I think I might pay less than those 200$ backers for both games when I buy them on steam 😄

I get it’s for peeps that really want those games to exist, but this article writes about it like it is completely unexpected, which is bullshit.

Seems like we’re in the same boat, haha.

I also have a big backlog, and there are far more interesting options than their stuff.

Wasn’t Piranha Bytes not profitable for quite some time?

Their games certainly had a community of fans, but I don’t think those are enough to keep a whole studio afloat.

Just thinking out loud, I did not look at any numbers, but in my head what’s done them in is not producing games that feel good to play. I loved Gothic 3 and Arcania at the time, but I’d choose any other 3rd person RPG that actually has snappy controls over the more modern stuff like Elex and I feel like that’s the mainstream opinion going around.

Well, you can only win against big corpo if you shoot them with their own guns.

Or literal guns.

Thanks for explaining. I was not arguing the point that closures happen, just expanding on why it’s not easy for the studios to get back on their feet again as independents.

There will likely be non-disclosure agreements, non-competes or simply IP rights to take into consideration if we want to argue why these studios can’t continue their work. In the end it comes down to legal stuff and money. The IP rights even for unreleased products very likely are with the parent corporation. The same goes for the codebase.

So yeah. The studios are left with nothing, except a severance pay if they’re lucky.

Why even engage if you’re not interested in discussion?

Misrepresenting what I’m saying is not nice of you.

If the studios had the resources they could easily become independent. But the corporate side owns the rights to their works, so the now independent studio doesn’t have any incoming revenue.

The average employee won’t work for scraps or nothing. So it’s effectively over if big corpo cuts them off.

It’s weird. There seem to be a lot of games that offer native Linux clients but they tend to not be maintained that well. Quite a shame really.

Now your weapons break in just one swing! 😂

Why anyone would spend 1500 dollars and 300 hours on a parody is beyond me but it’s impressive work nonetheless for a solo dev.

The gameplay was fun to watch, but mostly just because the characters steps sounded like their shoes were sticky after they stepped into some spilled cola or zombie guts or whatever.