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GAMING NEWS

Dungeon Siege And Supreme Commander Developer Suffers From Devastating Layoffs

Posted on Saturday, January 19 @ 09:40:50 Eastern by Jonathan_Leack

The gaming industry is a merciless killer.

Gas Powered Games, the studio responsible for Dungeon Siege, Supreme Commander, and several other acclaimed titles since 2002, has been hit by a massive round of layoffs. Kotaku broke the story with a series of updates starting with internal rumors of only a few individuals affected to confirmation from Chris Taylor, the company's PR Representative, confirming that more than 40 members of the team have been affected.

We do have a layoff, and we'll be updating our Kickstarter as well with details as well very soon. I'm way behind, so many wonderful people to talk to and share stories with, so it just takes time. It's actually been a fairly positive experience, because I run a very open company and everyone knows what's going on.

Further updates make it appear that the studio has reduced its size back to what it was during the development of Supreme Commander in 2007, losing its recent growth in the process. This grim news follows the company's attempt to fund its next project, an RTS RPG named Wildman, through Kickstarter. Its lukewarm reception and inability to meet its $1.1 million goal are cited as the primary reasons for the layoffs.

Gas Powered Games has made some killer PC exclusives durings its 10-years of existence, and it'd be a huge loss if it were to go under. Although Wildman is likely dead as a doornail, the recently announced Kings and Castles could be a smash hit by bringing the scope and epic qualities of the Supreme Commander series to the world of fantasy.


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Comments
  • SolidSevchinko78
    SolidSevchinko78

    Joined: Jun 2012
    Posted: Jan 19th, 2013 at 10:26 am
    So sad to see a talented studio like this get hit so hard.
  • Ranim
    Ranim

    Joined: Nov 2005
    Posted: Jan 19th, 2013 at 5:58 pm
    Its sad to see, but it's also hard to forgive him for selling out and consequently running Dungeon Siege and Supreme Commander into the ground. He needs to go back to his roots, not continue with this sterile decline.
  • Lenin17301
    Lenin17301

    Joined: Jan 2007
    Posted: Jan 19th, 2013 at 5:59 pm
    While I don't think too highly of Kickstarter, I have to wonder if it's going to become the last available place on the market where small and medium size game developers can thrive, before the big developers eat them alive. The games industry looks like it's going to have only two types of releases, AAA big-budget games, and whatever trickles thru Kickstarter, and no middle-ground.
  • oblivion437
    oblivion437

    Joined: Nov 2006
    Posted: Jan 20th, 2013 at 5:08 am
    If it's any comfort, cold or otherwise, the industry is obviously vaulting headlong towards a crash. The current AAA model isn't actually profitable for most firms. Freelance developers are basically living paycheck to paycheck and they are at most one or two milestone payment failures away from utter collapse.
  • Lenin17301
    Lenin17301

    Joined: Jan 2007
    Posted: Jan 20th, 2013 at 7:43 am
    Sad to say, I also feel that the AAA model is heading to a Guitar Hero-Rock Band type of crash, but of course it will have a much more bigger impact that the crashes of said franchises/bussiness models. Let's us hope that whatever comes out of that crash is better than what we have now, I wonder who will be the saviour of the industry this time? Nintendo with Mario again? who knows.
  • oblivion437
    oblivion437

    Joined: Nov 2006
    Posted: Jan 20th, 2013 at 7:07 pm
    My guess is that the crash will take a form similar to that of '83. Money, interest and attention will fly far away from consoles for a while. This time the American, Japanese and European console-exclusive developer scenes will take a severe beating and the ones that cannot make games PC gamers want to play will have a hard time even surviving. Those that do well will do so by putting as many eggs as possible into that basket. Obviously the profits are slimmer and PC gamers are legendarily fickle so many console developers will have a very hard time readjusting. Bland games designed to work within the narrowest possible hardware limitations whilst appealing to the broadest possible audience will now have to compete with games designed to fully take advantage of a specific platform and to cater to an audience with generally much higher standards.
  • MasterRabbi
    MasterRabbi

    Joined: May 2007
    Posted: Jan 21st, 2013 at 9:31 am
    The timing for all of this seems off. AoEO is going to support, and they didn't have any other projects to carry them? And then the kickstarter still has 5/6 of it's time to go and is on track to make it, but then layoff now? Even if it made 1.1M instantly they wouldn't get the money for another few months...

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