More industry woes this week as Defiance 2050 and Trove developer Trion Worlds has been acquired by free-to-play publishing house Gamigo. Reportedly 150 employees have been let go as a result of the transition.
Gamasutra first broke the news with sources claiming that 25 employees remain at "each studio" at the company, which translates to 50 remaining employees at the company and 150 affected by the situation.
The Defiance 2050 forums made an official if non-committal statement on the matter:
Greetings — We can confirm that there has been a transaction involving Trion Worlds and its games.
While many of the names and faces you’ve come to know in our studios will remain on through this transition, others will not be making the journey. To those who are leaving us, we are forever grateful for your incredible work and contributions over the years.
We’d like to assure our communities that the games will continue on in capable hands moving forward, as everyone involved is aiming to make this transition as smooth as possible for you. We will have more information to reveal as soon as we possibly can.
From the bottom of all of our hearts, we thank you for your time and dedication to our games and hope that you’ve enjoyed the experience as much as we have. From spending time with you in game, to seeing you at conventions, to talking with you on livestreams and forums, it’s been our pleasure to be a part of this exceptional community with you since our first launch more than seven years ago.
Please know that you have our deepest gratitude. As for our games, we hope you continue to enjoy playing them far into the future!
Meanwhile Gamigo have officially confirmed the acquisition; the parent company itself owning the Trion "platform" while its sister company Padmapani GmbH owns Trion's IPs. Certainly it seems from the statement that Gamigo intends to keep Trion's brands alive, but significant "restructure" and "integration" is also mentioned — it'll be interesting to see how much of Trion truly remains once the dust has settled, and whether beyond Trove Trion's games will be re-purposed for Gamigo's mobile focused overall strategy.