The John Smedley-led Studio Pixelmage Games Shuttering its Doors

In January 2016, John Smedley made an announcement that, after his leaving Daybreak Games, he had founded a new studio. The studio, called Pixelmage Games also added to the announcement that they had launched a Kickstarter campaign for their first title, Hero's Song.

The Kickstarter ended the following month having only gathered 17% of its goal. Pixelmage launched an Indiegogo several months ago, with a goal that was a third of their Kickstarter goal, but failed to get even 50% of it by the end of 2016. They also launched the still-alpha Hero's Song to Steam's Early Access platform in October where it failed to gain a big audience.

Which brings us to their latest announcement from 26th December:

It breaks my heart to have to do this :( https://t.co/pTWymRiYn3

— John Smedley (@j_smedley) December 26, 2016

It's with a heavy heart that I have to report that Pixelmage Games is going to be shutting down and we have ceased development on Hero's Song. For the last year, our team has worked tirelessly to make the game we've dreamed about making, and with your support, and the support of our investors, we were able to get the game into Early Access. Unfortunately sales fell short of what we needed to continue development. We knew going in that most startups don't make it, and as an indie game studio we hoped we would be the exception to that rule, but as it turned out we weren't.

We sincerely value our customers. You’re our most important focus and have been from day one. We’re going to offer 100% refunds to all of the people who bought Hero’s Song.

The company, and thus the game, are shutting down. The game has already been removed from sale on Steam, and the homepage of Pixelmage Games has information on how to claim your refund from either Steam or Indiegogo.

If you require a refund, it must be made by 31st March 2017.

This isn't the first studio closure we have covered this year, which is terribly unfortunate for the industry, but we wish everyone involved all the best in their future endeavours.