After being delayed in September, the much anticipated, Loot Drop-developed Cloudforest Expedition has now lost its publishing partner, as RockYou has announced that the two companies have terminated their publishing deal. Worse still for RockYou, the social games company is reportedly laying off 54 percent of its staff.
After being delayed in September, the much anticipated, Loot Drop-developed Cloudforest Expedition has now lost its publishing partner, as RockYou has announced that the two companies have terminated their publishing deal. Worse still for RockYou, the social games company is reportedly laying off 54 percent of its staff.
As reported by Inside Social Games, a number of postiions will be cut by the company, including 56 from its Redwood City, California-based office. According to CEO Lisa Marino, the company had simply grown too large to be profitable.
“We made a lot of mistakes in the last 12 months,” Marino told ISG. “We built up a central studio that looks a lot like EA or Zynga with 45 heads in it when we really only needed 10 or 12. We developed two large-scale sim games — Social Life and Cloudforest Expedition — and Social Life was [canceled] in May and Cloudforest is in the process of being kicked back to Loot Drop. Gourmet Ranch is profitable, but [the developer] is not building the core content that we want.”
According to Marino, Cloudforest Expedition is “a beautiful frickin’ game, but it doesn’t monetize.”
Despite the layoffs, RockYou is planning to publish a new, unannounced title in January. Its most recent games including Galactic Allies and Hooked.
