Beautiful Ambitious Indie Game Rated at 93/100 on Steam is Not Enough; Season Devs on the Ropes
The CEO of Scavangers Studio has announced a wave of layoffs triggered by the poor financial performance of Season: A Letter to the Future. Praise from reviewers and support from Sony did not sufficiently encourage players to purchase the game.
Today's video game market is dominated by titles from several recognizable genres and styles, making it necessary for gamers looking for something truly unique to turn to indie projects offering an out-of-the-box approach to visuals, gameplay or storyline. The problem is that it is becoming increasingly painfully clear that originality is not financially viable.
Novelty and ambition
Season: A Letter to the Future is an atmospheric adventure game released in January this year by the independent group called Scavengers Studio. During the gameplay, we play as a woman documenting her bicycle journey on the eve of the end of the world.
Moving themes, an innovative approach to depicting the apocalypse, unique graphics and a melancholic atmosphere - these are just some of the features with which the title impressed the players. Furing the six months after its release Season: A Letter to the Future received a total score of 80/100 on Metacritic and more than 90% positive reviews on Steam.
Unfortunately, despite critical and fan acclaim, the project never achieved commercial success.
Financial problems
Just a week ago, Amélie Lamarche, head of Scavengers Studio, sent an official message to her employees, referring directly to the reception of Season: A Letter to the Future It was also reached by Kotaku:
"Given the current global economic context and Season's financial performance, we were left with no choice but to make the difficult decision to reduce the studio to a smaller, maintainable group of game developers. Unfortunately, this means parting with all but sixteen members of the Scavengers Studio team.
(...) The necessity of this decision is based on enabling the studio to survive, so I wouldn't have made it if it wasn't motivated by the chance to continue making games."
The latest project of the Montreal-based studio was said to have sold about 60,000 copies, which from an economic point of view can safely be called a failure.
The situation was not even helped by close cooperation with Sony, under which the console version of the game became a PlayStation exclusive title. Ports for Xbox and Switch consoles were one of the studio's plans to reach a wider base of gamers, but in light of the sudden layoffs, their fate is uncertain.
An indie game's failure due to the market or the studio?
The image of an exceptional and carefully crafted game driving its passionate developers into financial problems is brutal, albeit not very surprising. In this particular situation, however, one wonders if the problem was solely the market.
Lamarche, who announced the unpleasant news that she had to abruptly lay off her employees, did not sit in the role of CEO of the company throughout the creation of Season: A Letter to the Future. In early 2021 Scavenger Studio's creative director Simon Darveau accused the woman of toxic abuse of her position at the company. However, she returned to her former position and managed the studio during the game's main marketing campaign.
"This is not a decision I took lightly. It's been several months and we've been trying our damnedest, looking for what we could do, who we could talk to, how we could get more funding," commented Lamarche in an interview for Kotaku
For the moment, the studio, in a truncated lineup, is expected to work on another title, more akin to their earlier game - a gameplay-oriented battle royale Darwin Project . Let's hope the broader context of this sad story doesn't discourage other indie developers similarly struggling to survive.
