Murdered: Soul Suspect, Dark Void, and Quantum Conundrum developer Airtight Games was hit with layoffs earlier in April this year, when 14 employees were released of their positions. Around the same time, Quantum Conundrum lead and Portal‘s co-designer Kim Swift left the company for Amazon to work on the Fire TV device.
Game Informer reports that several requests to speak with Airtight Games co-founder Jim Deal about the current situation went unanswered, but their assumptions that the studio was closing was confirmed today in a GeekWire article. GeekWire went on to state that they visited the Airtight studio to see a vacant building, equipment being liquidated, and awards and ribbons strewn across the tables. One also has to assume that the overall poor reception and sales figures for the newly released paranormal mystery game Murdered: Soul Suspect was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
We here at What’s Your Tag? wish all of those affected by the Airtight Games closure the best of luck, as layoffs are never a fun thing to talk about.
(Source: Game Informer)
Bradley Keene is the Executive Editor here at What’s Your Tag?, generally handling news, reviews, and a bit of our public relations communications. He’s an aspiring writer and Baltimore native that can usually be found watching terrible B-movies or knee-deep in a roguelike, a horror game or some sort of point-and-click adventure. His favorite console is the Dreamcast, favorite game is the original Metroid, and he could watch The Goonies for the rest of his life. Contact him by e-mail at the address above, or follow his insanity on Twitter.
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Just to clarify things, I like the news bit being good material for market research, not the idea of a studio closing down and game developers being laid off – that’s always sad news
Oh we totally understand. No one enjoys these kinds of posts, both reading and writing them.
Agreed. It’s beyond depressing to see a developer’s dream die. We play games to see them come true. Seems like just yesterday that Kim Swift was promoting Quantum Conundrum…
I’m also one of the few who actually enjoyed Murdered: Soul Suspect, so it sucks to see them disappear so shortly after the game’s release. I know it was basically panned and sold like crap, but still.
Totally. There’s nothing sadder than a developer going under immediately after releasing a really promising game.