Hey guys, Lachhh here.
Very sad announcement today, so I want you to read this while you listen to the end game song of Ninja Gaiden on NES in background: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqk1zPT6TCY
Seriously, put the song on.
..Is it there ? Good.
Recently, we had to lay off everybody working at Berzerk Studio, sell pretty much all our stuffs and move away from our office. Leaving only the 3 co-founder, Marc and Etienne and I, with no office and little to no money left.
It's a very sad fate for the long ride we had, this December will be our 5 years anniversary (...yay!). 2013 has been a very bad year for us, we lost a lot money, and finally our kick-ass team.
That means we won't be able to update Sands Of Coliseum and BattleCry anymore. We were working on Sands Of Coliseum 2 and a lot of cool different project. It was all going along nicely, but yeah, our bank account told us that... we should go... f**k ourselves.
Is the music still playing ? Good.
The games will still be up, but we just don't have the team anymore to support updates. So instead of cowardly avoid all questions, we decided to be strong, hairy knuckled men and tell you the truth. It might piss off a lot of people, but again, we prefer loyalty to our fans then being jerks and silent.
Why is there no money left ?
We have a couple of ideas, errors we did that we need to avoid in the future, but it's hard to pinpoint. What we do know is we ended up spending too much money on games than what it gave in return. We wanted to make good, quality games at the point where we were losing money making it. Fans before money.
That being said, we want to thank every single one of you that ever played our games. It's cliché, but it's the truth, without you, we could not work on games that we like and enjoy. You guys... are just awesome.
So what's next ? Well, here's the kicker :
We are not giving up.
We may be back at square 1, we might have lost a lot of projects, we may have lost a lot of money but we are not giving up. Frantic Frigates 2 will be released under Berzerk Studio at the beginning of 2014. Meanwhile, we are all working on project on our own. Some will be released under the Berzerk Brand, some won't.
We lost a lot, but we are still working all day, making games, as our primary jobs.
We lost this round, but the fight ain't finished and we sincerely hope you guys will still be there to enjoy the show.
As rocky said : "...it ain't about how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done."
- The Berzerk Crew
SimplyRobot
It's always hard to read something like this, You guys went out in the best pay possible, and you will be missed.