Paladin Studios Has Shut Down After Almost 19 Years - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 May 2024 / 3,162 Views
Netherlands-based Paladin Studios announced it has shut down after nearly 19 years in business.
The studio blamed the lack of enough work in recent months to remain financially stable. Those who have been laid off will receive a severance package, while the studio is able to not go into debt. The existing games from the studio will continue to receive technical support.
"For almost 19 years, we have poured our hearts and souls into creating games that make you smile. Starting as a bootstrapped mini studio in 2005, we followed the twists and turns of the game industry and slowly but steadily found our place in it. Over these years, the studio peaked at 55 people. As of this writing we were 45 people, each and every one of them a brilliant mind and kind heart, and together they truly created magic.
"We also worked with incredible partners such as Nintendo, Apple Arcade, Netflix, Zeptolab, Bandai Namco, and many others. Last but not least, our games are being played by millions of people, earning prestigious awards and bringing smiles to people all over the world. This was a dream come true – in fact, for us, it was THE dream come true.
"However, over the past months, we unfortunately failed to land enough work to cover our burn-rate. Yesterday we hit an inflection point for our financial security. Going further with the current outlook would have been an irresponsible decision that would have likely caused insolvency. We have therefore taken this step to ensure a proper winding down, where all employees are given proper severance and the studio remains debt-free.
"Please reach out if you have any open vacancies for design, programming, 2D art, 3D art, production, QA, management or support staff – all skills are here, and these people are among the finest in the industry.
"Our existing games will stay alive, and we intend to keep providing (technical) support for them in the future.
"We want to thank the team, our partners, and our fellow industry colleagues for all the good times. It truly was a wild ride, and we wouldn’t want to have missed it for the world."
Paladin Studios has worked on Nailed It! Baking Bash, Cut the Rope Remastered, Good Job!, Stormbound, Amazing Katamari Damacy, and more.
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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Never heard of them.
It just shows its not easy, even if your trying to make successfull mobil phone games.
Never happy to see a studio go down like this, but nice to see them do it as well as they can.
Had to look them up thought it was a port studio. Maybe they are but even then their mobile games never heard of and until I saw Good Job which I didn't remember the name only a screenshot of the environment did I maybe remember the game.
Unfortunate for them.
Mobile games not part of a certain formula sigh. At least they tried but shows people care more for consistency or business model/let alone generic games then creativity.
I mean on a phone people want just a time waster. Which is sad as a lot of fair games are on mobile we just don't seek them out/hear about them and do lesser titles instead.
But for those mobile gamers that do like handheld gamers want some good content on mobile then the trash that is on there, yeah it sucks some studios die/don't get heard of, those that seek more quality titles from some studios don't get to see their future projects.
It's tough out there. I hope those staff get somewhere better of after this, it is unfortunate when creative studios, mobile, console, small or big disappear for more annoying business model games instead.
That’s a shame. Good Job! is a great game.
