The German gaming studio “Studio Fizbin” was founded in 2011 and most recently operated in Berlin. The studio has repeatedly won awards, but now Studio Fizbin is facing closure, having spent 3 years working on a new game, and “Reignbreaker” has received 84% positive reviews on Steam. In a podcast, studio head Alexander Pieper discusses the difficulties.
What is the situation around Reignbreaker? On March 18, 2025, “Reignbreaker” was released on Steam. The game costs only €10. For that, you could buy 2 beers, as studio head Alexander Pieper somewhat grumpily notes in a podcast (via okcool). But the pricing is determined by the publisher.
Reignbreaker has received 84% positive reviews on Steam. The reviews praise that this rogue-like has the desired “just one more run” effect that fans of this type of game love. Especially the character design is highlighted.
However, the game is not successful: it reached a maximum of 110 players on Steam. The studio head hopes that maybe a Twitch streamer will discover it, but that would be nothing short of a miracle. Otherwise, the studio faces closure. They have already come to terms with that. The focus is now on ensuring that employees are well transitioned.
German studio needs new money for every new game
This frustrates the studio head: In a podcast, Pieper talks about the problems the studio has faced, which have now led publisher Thunderful to decide not to invest further in the studio, which amounts to closure if Reignbreaker does not unexpectedly become a huge hit on Steam.
A studio like Fizbin lives from one game to the next: fresh money must be found for every new game developed.
A torment that the already one of the most successful German studios in Munich, Mimimi Games, no longer wanted to endure. And Fizbin also failed to secure funding for a new game after Reignbreaker.
Studio head says: Everything conspired against the studio
This is what the studio head says about the end of the studio: Pieper says about the end of the studio that in the last months, everything seemed to conspire against them. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
They could only pitch a single new project because they were still working on Reignbreaker. This new project was almost finished, but then the partner withdrew. Pieper says the high-profile client opted for something cheaper for cost reasons.
Because suddenly, venture capital fled from gaming. For all gaming studios, it became almost impossible to secure financing with fresh money:
Venture capital is moving away, moving out of video games.
The industry and the entire flow of money are a huge problem. There is no longer any risk appetite. One can see on live television how the whole bubble is bursting.
With the collapse of the traffic light government, funding also disappeared
What does Christian Lindner have to do with it? The collapse of the traffic light coalition was another extreme setback for Studio Fizbin, as Pieper explains:
What was also a death blow for us was the damn government, which fell apart thanks to Lindner.
Pieper says that due to the collapse of the traffic light coalition, the games funding collapsed because no new budget was passed. This federal funding is crucial as an argument for German studios to attract investors.
As a studio in Germany, you need this advantage to compete with Canada or the USA, where investors get tax credits that gift them taxes, allowing games to be developed much more cheaply in North America than in Germany. Studio Fizbin has to compare itself with such countries:
Since even that went wrong, everything went wrong that could go wrong.
Reignbreaker faces backlash on Steam, perceived as woke
What was the final end? The news that the studio would not be getting any new money from the publisher was then picked up by opponents of the project. Suddenly, it was said: Don’t buy the game, it’s already dead. The money only goes to the publisher anyway.
Pieper says they ended up on the radar of some “gamers” who consistently attack woke games. They then spread the narrative that the studio was dead and that any purchased game would only benefit the publisher, even though this narrative was not true. For if Reignbreaker had become a hit, the studio could have continued. Every sale helps keep the lights on at Fizbin longer.
The first thing that happened was that some gamers – and I intentionally say gamers and not players, because in my mind, gamers are often just jerks who have some problem when you release a game that doesn’t feature some strong male dude or – as an alternative – the main character can be female and have big breasts.
If that is not the case, then it is a nasty, woke game. People used the publisher’s announcement to share in Steam forums that Reignbreaker was already dead at release and should not be bought.
“Major turn off” – A game developer brings their political views into the game. They should leave that out.
“Maximum ugly character” – Can’t boys just be boys and girls just be girls?
“Butch lesbian Hades” – There is no further content in the post.
For Studio Fizbin, this was catastrophic. They had worked with passion for 3 years on the game, then the publisher pulled the plug on them, and then there was a warning about the game. This destroyed their work on the game.
Developer Alexander Pieper hopes for a miracle that a streamer discovers Reignbreaker and that it becomes a huge hit. Such things rarely happen, but they do happen: Twitch streamer discovers a €5 game from Stuttgart, loves it, and makes it a hit on Steam
