Piranha Bytes - Rumors

[HiddenX]

Several sites are worried about Piranha Bytes - for example Gamepressure:

Piranha Bytes Has Fans Worried. Disturbing Silence at The Creators of Elex, Gothic

Fans of the Piranha Bytes studio are worried about its future. They cite several disturbing events in recent weeks as the reason.

Fans of the famous series of games, Gothic, Risen and Elex from German Piranha Bytes, are starting to worry about the fate of this team. There are several reasons for this.

• The studio's official YouTube channel has been silent for almost two months. The last video was published there on November 27th last year. This wouldn't be a concern for other teams, perhaps, but Piranha Bytes has been consistently dropping weekly videos showcasing various studio activities for years.
• Strange things are also happening to the studio's official website. At the beginning of this year, all information disappeared from it. Currently, there's only a large logo there.
• For this project WIKI6, most likely being Elex 3, disappeared from the database of the German federal agency, which is responsible for granting subsidies to productions from the gaming industry.

[...]

More information.

 

[num4!vr34umu5t4r!]

Well shit, it was expected with their low sales, I am surprised they lasted so long.

 

[johnnysd]

Would suck but their games never really evolved like Larian's did. Gothic 2 NOTR is one of the greatest games ever IMO

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Am I wrong or don't they belong to Embracer Group these days ? Or do I mix something there ?

 

[Gokyabgu]

One thing never changes: Going under the wing of a big industry giant always spells doom in the end for the middle sized game companies sooner or later.

 

[darklord]

Oh no! I was looking forward to the Gothic remake.

Daniel.

 

[Farflame]

Am I wrong or don't they belong to Embracer Group these days ? Or do I mix something there ?

Yes, they are under Embracer. And Embracer continues to shut down studios. It doesnt look good for them.

Oh no! I was looking forward to the Gothic remake.

Gothic Remake is developed by Alkimia Interactive. This project is secured, at least until release.

 

[Couchpotato]

For now the Gothic Remake is secure but once again their parent company is Embracer as well. So any game or developer can be targeted for layoffs this year.

 

[bjon045]

Damn, it looks like the news I heard last week about a restructure might have been correct. Like what couch said, if the remake is pretty close to completion it is pretty safe but I'm guessing the next mainline product may be at risk.

While I have gotten some enjoyment out of their recent games (Elex) I have long since felt their games have gotten stale and the quality has generally been trended downwards. I quite enjoyed Risen 1 but that was the last time I felt satisifed overall with one of their games. Every game has gotten progressively bigger and blander when they should have kept the focus and hand-crafted feel of G1 and 2.

The Archolos mod showed how the formula should have been done. They should have recruited those guys into design roles at PB and gotten rid of most of the creatives/lead designers.

 

[Carnifex]

It would be a shame to see this storied company fold, let's hope they come back swinging with a glorious hit instead.

 

[Shagnak]

The article says "However, the studio's official profile on X (formerly Twitter) continues to post new content."
If I go there I only see one pinned post, but I don't have a Xwitter account or whatever. Anyone know what the activity is there?

 

[JDR13]

Damn, it looks like the news I heard last week about a restructure might have been correct. Like what couch said, if the remake is pretty close to completion it is pretty safe but I'm guessing the next mainline product may be at risk.

What does PB have to do with the remake though? Are they helping with it?

I hope Björn and Jennifer are ok. It hasn't been that long since their last YouTube vid. About a month I think?

 

[bjon045]

What does PB have to do with the remake though? Are they helping with it?

I hope Björn and Jennifer are ok. It hasn't been that long since their last YouTube vid. About a month I think?

Not much I guess - it would be limited to answering questions about the story/design probably. I should of been clearer that I was speaking in terms of the broader Embracer "cleanse" rather than what may (or may not) be currently happening at PB. The only link being that it is their original "baby"/IP.

 

[bjon045]

The article says "However, the studio's official profile on X (formerly Twitter) continues to post new content."
If I go there I only see one pinned post, but I don't have a Xwitter account or whatever. Anyone know what the activity is there?

From Jan 13:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1746094904390947079

View: https://twitter.com/Piranha_Bytes/status/1746094904390947079


Doesn't really mean much though. They mostly just post a random elex/risen/gothic picture every few days - the kind of tweet that takes a few minutes to pull together.

 

[wolfgrimdark]

Why do big game companies by all these smaller companies only to shut them down?

 

[Couchpotato]

Why do big game companies by all these smaller companies only to shut them down?

Here this article explains how and why Embcrcer got were they are at right now.

Embracing disaster | Opinion

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox It’s hard not to feel cynical about the st…

www.gamesindustry.biz

Bascially greed, mismanagement, and a huge failed deal worth billions.

 

[Morrandir]

Why do big game companies by all these smaller companies only to shut them down?

That contradicts greed business sense, so it's not how it works.
Companies buy smaller companies to make money of them. Sometimes it doesn't work, so they sell them or close them.

I have no idea about Embracer's business, but it could be that they had been in trouble before and tried a high risk strategy buying some studios hoping that few of them have a surprise top selling game. If this then doesn't happen, you're in more trouble than before.

 

[Kordanor]

Not neccessarily. They can also buy them to suggest momentum. Obviously it would be better for them to make money from it. But you need to remember that with Companies traded on the market, short term goals which drive stock prices are quite important. This can also be a reason why staff is getting fired. Because on paper it suddenly looks like that company is quite successful with a small staff. Luring in investors, or in worst case make the bride look pretty, before she gets sold off. That last case is most likely not happening at Embracer. Just wanted to bring it up, as that has similar causes.

 

[Morrandir]

Not neccessarily.

Of course not, that's why I said "it could be". I'm not a business guy, but I guess there are 1000 more scenarios where it makes sense for a company to buy and sell or shut down smaller companies.

 

[Kordanor]

Oh, one other thing: Activity on Twitter or Facebook doesn't need to mean much unfortunately, as you can also schedule to push these. And it looks like they got 1 news scheduled for every thursday and Saturday 10 AM. Thursday being an "Elex Fact" and Saturday some random bit:

11/13 Jan
4/6 Jan
28/30 Dec

So the last "real" activity was actually on the 22. Dec and 24. Dec (though 24. Dec was possibly scheduled as well, also posted at exactly 2 PM)