Am I correct in my understanding that Volition was doing fine but Embracer group fucked around with their money and now has to sacrifice a company that didn’t do anything wrong in order to save themselves?
I‘m not sure if I‘m missing something, but I‘d be really surprised if Volition was doing fine. Agents of Mayhem didn‘t do well at all and the Saints Row reboot was pretty terrible. Their last somewhat successful launch was probably the Saints Row 4 expansion back in 2015.
It‘s always sad to see a developer shut down, especially one with such history. But I can honestly understand closing a studio which hasn‘t had any great release for over eight years.
By “fucked around with their money” is that perhaps a leveraged buyout? That’s what killed Toys R Us, and various other major high street brands, and it’s also what’s been happening to Twitter.
Edit: Apparently not. Embracer acquired Volition in 2013 after THQ went bankrupt and they put it under the Deep Silver subsidiary, then in 2022 Embracer moved moved Volition over to Gearbox, and then recently a multi-billion deal Embracer had lined up fell through so now they’re cutting costs and Volition ended up on the block. So maybe not so sinister, this one - the studio has been in decline since Agents of Mayhem in 2017.
Well the management are out of a job now, too. However in this case it’s the parent company that shut them down, because of the parent company’s financial troubles.
The other side of that coin is that employees can quit without notice.
Though really it’s not a balanced relationship. Businesses can absorb the loss of an employee much better than an individual can absorb the loss of a job.
The employees are still probably getting a layoff package, and they can file for unemployment, so it’s not like they’re out on the street, fortunately. We do have some protections in the US.
That’s a shame that even a 30 year-old studio is just one commercial failure away from closure, even when part of a larger company. Then again, Volition’s output after Saints Row IV has been pretty middling… So it’s not that big of a surprise that they were on the chopping block.