Smilegate Barcelona is Reportedly Shutting Down - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 April 2024 / 2,993 Views
Smilegate Barcelona appears to be shutting down, according to Director Stephane Blais in a LinkedIn post.
"As our industry is starting to look more and more like a game of Battleship, it is our turn to be hit," said Blais. "Smilegate Barcelona is closing down. All employees are being laid off.
"The last 6 months have been pretty intense - but allowed me to discover a fantastic and really dedicated team. All of them work so hard to try to save it.
"I am now #OpenToWork. Extensive experience in Game Design. Narrative Design. World Building.
IP Creation. Talent Development. Looking to contribute in a Direction role. Leadership role. Management role. Senior role."
Producer Edouard Albert in a LinkedIn post also stated the studio has shut down.
"Well our journey at Smilegate Barcelona has come to an end," said Albert . "Really appreciated my time there, working with amazing people and being able to improve on my own skill set. Now is time to look for my next adventure. I'm open to all opportunities. Please do not hesitate to contact me if I match your needs.
"PS: adding my comment to the main post but don't hesitate to have a look to my former colleagues profile. As I mentioned, they are all very talented people and they would be great assets to your companies."
Smilegate Barcelona was founded in 2020 and was developing an open-world AAA title for consoles.
Thanks, VideoGamesChronicle.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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"As our industry is starting to look more and more like a game of Battleship, it is our turn to be hit," that's depressing.......second new AAA studio in recent weeks that won't even be able to get their first game shipped.
The heads of the studio are the ones that claimed they were working on a AAA game. So they had a AAA budget, you have to have the money to make such a claim. Who knows how much they supposedly had, let's say $50 million, but who knows what happened. Maybe they overspent or investors pulled out, who knows. They may not have done a lot, but AAA was the level of game they were in the middle of working on.
The funding just isn't there anymore for new startups AAA. Indie startups are finding things a bit easier to get the funding, but these new big $100+ million dollar projects just aren't going to happen. You used to have the big 3, Tencent, Embracer, Saudi Arabia, various 3rd parties like Activision/EA and various private equities that would help fund some of these projects.
