Renegade Kid co-founders on shutting down the studio, updates on future plans
Earlier today, Renegade Kid co-founders Gregg Hargrove and Jools Watsham announced the closer of the studio. The two will now be in charge of their own companies, Infitizmo and Atooi respectively.
Speaking about the decision to close Renegade Kid, Watsham said:
“The video game industry has changed a lot in the past 10 years that we’ve been developing games as Renegade Kid. From the very beginning, it has always been a challenge to secure partnerships with publishers to fund the development of original games, and since the advent of self-publishing – when digital distribution became more mainstream – it has shifted our business model towards becoming more dependent on revenue instead of seeking funding from publishing partners.
As such, it has been a great financial challenge and an extreme workload for the entire team to maintain a balance between cash flow, staying competitive with our games, and spending quality time with our families and friends. Couple these realities with the desire to achieve personal goals, Gregg and I came to the difficult decision to each pursue solo ventures and close Renegade Kid.
Starting fresh with small, lean teams enables us both to focus more on less moving parts and potentially achieve better success. It puts both Atooi and Infitizmo in more advantageous positions.”
Renegade Kid may be gone, but the developer’s franchises are not. Hargrove is holding onto the 3D titles while Watsham will own the 2D franchises. Watsahm says Treasurenauts will launch next year (with news coming “very soon”), and a new game will be announced this week. Meanwhile, Hargrove mentioned that he “would love to explore Cult County.” He also stated that he would like “to expand on both Moon and Dementium in the future and there is a new mystery project in the works for the near future.”
