MyGameCompany Is Shutting Its Doors

Personally though I do think the main problem is the audience, the market for kids games on PC isn't exactly very big (which is why you don't exactly see many games marketed to children on PC).

This pretty much -- would love to see more mature games of a similar nature from him.

Sad to lose another Linux-friendly developer, and such a strong supporter of GOL as well.  I hope this break from business stress gives him the time to recover his health and spend time with his family.  I fully understand the pressures of family life and career, balanced with a passionate side interest, and have suffered similarly. Fortunately, my health is not in a problematic state, and other aspects of my career have afforded me comforts to help make my lifestyle possible.

I've seen this kind of economic/physical/psychological burnout happen before.  The common thread is that a person can only handle so much without the resources coming in to help recover/recharge oneself.  Despite this heart breaking result, I seriously doubt that Troy will be out of games forever.  In today's competitive and volatile games market, companies are crushed by economic realities every day, in similarly tragic circumstance, but after producing so many titles, I kind of think it's in his blood.  It may not be a My Game Company title specifically, but I strongly suspect he'll be back someday with a passion project sitting on a slow burner and it will be something pretty cool, I'd wager.

Games are just too awesome to get out of your system completely :)

I wish him the best of luck, and I can definitely understand from personal experience the pressures placed on you when the job you love the most is not what is paying the bills or is taking up more time and money then you can really afford.

Still, I am glad the games will still be up and purchasable for the foreseeable though. Nothing saddens me more than to see a work of art go out of circulation forever.

Sad to lose another Linux-friendly developer, and such a strong supporter of GOL as well.  I hope this break from business stress gives him the time to recover his health and spend time with his family.  I fully understand the pressures of family life and career, balanced with a passionate side interest, and have suffered similarly. Fortunately, my health is not in a problematic state, and other aspects of my career have afforded me comforts to help make my lifestyle possible.

This is sad news for sure, but what is really important in my opinion is his health, I didn´t know about his condition, I really hope from the bottom of my heart that he can resolve all his problems and get better and healthy again, then he can continue to use his talent to make more games if he wants!

Thanks, everyone!

The primary reason I have to shut it down for awhile is my health, not money per se. I just don't have the stamina to keep working 12-14 hour days for month after month. I had to let something go. Since the game company never has earned enough for me to live on, I had to keep my paying job. Now I'm back to 8-9 hours per day, which is much more manageable for me. And it's still just part-time at the moment, so I'm only working 3 days a week. I go back full-time in January, but it's nice to have a couple of months to rest up first. I really need the break, and time to regain some of my strength.

I've got 8 more years before I can retire. Once that occurs, we'll see what happens. I'm already burned out, so I don't know if I'll get back into game programming or not. But I do still have a lot of different stories I want to tell, so I'm sure I'll find some way to tell them. If it isn't through games, it will be through some other avenue - like maybe web comics. I think it would be cool to do a web comic that is like the old "Choose Your Own Adventure" books - that would be sort of game-like. I enjoyed those books.

And you never know - when I'm retired, I won't have the stress of trying to make a business go, so I might just do games as a hobby again. We'll see... I'm sure the technology landscape will look a lot different in 8-10 years, so that will probably factor into whether or not I want to pick up game development again.

That's super sad to hear, Troy. I hope that it means you get the break you need.

The very best of wishes for you future endeavours <3

This is not good news. I will be purchasing some games to support you. Will your games still be available to purchase even after you shutdown or will the site be taken offline? Seems like you could still get some income by leaving it running and selling the games until OS changes prevent the games from running. I hope your health returns as well. I know that drm haters wont agree but I think a major reason for lack of sales is not being on steam. I would love to see dirk dashing in my steam linux games list.

EDIT: Just noticed that this game is on steam greenlight. I just voted for it, will that be removed when you shutdown? Also I have to say that pistol sound is doom for sure. In case you didn’t notice from my avatar, I am an avid doom fan, hands down my favourite game ever, been playing weekly since 1993, if I had to choose doom or every other game ever made I would choose doom. I closed my eyes and waited for the sound in your trailer video, the people you bought the sound from had to have taken it from doom or the same source doom got it from. To be honest it makes me want to play it more lol.

Maybe you could consider selling the RPG you had in development to someone like Basilisk Games to complete.
 

Thanks, philip550c! The web site will remain for the foreseeable future. Hosting has been paid for through the rest of the year, so I see no reason to take it down before then. After that, we'll see... maybe I can scale back to one of their cheaper plans, since I won't be using as much bandwidth.

Sslaxx, the RPG isn't far enough along to save anyone any time or expense - they might as well start from scratch with their own game. Only 20-25% of the game engine is coded, and on the art side, only menu art, a tree, and a few ground tiles were completed. Besides, I'd still like to tell that story myself someday - either in a game, comic, or some other form.

I wish you the best. You're a very talented and wonderful individual and we love your work, but your health is first. I hope you come back some day to what you like the most, when you're fully recovered and have the strength. I truly admire your talent and will to release games working on your own, multi-platform, all while having a side job.

I just found out about these games, tried the demos, and love them. My kids think they're great too! It kinda reminds me a little of the Commander Keen games I played as a kid. I will definitely be purchasing them in the very near future. I think it's great that some folks have the ability to make games, and it's even better when they set good standards for them also. ^_^

Since I'm fairly new to Linux games, I hate that I found out of these in such a way, but I'm glad that I can do a little to support them. God bless!

I know that drm haters wont agree but I think a major reason for lack of sales is not being on steam. I would love to see dirk dashing in my steam linux games list.

While I do not want to sidetrack this thread from being about people giving Troy the best wishes he deserves, I do have to respond to this, as the whole Greenlight campaign for Dirk Dashing 2 was one of the greatest indictments of Steam from a developers perspective I have seen in a long time (although what happened with Paranautical Activity is also up there). The amount of trolls that campaign got was disgraceful, and I would wager that it did not do Troy's health any favours.

So I would say it is Steam's fault for not having him, and not Troy's fault for not getting on Steam.

I know that drm haters wont agree but I think a major reason for lack of sales is not being on steam. I would love to see dirk dashing in my steam linux games list.

While I do not want to sidetrack this thread from being about people giving Troy the best wishes he deserves, I do have to respond to this, as the whole Greenlight campaign for Dirk Dashing 2 was one of the greatest indictments of Steam from a developers perspective I have seen in a long time (although what happened with Paranautical Activity is also up there). The amount of trolls that campaign got was disgraceful, and I would wager that it did not do Troy's health any favours.

So I would say it is Steam's fault for not having him, and not Troy's fault for not getting on Steam.

I didnt mean that it was his fault. Also I wasnt aware that there was a greenlight for dirk when I wrote that, although I edited my post to include that once I found out. Greenlight obviously needs revision and policy changes.

I didnt mean that it was his fault.

Well, I did not necessarily mean to say you were finding him at fault.