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.”

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Renegade Kid is no more, co-founders now in charge of their own studios

Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 9 Comments

Renegade Kid is no more. The studio’s co-founders, Jools Watsham and Gregg Hargrove, have decided to end their partnership of creating games together after ten years.

Watsham and Hargrove will now go in different directions. Watsham will be making games at Atooi while Hargrove will be at Infitizmo. Atooi will acquire the rights to all Renegade Kid 2D games, which encompasses the likes of Mutant Mudds and Treasurenauts. Meanwhile, Infitizmo will own the 3D series such as Dementium and Moon Chronicles.

In today’s announcement, it’s mentioned that Watsham and Hargrove’s “friendship and respect for each other” remains “very much intact”.

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More: Gregg Hargrove, indie, Jools Watsham, Renegade Kid

Video: Renegade Kid’s Gregg Hargrove talks Moon Chronicles

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS eShop, Videos | 1 Comment

More: Gregg Hargrove, indie, Moon Chronicles, Renegade Kid

Renegade Kid explains why it waited out the rights for Moon Chronicles

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS eShop, DS, News | 0 comments

Moon came out for the DS in 2009. It’s been five years since the original game launched, and Renegade Kid will finally be returning to the title in the form of Moon Chronicles.

Renegade Kid couldn’t touch the Moon franchise until now as Mastiff originally held the IP’s rights. However, since the publisher’s five-year ownership period has expired, the studio is now free to do with it sees fit with the series.

But why wait five years in the first place? Why not create a new shooter entirely? Renegade Kid co-founder and director Gregg Hargrove told Polygon:

“[Renegade Kid has] a personal connection to the story and the idea, along with the characters. We could have just created a new story and made a first-person shooter. That’s not terribly hard to do since we’ve got the technology and we know how to.
“But we put a lot of effort into this one and a lot of effort into the story and thought it was clever. It had a lot of potential at being a different kind of story in a sci-fi genre. It’s kind of like our Star Trek universe.”

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