The bad news about the upcoming MMORPG Chronicles of Elyria is piling up. The studio has now announced layoffs.
Have the developers of the MMORPG Chronicles of Elyria taken on too ambitious a project? After having to scrap the software SpatialOS for cost reasons, which was actually intended for creating vast worlds, the company has now confirmed that it had to lay off several employees.
No publisher could be found
In an open letter, the decision is explained. The studio’s goal was to find a publisher who would support the team financially and in terms of distribution and marketing, but leave the developers with full creative control over the game. Since the team assumed they would find such a publisher, they doubled the team size in 2017.
However, now it is the case that no publisher could be found and they have to refocus on crowdfunding. No publisher wanted to take the risk of releasing the MMORPG without being able to participate in the creative processes.
This meant that layoffs occurred in order to bring the team size back down to a level that could be maintained with less money. It was not an easy task to lay off members of the team, as many had developed close relationships with each other.
Development of the MMORPG now seems secured
The team also states that through the layoffs, they have now reached a financial status that allows them to continue the development of Chronicles of Elyria without being reliant on a publisher. Crowdfunding will be continued through the shop and should enable the team to maintain creative control over the development of the MMORPG in the future.
The mere fact that the developers have scrapped SpatialOS for the MMORPG raised concerns among some fans. The layoffs do not help to alleviate these concerns.
