Vodeo Games, the developer of the indie title Beast Breaker, has announced that it is shutting its doors as it hasn't been able to secure funding from investors or publishers.In a statement released via the official Vodeo Games Twitter account, the developer has informed fans that it has "run out of funds" and can't afford to "keep the team together" any longer. As a last hurrah, Vodeo has explained that it will continue to work on the Steam release of Beast Breaker, hoping that it will "bring [its] creation to many new players," but there will be no new games released by the developer afterwards. Vodeo then thanks fans for their support and explains that it's "happy about all [it] accomplished in the time [it] had.""The story is unfortunately a familiar one for small studios," reads Vodeo's statement. "Despite a year of avid efforts, we've been unable to secure funding for out next project from publishers and investors. As such, we've run out of funds and aren't able to keep the team together - and there is simply no Vodeo without our incredible team."
Vodeo Games might have been one of the smaller indie developers out there, but it was one of the most important in some ways. The developer made headlines in December last year for becoming the first US studio to successfully unionize and even impleneted four day weeks, attempting to set a healthy precedent for the rest of the games industry. While it's disheartening to hear about Vodeo's closure, hopefully it managed to inspire and cause similar indie developers to think twice about crunch culture.
However, one person that doesn't seem to have a problem with crunch culture is Striking Distance CEO Glen Schofield, creator of the upcoming horror-action title The Callisto Protocol. Schofield recently claimed - rather proudly - on his professional Twitter account that employees at Striking Distance have been working 12 to 15 hour days, claiming that "You do it because you love it." He later apolgized for these comments after being accused of weaponizing passion.