The studio that developed Hand of Fate has closed in Australia
There will be no more games from the developers of Hand of Fate. One of the key indie studios in Australia – Defiant Development — has announced its closure.
According to its founder Morgan Japhitt, the entire Defiant staff is now looking for new jobs. Her current project, The World in My Attic, will never be released.
Nine years ago, Defiant Development was lucky to open during a difficult period for the Australian game developer. Then, after the global financial crisis, many big publishers and investors left the region. Defiant entered the market as an independent developer and, despite all the difficulties, achieved recognition. According to Japhitt, she created “world-class games unlike others.” Thus, the studio demonstrated that the Australian industry is not hopeless, reports Gamesindustry.biz .
But now Defiant is forced to close, as stated by Japhitt, due to lack of flexibility. By this time, there were enough studios in Australia that could compete with Defiant. The latter chose an almost adventurous development model for herself. In trying to create “games that no longer exist”, the indie studio took considerable risks. And if the experiment failed, then Defiant was left with literally nothing.
During the nine years that we have been in business, the realities of the gaming market have changed for both large and small studios. But we couldn't change fast enough to keep up with him.
Founder of Defiant Development
The most famous Defiant project — the action RPG Hand of Fate – was released in 2015 on PC and consoles. A sequel followed in 2017. Both games were well received by both players and critics.
Earlier this year, the Australian market experienced another shock. In February, Electronic Arts reduced the staff of Firemonkeys, the country’s largest game development studio.
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