‘We love you, we miss you, we hate money’: Indie publisher supports closed studios with SGF billboard

Indie game publisher New Blood Interactive has shown its support for closed studios with an electronic billboard in LA.

The billboard, posted to coincide with Summer Game Fest, was spotted by Game File journalist Stephen Totilo, who posted it on X.

It initially reads “gone but not forgotten”, then lists the following studios and their birth and ‘death’ years:

• Arkane Austin (2006-2024)
• Roll7 (2008-2024)
• Tango Gameworks (2010-2024)
• Volition Inc (1993-2023)
• London Studio (2002-2024)

It then mentions everyone else “laid off, downsized and ‘made redundant'”, saying: “Thank you for great games, from your friends at New Blood”.

The message then becomes pixellated and changes to another statement saying “we love you, we miss you, we hate money”.

Despite the year not yet reaching its halfway point, 2024 has almost seen as many games industry job losses as there were in the whole of 2023.

The Game Industry Layoffs tracker, which is being run by game developer Farhan Noor, estimates that around 10,500 games industry employees were laid off last year, while 10,200 are estimated to have been laid off this year so far.

In June alone, layoffs hit GameLof Kharkiv (affecting 41 staff), Behaviour Interactive (95 staff) and Avalanche Studios (50 staff).

In May it was confirmed that Xbox was closing down four Bethesda studios, including Redfall developer Arkane Austin and Hi-Fi Rush studio Tango Gameworks.

This followed news in February that PlayStation was cutting around 900 staff worldwide (around 8% of its entire workforce), including the entire closure of the PlayStation London Studio.