Mad Crusader will spend the next two years investing $30 million in double-A games, the transmedia company revealed.Spread across four investment rounds, the money will go specifically toward concepts made by the first 10 graduates from its World Builders incubation program. The funding will help those concepts grow into "commercial products with franchise potential."In other words, if a developer thinks its project has what it takes to grow beyond games, as so many others have done recently, Mad Crusader wants to help get it off the ground.The original (and remote) online program ran from October 2023 to this past May. Graduates and investors maintain an equity stake in the product, along with an equity share in Mad Crusader's game development holding.In that same press rel…
Update (6/11/24): Timbre Games, a subsidiary under Sumo Group, has been closed down entirely.Now ex-employees from the studio broke the news on LinkedIn, with lead talent partner Jaclyn Adair revealing 80 people have been affected."We stood up for our beliefs and values and quickly made our mark on the industry," she wrote. "We had fun together and connected deeply. We were not without our growing pains, but we faced them head-on, transparently, together."Timbre was spun up in 2021, and served as an extension of Pipeworks Studios. Led by EA alum Joe Nickolls, the Vancouver studio was aiming to make action and simulation gamesOf Timbre and other studio closures, Adair said they "only serve short-term investments, and will, in the long term, degrade the quality and a…
Swedish corporate group Fragbite Group has declared bankruptcy for Alara Prime developer Fall Damage.While a publishing for the game is still being determined, the process has created "an unsustainable financial situation" for its creator. The apparently "not temporary" bankruptcy was further determined by an inability to pay off debts by their due date.Impact-wise, the bankruptcy is said to be valued at SEK 39.0 million (or $3.63 million) for Fragbite. Both it and subsidiaries under its umbrella are said to "continue operations without interruption."Fall Damage was formed in 2017 by DICE alums Markus Nyström, Dan Vaderlind, Mikael Kalms, Anders Gyllenberg. Fragbite acquired the studio last year as it was working toward completing its free-to-play shooter.The…