Mimimi Games, the developer of the recently launched Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, is shutting down.
The company logo, featuring a happy little girl, is now changed to that the same girl is crying.
On the announcement post here, Mimimi Games co-founders Dominik and Johannes has cited that they wanted to “prioritize our well-being and to pull the brakes instead of signing up for another multi-year production cycle”.
The developer team, specialising in the stealth strategy subgenre, has been struggling with financial pressure as well. This particular paragraph, way down in the announcement post, makes this point clear:
Making these games was amazing and extremely taxing at the same time. Reaching the level of quality Mimimi strives for is hard and requires focus and dedication. We also have to acknowledge that our future production costs are growing faster than potential revenues of our genre. The increased financial pressure and level of risk became unsustainable. Additionally, whenever our games got close to release and were finally fun to play, a new fight for funding of the following projects started, making this a continuous cycle.
Thankfully, Mimimi Games are ramping down gradually. Efforts are being made to have the current staff find new work at other companies. The successful launch of Shadow Gambit has meant all employees will be receiving a bonus, and promised post-launch content and patches will still be delivered. But this will be the last game by Mimimi Games. All games by the developer, which includes Shadow Tactics, Shadow Gambit and Desperados 3, will still be available for purchase on all platforms.
From the looks of it, Mimimi Games is a company where its two co-founders are absolutely integral to keeping it running. And cannot afford to pivot to make games in other genres due to lack of experience, and that it “would increase risks and stress-levels across the whole team even further”.
It is nice that the company is gracefully shutting down rather than imploding, but it’s still sad to see a provider of excellent games made in an extremely niche genre cannot afford to be in business any longer.
Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew is out now on PS5, PC and Xbox Series X|S.