Lince Works announced yesterday the closure of its video game studio after nine years in the market. The Barcelona company, responsible for the development of the Aragami games, has applied an ERE to the entire workforce, made up of 15 people.
“We have been forced to close the study because one of our editors has decided to halt a large project that he was initially willing to finance. Due to the unfavorable situation, it turns out that he has backed down. The reason is none other than the caution of investors in the technology industry that has prevailed globally after years of unbridled growth. Now we see that this trend has also been transferred to the video game sector”, laments David León, co-founder of the business together with Eduard Soler and Álvaro Muñoz.
Lince Works has decided to completely stop its activity. However, it does not anticipate dissolving the company. "Legally, we are not going to close the company because we have to continue paying the royalties to the publishing companies that co-financed the development of other video games." León assures that Lince Works still has money in the box and that it will continue to receive income from video games that are still available on video consoles and computers.
The most popular video games that Lince Works has created are Aragami 1 and 2. They were financed by Playstation Europe and got more than one million downloads worldwide. In addition, they are also available on consoles such as XBox and computers.
According to the latest data available in the Mercantile Registry, the company invoiced some 380,000 euros in the year 2020. "The situation began to worsen in 2021 due to a drop in sales because the last video game we developed was not successful what we expected”, admits the founder, who does not share the liability figure, although he assures that in the last three months the company has registered losses of half a million euros.
Although the business situation is not viable right now, León does not rule out developing new video games in the future. Lince Works is part of the group of small and medium-sized video game studios in Barcelona that coexist with the large multinationals established in the city.
