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The Chinese Room is "going dark" for the foreseeable future. This announcement came earlier today from Dan Pinchbeck of The Chinese Room. Over the years, The Chinese Room made games like Dear Esther, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture.There’s an interview coming out tomorrow in Eurogamer, where I talk at length about the ups and downs of being a small developer, and the challenges you face as a business-owner and employer as well as a game maker. It’s centred around the news that for the immediate future, we’re going dark as a studio.
In fact, this has been on the cards since earlier this year. Back in June, I had a health scare – nothing life-threatening, but enough to pull me up short and make us have a serious think about things. This was right at the tail end of development on So Let Us Melt, following a long period of ongoing pitches and negotiations to secure the follow-up project for the studio. To cut a long story short, the situation – between financial pressures, trying to keep the lights on for the employed team, the stress of end-of-development, health issues – just wasn’t a tenable thing anymore. It was time to take a break, recharge, recover and have a good think about the future.
In fact, this has been on the cards since earlier this year. Back in June, I had a health scare – nothing life-threatening, but enough to pull me up short and make us have a serious think about things. This was right at the tail end of development on So Let Us Melt, following a long period of ongoing pitches and negotiations to secure the follow-up project for the studio. To cut a long story short, the situation – between financial pressures, trying to keep the lights on for the employed team, the stress of end-of-development, health issues – just wasn’t a tenable thing anymore. It was time to take a break, recharge, recover and have a good think about the future.
Pinchbeck continues on to say that they laid off their team but did their best to try to help the team secure new positions at other companies. He also notes that they're still making the RPG called The 13th Interior (formerly Total Dark), and may work on a prototype of Little Orpheus at the end of the year. Even with these projects, the studio will not be fully active by any stretch of the imagination in the months ahead.
(W)e’re essentially artists, Jess (Jessica Curry) and I, who made a hit game without realising it, and became a studio faster than we planned for. And it’s been an amazing few years where we’ve made and released games we’re very proud of, and we’ve worked with great people and made great friends. But we’re makers, fundamentally, and our roles were increasingly making it very difficult to be practically involved in doing the things we love and we started the company to be able to do. We’re taking time to figure that out; how we get to be creatives, not managing directors. That’s a whole other job and skill set and lots of people do it really well and love doing it. But it’s not for us – it just led to stress and burn-out and a desperate need to actually make stuff again- whether that’s art, music, games, writing. So this break is a chance to reconnect with all of that, and we figure we’ve earned that time.
We’ve always been proud of being open and honest about everything, so take this, and the interview tomorrow as just that. An honest reflection of where we’re at and what we want and need to do next.
Is it the end of The Chinese Room? No, I don’t think so. But it’s the end of a chapter, and we hope you can all be patient with us whilst we figure out what happens next.
We’ve always been proud of being open and honest about everything, so take this, and the interview tomorrow as just that. An honest reflection of where we’re at and what we want and need to do next.
Is it the end of The Chinese Room? No, I don’t think so. But it’s the end of a chapter, and we hope you can all be patient with us whilst we figure out what happens next.
I don't think their following games quite held on to what made Dear Esther special, making a successful sequel to Amnesia would be challenging for any studio, they had some nice ideas but the game ended up being a little too linear, and lacked many of the unique horror aspects of the first game, and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture presented an interesting and quirky story, but told with a lot of dialogue, without any real surprises or impactful ending and very little gameplay variety, it's a fairly dry game overall.
I hope they get the freedom they need to make the unique experiences i know they're capable of, the world of larger game development doesn't seem to agree with the studio.
And just like The Chinese Room, Serellan has also gone dark, giving minimal communication (not none mind you), and Christian is currently working for Operation Supply Drop (charitable organization to get games for the military). However, Serellan as a business has not shut down, and while all previous staff was laid off, Bella Ryse from Real Game Media was hired to be the brand manager, but I doubt there are any wages involved due to the aforementioned frozen status.
Last I'm aware, Christian is trying to get his life back in order, but is also trying to get through as much legal red tape as possible, in order to provide the source materials for Epsilon to the public as a crowd developing opportunity (it was the community's idea, not his). They're suggesting Epsilon be worked on in a similar fashion to Postal 1.
http://runningwithscissors.com/?p=2849
Basically release the source materials (code, art, etc.), and put a list on what needs to be done and have the community work on it. Although ideally, it would be a build that still requires the original Steam retail version of Epsilon to run it, so we don't go running off and making clone games.
In the case of The Chinese Room, it seems they're slowing production down, but will come back to it once in a while. So while very similar to Serellan, I can see the core members continuing on in the gaming industry together, and possibly reforming as a new smaller indie studio under a new name. Maybe Phoenix Productions? The British Room? Wrestlin'-Nation?