Times are tough for some developers with the latest victim of a poor release being Book of Travels from Might and Delight.
Following on from a successful crowdfunding campaign for their small online RPG, the developer managed to raise around £207,362. That was back towards the end of 2019 and it saw a few delays before entering Early Access in October 2021. Seems the release did not go as well as they had hoped.
Writing in a joint update on Steam and Kickstarter, the developer said:
In light of the launch not going quite as well as we had hoped, we have had to make some rather big, and difficult, cutbacks to our beloved team. In order to stay alive, we have been forced to cut down our team from around 35 people to 10 people. Saying goodbye to so many skilled, trusted and loved Might and Delighters has been, without a shadow of a doubt, our most difficult test in our 11 year history.
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The remaining team make it clear they're still going with it and the game will continue to see updates, but naturally upcoming planned content will be affected by letting go so many people for an already small team. One thing they've done is put up the soundtrack and a 'Cup of Kindness' DLC on Steam for people to buy to support them some extra.
Book of Travels is definitely a unique experience, and the bugs at release certainly didn't help (many of which they've solved) and the glacial pace the game progresses at is easily a turn off for a lot of people. Hopefully though, they can continue to realise their full plan for Book of Travels eventually.
You can find Book of Travels on Steam.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Hope all the best for them!
Somebody at the Steam announcement mentioned that 35 people seems quite a big team for an indie game...To be honest, that was my gut reaction.
How come early access launch can fail?
I would assume that early access is both important for feedback and funding. That Kickstarter funding alone doesn't last long with team of 35.
How come early access launch can fail?
I would assume that early access is both important for feedback and funding. That Kickstarter funding alone doesn't last long with team of 35.
Less than £6000 per person, that would be roughly one month pay for a highly skilled dev over here. Yeah that won't last long.
edit: and the studio is really from "over here" as well.
Last edited by F.Ultra on 22 December 2021 at 9:38 pm UTC
Even junior devs you wouldn't be able to have for more than a couple months and that's stretching it. So, the crowdfunding money probably ran out already by early 2020 and they probably ran on savings and maybe goodwill for almost two years until they got some money from Early Access, but not enough to cover the losses.How come early access launch can fail?
I would assume that early access is both important for feedback and funding. That Kickstarter funding alone doesn't last long with team of 35.
Less than £6000 per person, that would be roughly one month pay for a highly skilled dev over here. Yeah that won't last long.
edit: and the studio is really from "over here" as well.
Hopefully the 25 being let go find something else.
Liam has done bunch of articles about their games (search includes several unrelated articles, but most of it is relevant): https://www.gamingonlinux.com/search-articles/?q=%22might+and+delight%22&strict=on
Yes, 35 devs is not small. It places the game at an AA level.Depends what definition you go for really, so many people think differently on it. Going by WikiPedia or IGN, it doesn't fit what either claim is AA as it's too small. More like Triple-I for a bigger indie. Regardless though, people constantly underestimate what it takes to make even a slightly bigger "indie" game. The fact is, they were self-published and self-funded, so it's indie to me.
slaapliedje Dec 23, 2021
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