KeokeN Interactive launched Deliver Us Mars early last year. It was a follow-up to their 2018 release Deliver Us the Moon. However, neither of them could save the staff of the company from the April 30th announcement. Koen Deetman (CEO) and Paul Deetman (Managing Director) revealed that the studio was laying off its entire staff.
“Heartbroken, we’ve had to lay off our team at KeokeN because of nothing substantial materializing directly after our visit to GDC,” began the lengthy message from the CEO and managing director. “We’ve unfortunately exhausted all our possible options for publishing, work for hire, and co-development.”
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“It is our utmost priority to make sure our lovely team finds a new home somewhere else, so if you have any positions available in Programming, Tech Art, Porting, Level Design, Audio, Animation, Production, Office Management, contact us, so that we can introduce you to the very best people who have been at the heart of KeokeN over the past 10 years.
“Paul and I are heavily beat, but far from beaten. It’s our personal mission to rebuild KeokeN brick by brick like we’ve done before, in the name of our people and to continue the legacy of our games.
“It has become abundantly clear that what is most important to us and our team is you, our community. You play our games, you make our games shine, you make us feel special as you believe in us. You have showed up consistently in both the good and the bad times, from our debut Kickstarter in the past to our recent video asking for help. Because of you, we’ve reached millions of people. We have always needed you and continue to do so.
“Personally, we are preparing a Kickstarter soon for our much-anticipated Deliver Us Home. This is one small step for KeokeN, one giant leap for Delivering Us Home. A game we will build for you and with you.”
KeokeN dealt with a round of layoffs in March
In March, KeokeN announced a round of layoffs that affected 4 employees. At that time, the Deetman brothers announced that the management took significant pay cuts to make sure that they kept the team as long as possible.
“As leaders, when you are blessed to decide, plan, or do things from the company’s top, you are also burdened with taking the first hit when things get tough,” the Deetman brothers said at that time. “At least, that’s what Paul and I have always naturally drifted towards in rough waters. We try to protect the team as long as humanly possible. That is our most important responsibility.”
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One of the employees impacted by the layoff at that time made a post praising the studio management rather than the usual criticism that comes with layoffs. This is another blow to the video game industry which has seen mass layoffs in the last 12 months.
According to VG Insights, Deliver Us Mars grossed around $1.3 million since its release—which was clearly not enough to get the studio out of financial constraint. In terms of sales, only around 59,010 units of the game were sold. On Metacritic, Deliver Us Mars had an average rating of 69 on Xbox Series X and PC and 68 on PS5.
Last year, around 10,000 jobs were lost in the game industry. In the first four months of this year, over 8,000 jobs have already been lost. Different factors have been blamed for the layoffs in the video game industry including publisher greed and the slow growth of the game industry. Our heart goes out to everyone impacted by the decision at KeokeN Interactive.
