Industry Volition Games shut down; Gearbox Publishing hit with layoffs

[Raine]

Article:

Gearbox and Embracer

Gearbox is a subsidiary of Embracer, which said at the start of the summer it would cut jobs after spending so much money to acquire various studios and properties. The layoffs (and by extension, the projects cancelled at affected studios) have been made in response to a reported $2 billion deal with Savvy Games that collapsed back in May.

At the start of August, Embracer shut down Danish studio Campfire Cabal, and earlier today announced the closure of Volition.

In 2015, Gearbox began to publish games from third-party studios, with its debut title being the 2016 remaster of People Can Fly's Bulletstorm. Recent releases include Gunfire Games' Remnant II from July and Heart Machine's Hyper Light Breaker for 2024.

Source: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/report-embracer-has-made-layoffs-at-gearbox-publishing

Aren't mass consolidations great, though?! Lots of enthusiast press people eating shovels full of crow recently.

Also: Embracer Group, AKA THQ Nordic, have still never apologized for doing that AMA on 8Chan nor fired the people that enabled it. Extra fuck those guys.

 

[Mark]

Article:

Gearbox and Embracer

Gearbox is a subsidiary of Embracer, which said at the start of the summer it would cut jobs after spending so much money to acquire various studios and properties. The layoffs (and by extension, the projects cancelled at affected studios) have been made in response to a reported $2 billion deal with Savvy Games that collapsed back in May.

At the start of August, Embracer shut down Danish studio Campfire Cabal, and earlier today announced the closure of Volition.

In 2015, Gearbox began to publish games from third-party studios, with its debut title being the 2016 remaster of People Can Fly's Bulletstorm. Recent releases include Gunfire Games' Remnant II from July and Heart Machine's Hyper Light Breaker for 2024.

Source: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/report-embracer-has-made-layoffs-at-gearbox-publishing

Aren't mass consolidations great, though?! Lots of enthusiast press people eating shovels full of crow recently.

Also: Embracer Group, AKA THQ Nordic, have still never apologized for doing that AMA on 8Chan nor fired the people that enabled it. Extra fuck those guys.

I’m disappointed with what I’ve heard about the new Saints, I was hoping for something beautifully offensive and crude. Volition HAD a good thing going with that franchise until about halfway through the third installment, so their closure now really isn’t surprising. The concerning thing to me is constantly seeing studios get gobbled up in acquisitions and downsizing… it paints a picture that we’re a few years away from having a handful of companies controlling all of the creative output in gaming, resulting in a lot of clones and a lack of unique IP.

 

[Crystal]

I hope someone picks up Saints Row and runs with it, I love the first four games so much, haven't had a chance to pick up the newest one, but reviews are mixed. Here's hoping someone will take it and make a true return to form for the game.

 

[Mark]

I hope someone picks up Saints Row and runs with it, I love the first four games so much, haven't had a chance to pick up the newest one, but reviews are mixed. Here's hoping someone will take it and make a true return to form for the game.

Yeah, they need the Dead Island 2 treatment. That franchise spent so much time shelved, but someone came along and gave it just the right love it needed.

 

[Crystal]

Yeah, they need the Dead Island 2 treatment. That franchise spent so much time shelved, but someone came along and gave it just the right love it needed.

100% agreed, we need Saints Row The Third and Saints Row IV vibes, not Saints Row GTA Clone vibes. If someone can bring that back, they've got a winner!

 

[Mark]

100% agreed, we need Saints Row The Third and Saints Row IV vibes, not Saints Row GTA Clone vibes. If someone can bring that back, they've got a winner!

See, midway through 3 and most of 4 lost me. It was too ridiculous, and in the same environment the game just felt… copied and pasted. In their defense, my standards were just set too high. I was anticipating a larger city, or a DC-type environment since the protagonist became president. Staying in Steelport just seemed like a missed opportunity to me from the start, and then filling Steelport with jumps and aliens just felt lazy.

 

[Crystal]

See, midway through 3 and most of 4 lost me. It was too ridiculous, and in the same environment the game just felt… copied and pasted. In their defense, my standards were just set too high. I was anticipating a larger city, or a DC-type environment since the protagonist became president. Staying in Steelport just seemed like a missed opportunity to me from the start, and then filling Steelport with jumps and aliens just felt lazy.

That's a fair criticism, they easily could have gone larger to cope with the president storyline. I like the outlandishness of it, it doesn't take itself seriously, which for me works well. Room for improvement, of course, but that over the top aspect was needed.

 

[Mark]

That's a fair criticism, they easily could have gone larger to cope with the president storyline. I like the outlandishness of it, it doesn't take itself seriously, which for me works well. Room for improvement, of course, but that over the top aspect was needed.

It’s not like GTA in the sense that they emphasize making every blade of grass visible… so there’s really no excuse for how they executed the fourth one, which is the one I have the most issue with. They could have, at minimum, expanded on Steelport to encompass the surrounding area if they wanted to stay there for whatever plot point they were aiming for. It’s not like they needed the room for grass or clouds or whatever. All the vertical shit they added could have easily been another island or another city.

 

[Crystal]

It’s not like GTA in the sense that they emphasize making every blade of grass visible… so there’s really no excuse for how they executed the fourth one, which is the one I have the most issue with. They could have, at minimum, expanded on Steelport to encompass the surrounding area if they wanted to stay there for whatever plot point they were aiming for. It’s not like they needed the room for grass or clouds or whatever. All the vertical shit they added could have easily been another island or another city.

That's true, and it would have been nice to see more than just Steelport and one brief glimpse of Washington.

 

[Raine]

I’m disappointed with what I’ve heard about the new Saints, I was hoping for something beautifully offensive and crude. Volition HAD a good thing going with that franchise until about halfway through the third installment, so their closure now really isn’t surprising.

Unfortunately. But the worst part is twofold. First, most of the bad choices that wind up in games are down to pressure from the publisher to chase trends, or keep things on a shoestring budget, or get them out in a very specific release window.

The other is that Embracer Group is run by literal buffoons. They sank 100 Million Dollars, development and marketing, into this reboot/reimagining. That's absolute insanity and Volition had no say in it, so them falling on the sword is even worse.

The concerning thing to me is constantly seeing studios get gobbled up in acquisitions and downsizing… it paints a picture that we’re a few years away from having a handful of companies controlling all of the creative output in gaming, resulting in a lot of clones and a lack of unique IP.

That's essentially what Embracer Group, Tencent, etc., have paved the way for, yes. See also Microsoft trying to buy Activision on top of inXile, Ninja Theory, Bethesda. Or Sony buying Bungie.

Gaming is a little more resilient since the names and studios don't really mean anything, it's the people that make them that do. But, certainly, we are not super far from an even larger Konami situation - wherein a defunct company owns a major, decades-old franchise and effectively buries it forever.

I hope someone picks up Saints Row and runs with it, I love the first four games so much, haven't had a chance to pick up the newest one, but reviews are mixed. Here's hoping someone will take it and make a true return to form for the game.

Unfortunately, they were quick to reassure people that Saints Row and Red Faction will continue.



Completely rubs me the wrong way even if the social media manager meant well by the first part.

 

[Fool's Requiem]

I wanna know who's genius idea it was to take the Saints Row series back to a more serious vibe like the first game when 2-4 were popular because they were dumb fun games that didn't take themselves seriously?

 

[Crystal]

...well ok, hopefully this new studio does alright with Saints Row, but yeah, that's a really odd way of making that announcement.

I wanna know who's genius idea it was to take the Saints Row series back to a more serious vibe like the first game when 2-4 were popular because they were dumb fun games that didn't take themselves seriously?

THIS! SO MUCH THIS!!

 

[Raine]

...well ok, hopefully this new studio does alright with Saints Row, but yeah, that's a really odd way of making that announcement.

It... got worse when I tried to figure out who Plaion is?

So, Plaion is just the new(-ish) name for Koch Media. Koch Media runs Deepsilver, and within it are Warhorse Studios (racist studio behind Kingdom Come: Deliverance) and Milestone (WRC/MotoGP/Ride).

So, uh. Not actually sure what the Shiit even means beyond "we still own the IP."

 

[Crystal]

It... got worse when I tried to figure out who Plaion is?

So, Plaion is just the new(-ish) name for Koch Media. Koch Media runs Deepsilver, and within it are Warhorse Studios (racist studio behind Kingdom Come: Deliverance) and Milestone (WRC/MotoGP/Ride).

So, uh. Not actually sure what the Shiit even means beyond "we still own the IP."

Eww. Ok, so Saints is done for me

 

[Raine]

Eww. Ok, so Saints is done for me

It won't necessarily go to Vavra's team, but we'll see. So far it doesn't seem like Embracer wants to sell off any of the IPs/studios. I would think a couple parties would've been interested in picking up Volition.

I would fear the worst for the likes of Crystal Dynamics in the coming weeks/months too, as a complete aside. Otherwise they might not be a horrible choice after some shuffling?

 

[Crystal]

It won't necessarily go to Vavra's team, but we'll see. So far it doesn't seem like Embracer wants to sell off any of the IPs/studios. I would think a couple parties would've been interested in picking up Volition.

Oh absolutely they would, a few would likely enjoy the Volition studio and IPs

I would fear the worst for the likes of Crystal Dynamics in the coming weeks/months too, as a complete aside. Otherwise they might not be a horrible choice after some shuffling?

Better not kill off my Dynamics, damnit! They made some great games down the years!

 

[Andy]

I’d love to work in video games but every story I read makes me think it’s actually pretty terrible

 

[Raine]

I used to want to get involved with games, in some capacity. Thankfully I was never really in a position to actually pursue it prior to journalists like Jason Schreier, Patrick Klepek and Stephen Totilo coming onto the scene and exposing a lot of the bullshit practices and absolute disregard for human life and decency the industry is rife with.

The only thing I could ever even loosely recommend people pursue is independent development, and even then virtually every publisher - and the storefronts themselves - routinely preys on them.