It was recently revealed that Deviation Games, a PlayStation-backed studio founded in 2020 by Call of Duty veterans, was closed down before it could produce a single game. This devastating news emerged following posts on LinkedIn by former studio employees, which was said to have been developing an AAA shooter ‘in partnership’ with PlayStation. It didn’t see the light of day before the studio was forced to shut up shop.
Another One
It has been a seriously tough eighteen months or so, with more than 10,000 industry workers being laid off and dozens of studios either deeply impacted or shut down completely amid ongoing financial struggles and a restructuring of the entire games industry.
On LinkedIn, Deviation Games’ former COO, Kriste Stull, said:
It is with a heavy heart that we announce the closure of Deviation Games. I want to express my deepest gratitude to our entire team. Thank you for all your hard work, dedication, and contributions to Deviation; I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have worked with each and every one of you. To all the Deviators out there, we will always cherish the memories we made together. Thank you for being a part of our journey.
Deviation Games was founded in 2020 by Jason Blundell and Dave Anthony, both industry veterans who’d cut their teeth in the Call of Duty space. However, Blundell dropped the company he’d started just two years later, and shortly after, the company suffered layoffs. There were plenty of ambitions at the firm following the declaration of the partnership with Sony PlayStation, but sadly, nothing that the studio has been working on will ever be revealed.
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Expect more I think Sony will sell off its gaming division
It’s possible they would make more keeping their Japanese businesses and Crunchyroll.
Firewalk and Haven I think are next this doesn’t look good for Sony especially with devs wanting to unionize and potentially protests coming.
Sony should close EVO down first before closing studios down. At least try selling off EVO and these studios.
What other games will be cancelled? FairGame$? It seems Jim Ryan’s plan blew up in their face. They might as well just sell off what he wasted money on like all the studios and Evo. Just follow Shawn Layden’s original plan focus more on AA titles that can be released on a more frequent basis while still making AAA titles.
It’s too late but they should dump evo to stay alive a little longer
Sony needs to buy Ubisoft or Embracer
Sony needs to stop with all these live service games and make quality games again. Instead of overly expensive niche games like FF remake go remake something like Sonic Adventure it would appeal to more and be much cheaper. Paying for a new Jet Set Radio would be cheaper and appeal to more as well or a Midnight Club 3 remake. Remaking Jak & Daxter, making Jak 4, Sly 4, those are the things that would be better than what they’re doing.
Shawn Layden told them but Jim Ryan colluded to get him fired for saying it
The new studios Sony acquired my guess is they will be closed since most were live service and the Returnal studio they don’t make any big titles. Sony will need to dump Evo and honestly I would say try to dump Kojima too.
All of PlayStation’s live service games have been cancelled and a few of the non-live service titles as well.
PS5 is a bigger failure than PS3
The PS3 had a turn around in an era where it was still possible because of shorter dev cycles and a different time now they need more time and more money,
Sony needs to spend more money on big AAA games they don’t make enough exclusives to compete. The PS4 had more exclusives and better ones too.