In a statement, League of Geeks—developers of Armello, the upcoming Solium Infernum, and Jumplight Odyssey—have stated that they’ve had to “say goodbye” to over half their staff. As a result, Jumplight Odyssey, a game that’s currently in Early Access, is being placed on indefinite pause.
As for the reason for these layoffs, League of Geeks co-founder Trent Kusters states:
“Though our commitment to our beloved starship adventure sim is unwavering, rapidly rising operation costs, a worsening AUD/USD exchange rate, poor Early Access sales, and the unprecedented withdrawal of funding opportunities across the industry, have placed us in a position where, as it currently stands, we are unable to sustain the cost of operations through to the release of v1.0, which was planned for Q2 of 2024.”
League of Geeks stresses that this will not affect the launch of Solium Infernum, which is set to launch in February. However, they are not certain that Jumplight Odyssey will ever become financially possible again, though they will revisit it should they manage to get the funds.
According to a list released by League of Geeks, 29 people have been affected. This list has been put together for the purpose of helping this staff find new positions elsewhere. From the looks of things, this cut was, at the very least, handled with some empathy for the staff.
While staking the League of Geek’s future on an Early Access launch may have been an inadvisable decision, the rather meandering FAQ released alongside the announcement states that economic conditions are to blame. The FAQ itself is rather vexing if you want to read it, stating that the issue is a funding gap is to blame partly caused by a major investment falling through.
There’s a lot of information to dig into here that makes this such a frustrating situation, but it falls back on something we’ve heard quite often in these situations, “When you run a company, you are ultimately responsible for the fate of that company, its products and most importantly, its employees. Regardless of external factors, to be in this position, we have failed you, our customers, and our team.”
Both the press release and the FAQ state, “For the next twelve months or until development is resumed, whichever comes first, half of our profit from every copy sold will be distributed to our team (including those whose employment was impacted).”
Jumplight Odyssey is going to receive one last patch with 0.3.1, after which it seems unlikely that development will be able to start again.
