Dev of cancelled Life By You game shares some information, including just two weeks notice of cancellation after being given the thumbs-up a few weeks prior
Today I am devastated to announce that for the second time in two years, my game has been cancelled, and I've been laid off. And this time it was a real shit… | 177 comments on LinkedIn
I cannot share specific numbers, but I can say that we had an internal metric we were aiming for that had been approved, and that we exceeded that number by a significant portion. We also got a thumbs up a few weeks before launch.
This would destroy me if this happened to me. The publisher thinks lowly enough of the team and product that they won't launch it, but not so lowly that they don't release the IP (perhaps even at a price) to the developers.
I got a friend in game dev. They've worked for 3 companies over 6 years. None of the titles they have worked on were ever released.
The title they're currently working on has had its funding cut (by Embracer Group) and the CEO of the studio is desperately trying to find another source of funding. Everyday they go into work expecting to be told the studio is shutting down.
Game dev certainly seems to suck the souls out of creative people who just want to make something fun.
For profit software companies (and those who are all abput revenue and shareholders and whatnot) are a pain to the industry at large.
If it were not fot the profit motive, this world would be radically different.