The story that led to the closure of Ready at Dawn seems to be the story of the entire industry.

Ready at Dawn is just the latest victim of a market that is losing more and more pieces by the day.between the bankruptcy of many studios, the downsizing of others with layoffs, and a significant decline in major productions in the traditional market. It is not the end, but there is no doubt that in the last two years there has been a shrinking of the size of the traditional market, with a strong acceleration towards all those markets that were previously considered alternative, but are now emerging with all their enormous power, such as mobile.

Ultimately, the story of the studio founded by Andrea Pesino is the story of the entire industry. Starting out with a middling project like Daxter for the PSP, having massive success with God of War: Chains of Olympus, one of the best-selling games of all time for the PSP, and confirming and growing with important projects like Okami’s porting to the Nintendo Wii and God of War: Ghost of Sparta for the PSP, Relations with Sony continue to improve. Which led to the production of a trilogy like The Order: 1886, which the Japanese company used on several occasions as a showcase for the power of the PS4.

From rags to riches

Ready at Dawn’s growth seemed unstoppable, but the market decided that six-hour action games were no longer good: The Order: 1886 was given a cold shoulder by critics, and few people bought the game, factors that somewhat exacerbated the problem. They condemned the study, even though it was only the first real mistake.. De-Formers, the next game didn’t bring any results. The unstoppable growth came to a brutal halt. What seemed like a software house destined to do great things eventually had to. Sell ​​yourself to Metawhich it hired to prop up its failing virtual reality business, which at the time was seen as the future of video games by tech enthusiasts.

Many people view the acquisition of a large multinational corporation as a great success and security, but in reality it often hides a harsher and more difficult reality, as many cases have proven over the years. Be like that. Ready at Dawn has developed at least two of Meta’s best VR headset titles That were released to the market (out of four total). Let’s talk about the two Lone Echos, to be exact. It’s unfortunate that VR didn’t get the attention of (almost) anyone. The market never took off, the sector ended up in the deep red and Meta decided to slowly exit it, driven by growing shareholder discontent. Naturally, all the related divisions and studios paid the price, with the loss of thousands of jobs, including Ready at Dawn.

Why not sell the company to someone else? It’s hard to say, but we imagine a studio that has been working on VR for years isn’t as attractive as we’d like to believe in a market dominated by free-to-play and live services. Unfortunately, changing focus isn’t as trivial as writing a Facebook comment. It’s much more practical to shut it down, saving money on salaries and ongoing investment.