French Union Blasts Quantic Dream as 95 Jobs Risked After 3-Month Game Flop

3 articles · Updated · Kotaku · May 21

Up to 95 Quantic Dream jobs are at risk after Spellcasters Chronicles was scrapped three months after launch and pulled from Steam, with servers due to shut in June.
STJV said the eight-year project collapsed because management never challenged its free-to-play MOBA model, kept iterating an overbudget game and failed to plan for failure.
The union directly blamed studio leaders including David Cage and Guillaume de Fondaumière, rejecting management claims about external market conditions.
Quantic Dream says Star Wars Eclipse will not be affected, but employees are questioning why more Spellcasters staff cannot be reassigned to the single-player title.
NetEase, which bought Quantic Dream in 2022 and has since pulled back from overseas game investments, is also accused of pushing an early release and rapid abandonment.

Did arrogant leaders doom Quantic Dream’s new game, or was it a victim of a brutal market and a new corporate owner?

After this disaster, can Quantic Dream's troubled leadership actually deliver on its ambitious Star Wars Eclipse project?

With AI promising cheaper game creation, why did an 8-year project become 'ungodly expensive' and collapse so spectacularly?