Compulsion Games is looking for work. In a post on LinkedIn, the studio behind We Happy Few and the BAFTA award–winning South of Midnight wrote that it’s looking to collaborate with other game studios on development projects.
“We invite partners to leverage the talent and creativity of the award-winning team behind South of Midnight,” Compulsion wrote.
Typically on LinkedIn you see individual developers and other job hunters sharing their “looking for work” posts, not whole-ass studios. Last week, amid layoffs that will see 3,200 people lose their jobs, Xbox spun off Double Fine and Compulsion Games while announcing that Ninja Theory and Undead Labs will come under as-yet-unannounced new ownership.
Though Compulsion was spared the fate of being shut down, its new status as an independent studio is no guarantee of survival. Funding for projects has gotten scarce, especially as the bigger publishers most likely to have significant capital are dumping it into generative AI technology or stock buy-backs in order to increase shareholder value. On the other hand, the little money that is out there is going toward projects that are mostly complete in deals that are structured to ensure the publisher gets all of its investment back before the developer can even start earning a profit. If you’ve ever wondered how a studio can shut down days after launching a decent game, well, deals like that certainly don’t help.
That’s not to say Compulsion Games is doomed. Sure, its been pushed off a flaming, sinking ship into blood-soaked, shark-infested waters, but those people made South of Midnight. They’ve got the talent to survive the raw deal they’ve been handed, provided they can find the partnerships they need to stay afloat.