GRIN is DEAD

[T-Short]

http://www.grin.se/

It is with a heavy heart we announce today that GRIN has been forced to close its doors. This as too many publishers have been delaying their payments, causing an unbearable cashflow situation.

After twelve years of hard work, employing hundreds of wonderfully talented men and women, it is over. It has been a great adventure and the GRIN family has experienced what few have.

Looking back at twelve years of games, titles such as Ballistics, Bandits, GRAW 1 & 2, Bionic Commando Rearmed, Wanted: Weapons of Fate, Terminator: Salvation, Bionic Commando and our unreleased masterpiece that we weren’t allowed to finish; it has been a great ride.

We would like to thank a few special companies and individuals that have meant a lot for us during these years:

Phil Scott & Phil Wright and crew at Nvidia

Greg, Chris, Guy, Leigh and crew at Intel

Fabrice, Stephane, Mathieu, Romain, Nouredine and the rest of the team at UBI Soft for the wonderful opportunities on GRAW – you kicked us off, thanks!

The crew at SEB who stood by us at all times

Adam Boyes and the guys at CAPCOM US. Thanks for being honest, a rare gift.


The biggest hug goes to all of our great team members and their families. We had a lot of fun even though we were fighting crazy hours and producers.

The final thanks goes out to our GRIN mom, Annelie – you stood by us and the company from birth to death – without you none of the great times would have happened.


And to all our gamers – we hope you had a good time.


brb… /afk

BO ANDERSSON, FOUNDER & CEO. ULF ANDERSSON, FOUNDER & DIRECTOR.

[WrikaWrek]

They made 3 turds in a row.

Shit happens.

[T-Short]

They made 3 turds in a row.

Shit happens.

Also risked a lot by opening three satellite offices, on the basis that everything would sell fine.

[AdmiralViscen]

I didn't realize they made GRAW. Why'd Ubi dump that franchise?

[demi]

The post says that publishers simply didnt pay up. It's not the devs fault at all.

edit: Except the Barcelona studio. Probably their fault.

[Mr. Gundam]

Damn shame, I really enjoyed Bionic Commando.

[duckman2000]

Bummer. They made GRAW PC, which was fucking awesome.

[twerd]

it's a real shame. they had to quit because they found out their dev kits were actually constructed from the souls of their loved ones.

[Grecco]

Happens when you make shit games that get shit sales. See Brash Entrainment.

[Sho Nuff]

I don't know if I'd blame crappy sales. Smart dev studios never assume they're getting ANY royalties -- because royalties are very, very rare. The smart move is to keep your company healthy based on set milestone payments...and meet those milestones. That, and not ticking off your publishers.

[demi]

Things change at the last minute because of publishers. I still blame them. And the Barcelona studio.

[chronovore]

I don't know if I'd blame crappy sales. Smart dev studios never assume they're getting ANY royalties -- because royalties are very, very rare. The smart move is to keep your company healthy based on set milestone payments...and meet those milestones. That, and not ticking off your publishers.

Lord only knows (well, The Lord and GRIN execs) what the payment surplus per title would have been for them; every dev house is going to have to have something to tide them over the lean times, when they don't have someone actively paying to have all their oars in the water. GRIN reportedly grew quite huge quite quickly, so that's a lot of overhead. If they were not ready to transfer onto several other projects after wrapping the previous titles up (which launched in close proximity, no?) then they could have been facing some hefty overhead.

Sadly, I also suspect they had trouble landing new contracts when companies saw the metacritic on their last few titles.