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.
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.
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.