"You can create a Golden Joystick nominated Indie game that has 9/10 on IGN and Steam reviews, wins a BAFTA for best British Game, is profitable, and the megacorps will still shut you down 💔"
The tweets rightly point out that Zelnick, who received more than double his standard financial compensation last year, going from $16 million to $42 million, could have quite literally kept both studios afloat with the money he earned from that year alone.
"The Rotterdam-based (The Netherlands) indie games publisher/developer SOEDESCO and the Berlin-based (Germany) indie games developer FreetimeStudio, are today very happy and excited to announce that their upcoming farm-life RPG “Garden Witch Life”, is coming to PC (via Steam) and consoles (PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X//S, Xbox One, and the Nintendo Switch) this year (Q4 2024)." - Jonas Ek, TGG.
"The Brisbane-based (Australia) indie games developer developer 5 Lives Studios today announced with great joy and thrill that their traveling merchant adventure “Cozy Caravan”, is now available for PC via Steam Early Access." - Jonas Ek, TGG.
10 Seconds to Win! is a straightforward platforming game with an addictive spin - every level must be completed in 10 seconds.
Zelnick is such a two faced pos he has no idea and would probably hold a controller upside down
If they were so commercially viable then why would a publisher close them? That makes no sense.
Tom Bass should be fired as well
The gaming industry isn’t run by gamers. It’s run by selfish ignorant suits
sucks but business is business. its not just about being profitable. that's def the goal, but the goal is also to remain profitable. and if the forecasts suggest that the studios will cost more than the profits they will make into the future vs operating costs etc.... you're in a delicate spot. indie shops still cost money to run and the reliability of profits vs operating costs vs future sales are things we as the public just aren't privy to. The last studio I worked at made Titanic's visual effects, work, does 90% of the visual effects in marvel movies/shows, won tons of BAFTAs, CLIOs, Academy Awards and so on and still filed bankruptcy... twice. That's why I don't work there now. despite the successes, the forecasts weren't good.
it still sucks and I feel like they prob didn't need to do this but at the same time, we don't know their reasoning. I don't think corps are inherently evil, they just prioritize money over anything else - they may not care about ppl, but I don't think they are intentionally trying to screw ppl's lives up.. so if they are cutting costs, then they see something as a potential problem, and we as the public don't see the full story - of which there are always two sides.