Mass Obituary: Several Major Game Studios Closed In The Past Year

With the very recent closure of Telltale Games, we decided it was important to also talk about other studios that have recently closed. These studios deserve more than a bullet list with a couple of their games and a date of death. They deserve to be honored in an obituary, if nothing else. As we see a constant growth for the game industry, we have to also mourn and learn from those that have fallen in its wake. No industry is unscarred. This is no different. These are ten companies that deserve to be talked about.

Visceral Games

Let’s start off with one that hurts my inner Star Wars fan, Visceral Games. Known for being the makers of the Dead Space series, Visceral started at EA under the name “EA Redwood Shores” before having the name changed to something more fitting. Battlefield Hardline, Dante’s Inferno, and Dead Space checker their credits. “Visceral” indeed was the theme for the majority of their games.

And then, EA acquired the Star Wars deal. EA would handle games for the Star Wars franchise and Visceral was set to make a narrative-driven game set in the galaxy far, far away. With famous narrative designer Amy Henning at the helm, this game (known as RagTag) was rumored to be shaping up pretty well.

On October 17, 2017, EA shut down Visceral and the RagTag game was permanently stalled. Visceral was a nineteen year old studio at its demise, but made some amazing games in its time.

Motiga

Motiga was an indie game studio that wasn’t known for a large slew of titles like some of the game studios on this list. But they do deserve some respect for being the developers of the very unique and short-lived Gigantic.

Gigantic was a “hero shooter” type of game, similar to games like Overwatch and Team Fortress. It utilized a little more environment to defeat the enemies though. The game was in development since 2012, but late 2016, the studio was acquired by Perfect World under the phrasing of “partnership”. After only thirteen months under the “partnership” with Perfect World, on November 3, 2017 they were shuttered by corporate due to lack of profitability. Over 50 people lost their jobs at the closure and Gigantic was no longer supported by the developer.

Runic Games

Founded by the co-founders of Blizzard North, known for the Diablo series, and several members of Flagship Studios (Mythos and Hellgate London), Runic Games worked on rogue-like games that called upon the same kind of style or tone of their past work. Torchlight and its sequel were highly rated for its creative ways to stand out from similar games, especially since 2009 (the same year Torchlight came out) is when Diablo 3 launched from Blizzard.

Perfect World Entertainment published the Torchlight series, but Runic self-published Hob, a visually stunning action-adventure game, on September 26, 2017. Unfortunately, the company locked the doors up on November 27 of the same year.

Gazillion Entertainment

In a case of putting all their eggs in a single basket, Gazillion Entertainment set their sights on a single property: Marvel. Their game, Marvel Heroes, was a free-to-play action role playing game game that felt similar to Activision’s Marvel Ultimate Alliance. The game changed its name multiple times over the years to reflect the times, including titles such as Marvel Heroes 2015, Marvel Heroes 2016, and Marvel Heroes Omega.

While Disney pulled their partnership with Gazillion on November 15, 2017, the studio officially was closed for business on November 27, nearly two weeks later, after sending its employees home for unpaid leave during that time. They no longer had the funding to even pay “paid time off” in the end for the staff, according to reports.

Boss Key Productions

Cliff “CliffyB” Bleszinski and Arjan Brussee left Epic Games to start a new company called Boss Key, taking what they learned being developers for many years prior to make two well-known games.

Lawbreakers, known for being a direct take on popular arena shooter Overwatch, gained pretty positive reviews when it released in August 2017, but didn’t bring in the kind of money that could sustain the company. In turn, they decided to take their old employer Epic Games (Developers of Fortnite Battle Royale) head-on with a battle royale game of their own, Radical Heights.

Radical Heights joined the likes of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, H1Z1, and (of course) Fortnite, taking a 1980s feel to the style and aesthetics. As the unique take, it had that going for it, but critics considered it a “cash in” on the new big genre and it was critically panned. After the game was only in Early Access for a single month, Boss Key Productions closed up shop ion May 14, 2018.

Wargaming Seattle

Sometimes studios just get the short end of the stick during a restructuring of corporate entities. Wargaming Seattle was, unfortunately, just a victim of circumstance. A the developers of “Dungeon Siege” and “Supreme Commander”, the Seattle office was honestly surprised at the sudden closure. Founded in 1998 under the name “Gas Powered Games” by Chris Taylor, Wargaming acquired and renamed them in 2013.

Unfortunately for the 150 employees at Wargaming Seattle, they were all called into an “all-hands” meeting and let go, unceremoniously. The company disbanded on May 24, 2018.

Carbine Studios

In September 2018, there were three rapid-fire closures of well-known studios. The first of the three was Carbine Studios. Founded by seventeen former developers for Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, Carbine was acquired by NCSoft in 2007. In 2011, WildStar was unveiled, which took heavy inspiration from their WoW past and presented a cartoony world with plenty of creatures and races to deal with and be. The MMORPG launched in June 2014 and went full free-to-play in 2015, utilizing similar motives as other MMO games.

On September 6, 20187, NCSoft announced the “immediate closure” of Carbine. Since this is so fresh, WildStar is in the process of “winding down” and is set to completely end on November 28, 2018. No reasoning has been given for the closure, but it’s likely finance-driven.

Capcom Vancouver

The developers of the Dead Rising series, Capcom Vancouver, was the second developer demise in September. Founded as Blue Castle Games in 2005, they started out making multiple baseball video games in their time, including The Bigs. After the initial outing of Dead Rising, Capcom gave the series to Blue Castle for the sequel. After the success of that game, Blue Castle was acquired and renamed as Capcom Vancouver, where they worked on Dead Rising 3 and 4, as well as Puzzle Fighter for mobile platforms.

In February 2018, Capcom laid off around 30% of the Vancouver staff, but kept the rest on to support their titles. On September 18, 2018, Capcom let go majority of the remaining staff, with some left on through January 2019 to finish up specific projects and games.

Telltale Games

They say bad things come in threes. For the third death in September, Telltale Games hit as one of the hardest in the past year for many fans. After a failed financing round, the license-centric company saw a swift end.

There’s not much we can say more than our eulogy already did. The surprise “majority studio closure” was on September 21, 2018, leaving 250 people without jobs. Out of the remainder 25 left, they were meant to help finish up some projects before the final collapse, but even they were reportedly let go on October 4, 2018. It is unclear if some of the unfinished projects, like The Walking Dead: The Final Chapter, will ever be finished, but it has been stated that The Wolf Among Us Season 2 and Stranger Things have both been laid to rest.

It’s been a rough past year for game developers. On the upside, it can only go up from here. We just wanted to make sure that these developers get a real proper send off as opposed to just being a name on a tombstone. These developers all have pasts and their lives in the industry were cut short by different, heartbreaking reasons. Our condolences go out to every developer on this list, as well as anyone affected by these layoffs and closures.