The games industry remains mired in contraction, making it hard, among other things, for developers at multiple bands of the industry to find and maintain any sort of backing or funding. Greg Street, a veteran of World of Warcraft and Riot's purgatorial League of Legends MMO, has also found it difficult to land a deal at his new studio Fantastic Pixel Castle, and he reckons "one of the least excusable" reasons for the industry's woes is all the bad bets that big companies made on huge games that utterly tanked.
"Please indulge me in feeling salty for a moment," Street writes on LinkedIn. "I understand that almost nobody in the video game business is making deals right now, and those that do happen are very small.
"There are many reasons for this state of affairs, but one of the least excusable ones is some of the gigantic investments in games or studios in the previous few years that didn't pan out. A fraction of that could have created a lot of smaller games."
Fantastic Pixel Castle has been working on a fantasy MMO dubbed Ghost for several years, with Street leaning on his experiences at Blizzard and Riot but pushing back on some genre conventions like power leveling or generalist classes. It seems the studio has struggled with investment, however, as Street's post thanks "everyone who has reached out about the possibility of investment in or funding" the studio, but reckons "these are also long shots, but every lead is worth pursuing."
Street says "I'm not blaming every game that didn't hit big," and doesn't single any failed games out by name. Of course, you wouldn't have to look very far to find high-profile, high-budget flops, cancellations, and misfires. Instead, he looks to the issues that cause these projects to run up the tab, churn through employees, and often launch with a whimper if they come out at all.
"When you hear about projects where the team was burning money because the game vision kept changing, or the build was never stable, or playtests just weren't fun, or the leadership team was a revolving door, then you know that game was unlikely to ever deliver a good experience for players," Street says.
Repping his own studio, he adds that Fantastic Pixel Castle has "a team with a proven track record," no "leadership drama," and has gotten Ghost "halfway through development" already with "very stable" tech. Ghost is still just an idea as far as players are concerned, but Street reckons the "hard data suggests players love and will play" it.
"And yet there is still no available funding," he concludes. Street's comments do read in part like venting from a beleaguered veteran frustrated and disillusioned with the collapse of opportunity in an industry that purports to be enormous and lucrative, but he's also spot-on.
Street joins the likes of Dragon Age pillar David Gaider and FPS icon John Romero in struggling to find funding in 2025's games industry. When household names and experienced veterans have to fight to make ends meet, it ain't lookin' good for everyone else.
We spoke to Pocketpair Publishing and Palworld communications director John Buckley earlier this year following the reveal of the company's publishing arm, and he agreed "no one has money at the moment," which has left even some established studios and developers scrambling.
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