Wizard With a Gun developer Galvanic Games is closing down.
In a statement posted to the Seattle-based studio’s social media channels, president and founder Patrick Morgan said the announcement was made with “a heavy heart” and the “irony of spending a decade building [their] ideal team, only for it to end after [the team’s] most productive year”.
Newscast: Why are there so many games industry layoffs?
“Despite the promising start of Wizard With a Gun, sales are not strong enough to sustain our studio,” Morgan said in a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
“Working with Devolver Digital was a dream come true for us. Together, we created a game I’m incredibly proud of. There is a certain bittersweetness to knowing that we accompanied all the things we set out to do when we founded Galvanic in 2015. From launching unique, weird, and interesting games to collaborating with some of my favourite people in the industry all while building a tight-knit productive team focused on a healthy and creative culture.”
“However, it is incredibly difficult to see our team facing the uncertainty of the current market. I may never get over the irony of spending a decade building my ideal team, only for it to end after our most productive year. The dedication, creativity, and hard work of every person on our team have been nothing short of extraordinary.”
Morgan closed by thanking the team and players for “the support and memories”, and shared a list of the LinkedIn résumés and portfolios of devs affected by the closure.
In response, Devolver Digital simply said: “Love you all”.
It’s unclear how many jobs have been affected by the closure.
Galvanic’s closure is just the latest in an long line of studio shutdowns and redundancies, and marks an unflinchingly miserable time for games and the people who make them. By the end of May 2024 – so not even halfway through the year – more than 10,000 people have been laid off from their jobs this year across the video game industry.
When Ed wrote the article above at the end of May, 10,000 people had lost their jobs in the games industry. Now – just 15 days later – that total has increased to 10,800. For comparison, 10,500 people were laid off in 2023, meaning more game devs have been impacted by the layoffs so far in 2024 in less than half the time.
In June alone, Just Cause developer Avalanche shut two of its five offices and League of Geeks, the studio behind Armello, Jumplight Odyssey, and Solium Infernum, recently announced it was going into “hibernation for the foreseeable future”, following its decision to cut 50 percent of its workforce at the end of last year.
“The layoffs will slow down. Most of the big companies have made their moves now, and hopefully they won’t need to go further (some analysts speaking to GamesIndustry.biz believe companies may now need to hire back up within a few years). But the pain isn’t over,” wrote GamesIndustry.biz’s Chris Dring for Eurogamer on the state of video game layoffs.
