The Belgium indie studio, Tale of Tales, will be closing its doors after its most recent game, Sunset, was a commercial flop, selling barely over 4,000 copies.
Michaël Samyn and Auriea Harvey, the creators of Sunset, said in their somber blog post, “In the end, we spent more money than we had on the production of Sunset. Because we wanted to make it really good and reach a wider audience. Compared to the ambitions we had for the game, the extra $40,000 seemed like a relatively small sum.”
At the end of their post, the two-person team said “Creativity still burns wildly in our hearts but we don’t think we will be making videogames after this. And if we do, definitely not commercial ones.”
While it’s sad to see them go, the closing of Tale of Tales serves as a gloomy reminder to studios, both big and small, that understanding your audience is crucial in this industry, and creating a game that “appeals to a wide audience”, appeals to no audience.