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Phoenix Labs (creators of Dauntless and Fae Farm) just laid off most of their dev team
(files.catbox.moe)
If anyone was following this fiasco, they basically launched Dauntless on Steam with a major update that completely wrecked the game and removed much of its content. Dauntless was already struggling and went in weird directions during development but this was the final nail in the coffin, and the company seems to have totally gone under.
Source: https://reddit.com/r/dauntless/comments/1ibfvaq/studio_update/
Fuck Forte.
Phoenix was the best place I'd ever worked until they came along. Fucking bitcoin bros destroyed everything because they didn't understand the games industry.
Woah, you worked there? Got any stories on how things went down?
Many. Unfortunately I also can't talk about them, yet.
That sucks, I hope you're doing alright after the layoffs. Hopefully things improve in this industry...
You can blame crypto bros but the original owners sold out. Once a studio has been swallowed up by a conglomerate it is only a matter of time before it turns to shit.
The owners might have had no choice though because they took a ton of venture capital funding.
I’ve realized that it’s best to just avoid any company that takes VC because they will inevitably fuck everyone over.
I wish I could get more into this, but yes there were some major missteps during the covid/post-covid "stocks are crazy high, money is free!" period. After that there just wasn't really a way to recover.
Unfortunately it's pretty hard to avoid VC money, the tech industry runs on it.
It’s hard but not impossible. You’ll make less money but have much more stability.
After multiple layoffs I started freelancing. The autonomy and multiple streams of income has been great for my mental health.
I think the issue is more that VC's prioritize draining money out of what they acquire instead of continuing with what works for longer term gains.
If you worked on Dauntless, just want to say I appreciate your part! Only played it for a while at release because the grind turned me off but it's been sad seeing news pop up of how it has been going downhill. Was such a fun game.
Sucks that good game devs get laid off because the leaders are asleep at the wheel unless it involves monetization.