HomeNewsSteamWorld Heist 2
Little room for Leeway
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Thunderful
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Thunderful
It’s a “strategic move towards publishing games from external partners,” according to CEO Martin Walfisz, who says he has let 80-100 people go with “great regret”. It’s not clear from the release which departments were most affected in this recent wave of layoffs, but judging from the language of the announcement I’m guessing many were employed on the development side of things.
“Whilst significant reductions in cost levels were achieved this year, revenue targets have not been met and the Group is still struggling with negative cash flow.”
That negative cash flow refers to the over-investment the company say they’ve made over the last few years. In May, Thunderful alsosold off its distribution companies(they basically distributed Nintendo games in Nordic countries) to patch more holes in their leaky finances.
What this means for the SteamWorld series, I don’t know.SteamWorld Heist 2was the latest of the studio’s games to come out, and - like all SteamWorld games I’ve played - it wasthoroughly enjoyable. When the company say they’re keeping “some internal development capacity”, they may mean they’ll focus solely on the steampunky robot world, as regards their own projects. Whereas previously, the various studios now folded into Thunderful Development have made other games likeLost In Random,Wavetale, andThe Gunk(those studios previously being known as Zoink and Image & Form).
Considering the habits of big games companies to take fewer and fewer risks in recent years, it’s possible they’re jettisoning these non-SteamWorld projects first. But that’s just my best guess. I’ve asked Thunderful to tell us more about which projects have been canned, and will let you know if we find out.
