GreedFall: The Dying World came out of Early Access on Steam less than two weeks ago and the studio behind it is already facing insolvency. It’s one of a number of Nacon-owned AA teams that’s struggling in the modern gaming landscape, and one French union is blaming management at the top for seeking to “make a quick buck, with no long term strategy for these studios, their projects and their teams.”
Nacon subsidiary studios Spiders, Kylotonn, and Cyanide have all filed for insolvency this week because they’re unable to pay their bills. The move comes just weeks after Nacon itself embarked on a similar debt-restricting journey in French court. Spiders recently launched Greedfall: The Dying World in 1.0 to lackluster Steam user reviews. Cyanide did the same with Styx: Blades of Greed this month. And Kylotonn, best known for the WRC racing series, has been MIA for a bit now.
French video game union Syndicat des Travailleureuses du Jeu Vidéo is laying the blame for the state of these AA studios at the feet of Nacon and its executives. “Their disdain for video game production and their incompetence actively sabotaged studios which were viable until their acquisition, and jeopardized projects with a high potential,” reads a statement the group released this week.
It continues:
Years of mismanagement and strategic nothingness, both at the group and company levels, have blocked studios from modernizing, organizing and developing themselves. Today, even after completely emptying its studios coffers – dozens of million euros which should have ensured ensured studio stability and safe jobs! – Nacon comes out with a deficit.
Makeshit solutions like canceling all recruitments and raises for more than a year, or snake oil solutions like ‘AI,’ which Nacon is gradually forcing on its studios without even knowing what for, will not save money and clean up the company accounts. The deterioration of working conditions in the last years, and the creation of new studios with the barely hidden goal of sabotaging existing ones, were already convoluted ways of reducing headcount and they only made matters worse.
STJV is calling for the executive team to be removed and for the implementation of better working conditions, updated tools and development processes, and a policy to fight turnover across the various teams, which has led to a talent drain. The union is also demanding a clear creative strategy to address the video game market as it exists in 2026, where there’s increasingly no patience for games that aren’t exceptional or don’t fit a clear niche.
Developers at Spiders have been publicly feuding with management there for years, previously threatening a strike over allegations that Greedfall 2‘s Early Access release was rushed and budgets and timelines kept shifting. The sequel has less than 10 percent of the Steam user reviews garnered by its predecessor, which was published by Focus Entertainment.
