Deliver Us Mars Team KeokeN Lays Off Entire Staff, Founders Will Attempt To Secure Funding For Next Project Through Kickstarter
KeokeN Interactive, the studio behind Deliver Us The Moon and Deliver Us Mars has announced that it will layoff the studio’s entire staff, as a result of not being able to secure the necessary funding to keep everyone on payroll.
This comes little more than a month after the studio announced it would layoff 4 out of its 19 employees. Now no one is left on payroll it would seem, but it looks like chief executive officer Koen Deetman and managing director Paul Deetman are doing their best to keep the studio alive.
In a statement from the Deetman brothers, they specifically call out not being able to secure a publishing partnership at this year’s GDC as part of why this layoff is coming to pass, but end off by saying they will look to Kickstarter to try and fund the studio’s next project, Deliver Us Home.
“Heartbroken, we’ve had to lay off our team at KeokeN because of nothing substantial materializing directly after our visit to GDC. We’ve unfortunately exhausted all our possible options for publishing, work for hire, and co-development…
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.”
It’s unfortunate to see the KeokeN team lose their jobs like this, and that there are more developers now looking for work in an already overcrowded space.
Hopefully the brothers can turn things around, and be able to call the same developers they laid off back to work on the studio’s next project.
Source – [KeokeN Interactive]
