Airtight Games closes, just weeks after debut of new game

Airtight Games has quietly closed its Redmond headquarters, bringing an apparent end to its 10-year run as an independent video-game development shop less than a month after the debut of its newest title for PCs and consoles.

Company executives haven’t yet responded to requests for comment about the closure, but Airtight’s former office space in Redmond has been shuttered, and its office equipment was being sold off at heavy discounts when GeekWire visited this morning, with a sign outside saying the company is closing its doors.

A small collection of Airtight’s past awards from the E3 video game convention sat on an empty desk, amid a sea of unused monitors and computer equipment.

The company, known for past games including Dark Void and Quantum Conundrum, released the game Murdered: Soul Suspect for Windows PCs, Xbox and Playstation in early June, in partnership with game publisher Square Enix.

Airtight laid off 14 employees earlier this year, and its former creative director Kim Swift later joined Amazon Game Studios.

Airtight executive Jim Deal told IGN at the time of the layoffs in April that the move was part of a “necessary restructuring.” He added at the time, “This restructuring is part of the normal ebb and flow of game production. Existing projects are on schedule and Airtight Games is actively seeking partners for exciting upcoming projects.”

Airtight’s website remains online with no mention of the closure. We’ll update this post as we learn more.

http://www.geekwire.com/2014/airtight-games-taken-last-breath/

thst's sad

also, they made two "indies" and lived, they made AAA (or AA) and collapsed
and people on the internet still don't learn

New IP, Japanese Publisher... this was never going to end well.

Always sad to see people lose their jobs but I can't say I am really surprised after their last two games bombed both critically and commercially.

Man that sucks.... :(

If true, I actually feel bad for these guys as the game wasn't terrible, but nowadays you need marketing budgets almost equal to or bigger than your development budget. I saw one ad for the game (I know anecdotal) on tv. Add in the fact that review sites punished them for not being a big established IP or at least from a big bame Dev.

It's sad, but like any company in any industry, if you don't release quality products you're always likely to struggle. I plan on getting Murdered SS soon, but the fact of the matter is that smaller studios with less of a budget have made better games

Sucks for the people that work there. But still, you can't release two bad game + one mediocre game and still survive.

That's a shame :(

I thought Quantum Conundrum was quite ok, wasn't it?