I’m not sure what kind of disagreement went on behind the scenes, but just as someone who enjoyed the game, this seems fine to me. Five years of post-release content is better than what you usually get, especially considering that they were all good updates and none were hasty cash grabs. The base game by itself was endlessly replayable, then they kept adding variety. It’s not like people aren’t going to get their money’s worth, now that this game with near-infinite replayability isn’t getting even more new content.
The article mentions the studio is a co-op; I was not aware of that before. From the studio’s Wikipedia article:
Motion Twin is run as an anarcho-syndicalist workers cooperative with equal salary and decision-making power between its members.
WELL DAMN I already loved the game, now I love it all over again.
Yeah, but that veneer is starting to chip for me… See this blog article from Sébastien Benard.
I don’t know enough to judge the situation fully, but, from what I’ve heard, their co-op functioning isn’t always easy to do. I do wish we had more co-op game studios to improve the model over time.
That’s one of the few models that I see as promising. Likely not easy though. Have you worked with software engineers? It’s like herding cats much of the time, even when I’m a peer position.
Hard to say if he’s right given how much of this is behind-the-scenes business dealing. I honestly didn’t think much about them ending support for the game, since it had been so long since it was released. Still, announcing they were going to support the game until 2025 and then ending updates the same year their sequel game is supposed to launch isn’t a great look. Especially since Evil Empire was still talking about continuing updates last year. Makes it seem like a sudden decision on Motion Twin’s end. It’s impossible to say for sure, but it really feels like they didn’t want their old game serving as competition. Hopefully Evil Empire is able to recover and start work on their own project.
Well, it’s not a live service game sooo…