German prestige indie studio Mimimi Games closes down

Truly enough to make you cry: After "Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew", Munich-based studio Mimimi Games is closing its doors. They still vow to support the game, but over the next few months Mimimi will dismantle the studio piece by piece. Founders Dominik Abé and Johannes Roth cite the well-being and mental health of the staff as the reason.

It was the great hope for a flagship studio from Germany that dared to make the leap from publisher-supported indie developer to self-publishing. But now the Munich studio Mimimi Games is closing its doors: "Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew" (German GamesMarkt preview), the studio's first game without a publishing contract, will have been the last title. They still want to fully support the game, the statement says, but the studio will downsize piece by piece over the next few months and eventually close.

"As we look back at our 15-year journey crafting games (and crying about it), we feel grateful for the incredible love and support we received from all of you. We cherished every game we made and feel proud of what we were able to accomplish as a studio. At the same time, dedicating the past decade and a half of our lives working on increasingly ambitious games took a heavy personal toll on us and our families. After the release of Shadow Gambit we decided it was the right time to prioritize our well-being and to pull the brakes instead of signing up for another multi-year production cycle", said studio founders Dominik Abé and Johannes Roth.

"We will be doing everything in our power to support our team, and we are now starting to reach out to our friends in the industry to find suitable new jobs for all Mimimis. If you have open positions and are interested in hiring our amazing talents, please get in touch via hiring@mimimi.games", Abé and Roth assure. Through the launch of "Shadow Gambit", all employees will also be released from their employment with an additional bonus.

Whether the decision is related to the launch of "Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew" is uncertain. It is true that the game had to struggle with a Steam error at launch and was therefore not purchasable for some time, which may have affected the figures. According to Roth and Abé, however, the decision revolves around the toll that working on long-running game projects takes on the well-being of the employees.

Before, Mimimi Games had worked together with Daedalic Entertainment from Hamburg as publisher for "Shadow Tactics" and THQ Nordic from Vienna as publisher and IP holder for "Desperados III". "Shadow Gambit" was their endeavour to bring their tactics expertise into their own hands with a self-owned IP. Mimimis logo is a crying girl - "mimimi" is a German onomatopoeic term for someone crying without a reason to do so.