Snowbird Games - Closed Down

Well just in-case no one knows yet it seems Snowbird Games the developer of games such as Eador: Genesis, Eador: Masters of the Broken World, Eador: Imperium, & Blood & Gold: Caribbean! has closed it's doors for good.

Here's the official word from their website.

Link - http://snowbirdgames.com/blog/?p=2650

Hi everyone, Today we’ve got probably not the most exciting announcement for you, but nevertheless — a very important one.

It doesn’t take much to see that with , our latest project, we faced an unusual amount of negative feedback. Much of that is justified — the troubled development of Imperium for the past year took far more time than needed, and the end result, understandably, didn’t really meet expectations of our players. Even taking technical difficulties of the engine behind Eador into account, it’s pretty clear — we could’ve done much better, something’s just not working out.

As it is, tough times call for tough decisions: the investor group which took part in forming Snowbird Games has decided to let most of the team go.

So for us it’s the last chance to properly say goodbye. On the behalf of the people leaving Snowbird Games — thank you, everybody!

However you decide to look at it, it’s been a real journey for us. We love Eador and love Blood & Gold. All the work that went into both of these projects by our tiny team was 100% sincere and passionate. You can be absolutely sure of that.

But, when it’s clear it’s time to move on, it’s best not to hesitate. Best of luck to the renewed team. And see you around!

Not sure if that's closing doors or just lost jobs for some…
Sad news anyway.

I actually liked Eador: Masters of the Broken World a lot. Didn't even know there was a newer game in the franchise. Pity.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Well just in-case no one knows yet it seems Snowbird Games the developer of games such as Eador: Genesis, Eador: Masters of the Broken World, Eador: Imperium, & Blood & Gold: Caribbean! has closed it's doors for good.

Here's the official word from their website.

Link - http://snowbirdgames.com/blog/?p=2650

This seems to be an extreme exaggeration with the blog link likely originally posted by some disgruntled employee. The new investors clearly cut out some dead weight and brought in some extra devs because updates to Imperium are now more frequent and meaningful. This being the case it's clear that Snowbird is not closed down. (The last update was a week ago and companies that have new investors and new staff are not usually considered to be closing down).

Whilst the game is rapidly improving I can understand why initial user reception was negative. When will devs realise that releasing a game before it is finished to meet deadlines and patch them up later does more harm than good? Egosoft (who didn't learn from ALL of their previous X games coming out this way) did the same thing with X Rebirth and now no one buys or plays it despite the fact they finally got it up to scratch three YEARS later.

Having a strong initial release is now more important than ever given that early user reviews that everyone can see on Steam can hobble or crush future sales of games while they are still in their infancy. The old process of putting something out too soon and fixing it later is, therefore, doomed to failure.
If I were a new investor into a company that released a grossly unfinished game - for whatever reason - then I would be looking for some heads to roll as well.

Actually the blog entries after the farewell are interesting reads esp the analysis of some of the issues with current games. It does seem that all previous developers were released (not sure about managers) and a new team was hired. I.e, new company with old name or perhaps some old people retained - really hard to tell. However, i'm surprise at the detail analysis (mentioned above) being shared in a public fashion given their level of details. Quite informative. Also response (on steam for example) of recent updates are quite positive.
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Having said that one tidbit - they released a patch for windows xp players

Originally Posted by MrMuse
This seems to be an extreme exaggeration with the blog link likely originally posted by some disgruntled employee. The new investors clearly cut out some dead weight and brought in some extra devs because updates to Imperium are now more frequent and meaningful. This being the case it's clear that Snowbird is not closed down. (The last update was a week ago and companies that have new investors and new staff are not usually considered to be closing down).

Whilst the game is rapidly improving I can understand why initial user reception was negative. When will devs realise that releasing a game before it is finished to meet deadlines and patch them up later does more harm than good? Egosoft (who didn't learn from ALL of their previous X games coming out this way) did the same thing with X Rebirth and now no one buys or plays it despite the fact they finally got it up to scratch three YEARS later.

Having a strong initial release is now more important than ever given that early user reviews that everyone can see on Steam can hobble or crush future sales of games while they are still in their infancy. The old process of putting something out too soon and fixing it later is, therefore, doomed to failure.
If I were a new investor into a company that released a grossly unfinished game - for whatever reason - then I would be looking for some heads to roll as well.