Dev of Shadow Tactics, Desperados III, Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew shutting down

the ill-fated Daedalic (of Gollum fame)

I see the reviews on Gollum are terrible, but Daedalic has put out lots of nice games previously. Did Gollum take them out?

Edit: Probably not, as they have lots of upcoming games listed (including a sim in the Deponia universe):
https://store.steampowered.com/franchise/daedalic


Last edited by Phlebiac on 30 August 2023 at 4:34 am UTC

Why support GOG then? They don't treat Linux users nicely.

They release Linux games & don't put "anti-consumer" protection on their games. That's nice & better than the competition. And: Since native gaming is basically dead, one can just buy the DRM free games on GOG. Open source makes it easy.

I see the reviews on Gollum are terrible, but Daedalic has put out lots of nice games previously. Did Gollum take them out?

It did, they stopped all in-house development. In the future they'll only act as a publisher.

Why support GOG then? They don't treat Linux users nicely.

Just because they don't have a Native Linux Launcher doesn't mean they are ANTI Linux.
Far from it. Also GOG Galaxy 2, after using it for a while under Windows, isn't all that great, not a huge loss if the API method works for most games (unsure about some like NMS).

Linux users are a joke to them. Remember these days?

https://twitter.com/GOGcom/status/1012727427854995456

http://cdn.wccftech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Thw-Witcher-3-635x289.png


But hey, at the end of the day its your money you're free to choose what you want to do with it. Personally, I just use Steam.

They didn't treat Mac and Linux users nicely on GOG so I'm not sad to see them go.

Good riddance

I think it's a bit harsh to say that, even if I agree with you on this point and I'm often angry to see some devs not care about GOG users etc... It's the reason I didn't buy Desperados III on GOG, but I have Shadow Tactics.

And unfortunately, Shadow Gambit is Windows-only...

But their games were, apparently, great/very interesting, so in the end it's just sad in the "games makers" world, "no matter" where it's released.

And: Since native gaming is basically dead

This is clearly not true and I wish people would stop saying it.
I was expecting something like this to happen with Proton & the Deck, for reasons that seemed to me good and sufficient. But it didn't, and I have adjusted my ideas to reality. Some people seem to be just assuming that their ideas about it must have happened and so they don't need to check.

And: Since native gaming is basically dead

This is clearly not true and I wish people would stop saying it.
I was expecting something like this to happen with Proton & the Deck, for reasons that seemed to me good and sufficient. But it didn't, and I have adjusted my ideas to reality. Some people seem to be just assuming that their ideas about it must have happened and so they don't need to check.

Yep, Liam posted some numbers on the Discord a while back. There was a slight dip during the year Proton was announced, but thereafter, native-Linux numbers have bounced back to the 1000+/annum rate they were before Proton and continue to rise year on year.

Edit:
Found the numbers from Discord, and stuck them into a spreadsheet.


So although there's a general percentage decline, it's both negligible, and mainly due to the steep rise in Windows titles, not a decline in the number of native Linux titles.


Last edited by scaine on 30 August 2023 at 4:18 pm UTC

the ill-fated Daedalic (of Gollum fame)

I see the reviews on Gollum are terrible, but Daedalic has put out lots of nice games previously. Did Gollum take them out?

Edit: Probably not, as they have lots of upcoming games listed (including a sim in the Deponia universe):
https://store.steampowered.com/franchise/daedalic

yeah it was a big hit to them and they closed their development studio; I'm sure it wasn't fun for them as a publisher either

I wonder at what point they made this decision... seems so strange to close up shop right after a good release. Maybe they didn't think the launch was as successful as it needed to be? or maybe they decided to close up a long time ago but wanted to push out this last game. I also wonder if it's related to them self-publishing instead of using the ill-fated Daedalic (of Gollum fame)

Well, if they were going to close up, then after a release is the only time - because the alternative is starting something new and spending several years on it...

I assume it was not a decision made quickly either, so it wasn't about the commercial success of the latest game that just released. Maybe about the development of it, regardless of success, or maybe it has been going for longer still.

From reading the announcement it sounds like this was a decision made well in advance, and had nothing to do with the release itself, which seems to have gone well. They do mention they'll be closing down bit by bit over the rest of the year, and have a patch and content drop planned for Shadow Gambit before shutting down completely.

This really sucks for me as a fan. And I do like cowboy theme, dangit. I don't have Shadow Gambit yet, but it's been on my wish list since before release. I think Desperados III is really fun and am not quite done with it. (I was playing it again while waiting for BG3 to come out.) The graphics and voice acting help. It's a bummer there won't be more from this studio.

I can't help but speculate that it's the leadership that don't want to do this work anymore and also aren't willing to let others take over. Why do I think that? Because people management and work-life balance can be corrected. You think all the developers are quitting the industry? Highly unlikely. They're going to seek jobs / contracts at other studios, where they're going to risk the exact same work pressure and schedules. This is why my guess as an outsider looking in is owners and managers are quitting but not willing to hand over the rights for someone else to do product and people management better.

I also have to wonder when publishers of long development cycle or large studio games are going to raise video game prices. They're still $60 on average for big releases. It's been that price for, what, 20 years now? Everything else has gone up in price. Blu-rays are expensive. Even restaurants are suggesting tip rates of 20%, 25%, and 30%! In addition to the higher food prices! But the same inflation hasn't really happened to games yet, which puts a time limit on dev wages for projects to get done, and thus lots of crunching and pressure.