Humble Games layoffs leave indie developer Squid Shock with no post-launch support

by Danny Craig · 8/5/24, 2:15 PM
Humble Games layoffs leave indie developer Squid Shock with no post-launch support
Squid Shock Studios

Following the layoff of all Humble Games employees last month, which effectively led to the company's closure, indie developer Squid Shock Studios has resorted to opening a Patreon in order to support its game after launch.

The details:

  • In late July, it was announced that all 36 employees of indie publisher Humble Games had been laid off. Despite parent company Ziff Davis's claims that Humble had not closed and was simply undergoing a "restructuring of operations," it was discovered that it had been handed over to a third-party consultancy and that no actual employees were still at the company.

  • In a post to X, Squid Shock, the studio behind the recently released Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus, revealed that the decision has put the developer in a difficult position. The “closure,” which occurred just a week after Bo’s launch, has caused it to miss out on “critical post-launch support” and jeopardized its future as a studio.

  • According to the statement, the company "lost access to the pipeline of critical systems without warning" on July 25 and can now only manage the game through Steam, where an update has since been released. It has yet to gain access to the console versions, as both porting and QA are directly tied to its publishing agreement, but it is working to resolve the issue.

  • Due to the worrying situation, Squid Shock has decided to launch a Patreon page, where fans can financially support the studio by paying a monthly subscription to one of its tiers. The tiers offer a variety of perks, including Discord access, voting on future designs and mechanics, and even early access to game builds, with the six tiers ranging from £1 ($1) to £85 ($100).

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