Merge Games has announced the closure of its Chelford officeswith an unspecified number of employees who were consequently laid off. We’re talking about the publisher of indie titles such as Bramble: The Mountain King, Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX and the most recent Smalland: Survive the Wilds, just to name a few.
Another sign of the crisis
In a statement sent to GamesIndustry.biz, Maximum Entertainment CEO Christina Seelye explained that the decision was part of broader company consolidation project launched earlier this year. The same includes the acquisition of games from the Merge Games portfolio by Maximum Entertainment, games that are therefore at no risk.
“In the wake of our previously announced reductions,” Seelye said, “we have made the difficult but necessary decision to take additional cost-cutting measures, which unfortunately include layoffs.”
The management’s goal is to arrive at 2025 with a stronger and leaner companyso that he can continue to do his job to the best of his ability.
In February 2023, Zordix relaunched its video game division under the name Maximum Entertainment, unifying labels such as Maximum Games, Modus Games, Just For Games and Merge Gamesin addition to the development studio Modus Studios. In short, it is a large-scale operation aimed at tackling an increasingly difficult market.
Merge Games’ upcoming games, which will now be released under the Maximum Entertainment label, are the sandbox RPG Pixelshire from Kappa Bits and the narrative adventure Spirit of the North 2 from Infuse Studio, the sequel to the acclaimed first chapter from 2020. Both are scheduled for 2024.
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