo64@lemmy.world 15 points 6 months ago

Supermassive doing layoffs is somewhat surprising. Not owned by a giant megacorp looking for short-term shareholder value increases. Their games are generally via the traditional publisher route, so budgets agreed in advance and continued based on milestones. Plus the founders left last month. Don't have good answers for their layoffs.

[-] ampersandrew@kbin.social 9 points 6 months ago

So many businesses operate on debt and investments. "If you're going to gamble, do it with somebody else's money." A lot of opportunities to acquire funding for developing video games have just dried up.

[-] echo64@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

Yeah, but supermassive don't seem to go that way, which is why I was pointing out the publisher thing.

[-] ampersandrew@kbin.social 2 points 6 months ago

The publishers acquire funding this same way. Sony, 2K, and Bandai Namco have all operated as the publishers for their games, and they're all publicly traded companies. They pay the upfront cost for development that both partners in that deal wish to make a return on, and right now, the publishers or other investors (which may still exist regardless of a publisher deal) are scared of throwing money at lots of game pitches these days.

[-] echo64@lemmy.world -1 points 6 months ago

Public companies don't take private investment without issuing new shares. Which is not a common thing.

If you think publicly traded companies are taking investment like privately traded companies then I think you are likely somewhat uninformed.

[-] ampersandrew@kbin.social 1 points 6 months ago

What I said was that the developer may have other investors in the studio or the project even if they have a publisher. Immortals of Aveum, for instance, was published by EA but largely funded by venture capital.

[-] simple@lemm.ee 2 points 6 months ago

It's not too surprising, their recent games haven't been doing too well from what I can see.

[-] Computerchairgeneral@kbin.social 3 points 6 months ago

It's a shame for everyone involved, but at the same time it doesn't feel that surprising. It doesn't feel like their games after Until Dawn reached the same level of success. I remember the Dark Pictures Anthology getting mixed reviews as it went on and I don't really remember much about the Quarry's reception except the hype around it being the next Until Dawn.