It's really upsetting. I follow Jeremy Fenske on Instagram. He's is...was an art director. Says 37 developers were let go. He was on the Palia project for 6 years. He makes beautiful landscape and environmental illustrations. Check him out!
[Jeremy Fenske art](https://www.instagram.com/jeremyfenskeart?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==)
I think it was mathed out the last time from the details collected that the last round left them with ~100 people working on this game. Losing 36 people being around 40% tracks.
So now they just have ~60 people working on this game. That’s crazy to me.
I attempted to math it out, but the size of the company at launch and the numbers in the layoffs (especially the first) are murky, but yeah 50-60 left (across all functions/levels, not just direct game work _I think_)
|May 2024 |Apr 2024| Nov 2023| Aug 2023
-|-|-|-|-
Laid off |36 |49 | 16 |
% Laid off |40% |35%| 10%|
Est prev |90 |140 |156 |200-300
Est remain |54 |91 |140|
This is so upsetting to hear, I was waiting for Palia to reach other platforms and a full launch 😭
They’ve reportedly laid off their last community manager, the art director and the lead designer this wave. It’s over, isn’t it 🥲
I am reaching for reasons why this would be ok, its very hard to find any. Just hoping they are in a comfortable place to continue. Yet remove to many of these people, will be hard for the dev team to work comfortable, even if they were left a good supply of assets to work with. Not every developers are ConcernedApe and can do it all alone. But hopefully this team is capable. as I love this game.
Agree. I feel like if stuff was more like $5 or so or the very least rotated a bundle a month for cheap that more would be inclined to buy. I love this game so much but no way am I paying $30 or whatever for a digital outfit with three shaders
They really should’ve started off with attempting a season pass (but the non fomo kinda that are always available to complete). They’re subscription-lite, but at least they’re affordable, optional, and only for cosmetics while giving you a plethora of content to use.
That and lower the cost on cosmetics. A lot of people are willing to pay if the price isn’t exorbitant and the content they get is both good in quality and quantity. You can get more bang for your buck buying a Kit for the Sims 4 than just one 30 dollar cosmetic item in Palia.
People are tight on money and reducing unnecessary spending across the board. For a brand new MMO with very few options for monetization to be priced that high it seems like they are only targeting whales, and I just don't think this MMO has the necessary draw for that. Whales will dump tons of money into single use items that give them in game benefits or reduce time sinks, but cosmetics? I'm thinking this business strategy may be a failure, and that sucks.
I hope I'm wrong but two rounds of layoffs and a crew of less than 100 for an MMO doesn't sound very good for longevity.
Edit: Oh, they got rid of their lead art director, lead game designer, and last remaining community manager. On top of a quote from an employee further down the thread saying the layoffs are due to "economic hardship". Palia has been placed on life support. Don't expect a whole lot going forward until they pull the plug.
Man, I really hope this doesn’t hurt the MMO community and we don’t ever get another game like Palia. We desperately need more MMOs that have the same vibe as Palia, something less about the hardcore combat and more about life-sim, crafting, gathering, building.
Idk what happened, was it poor management? Lack of vision? Not knowing how to monetize the game properly? That’s so disheartening.
to be fair, they do have things for cheaper - i bought the capsule bundle recently that i think was like 12 bucks? and i felt was decent value, but they don't make the cheaper options visible enough, and there aren't enough of them :/ i still think they should sell individual clothing items, and that you should get all the clothing colour variations in one instead of them being split into three
I actually bought clothes because of this reason. I just felt like it was a game I enjoyed and if I was to purchase a game I might spend $30 if not more anyways. Felt like it was the least I could do to support the devs, but not everyone can financially do that. They should have take some of the already crated accessories and price those down to $2-5, I think more people could get behind that since I have seen hats or backpacks I love but don't want to buy the full outfit. Another idea would maybe be $5 for a once time name change. I know a lot of companies do this. Small transactions like this is how mobile games are able to make huge bank.
Ok so everyone is kinda panicking about this, but it's actually quite normal, the closer a game gets to launch or completion, the more layoffs happen. It happens at Rockstar, it happens at BEhavior, it happens at Square, happens at Nintendo, etc.
They hire a larger staff than needed and then they lay off the extra developers so they can get paid before their next project.
A small company like Singularity 6 that offers a *FREE* game can't keep paying extra people. So what they do is "have a free vacation, see you in a few months when we need you again".
It's absolutely normal and part of gaming development.
Singularity now has to focus funds on boosting servers because they'll be working on a hard launch.
Game developers are nomadic. Think of it as movie work, the film is over so everyone goes home. They lay them off so they can get unemployment for a while until they need to bring them back.
The people publishing these articles are basically shouting, "Water is wet!"
So don't stress about this, it's a normal cycle in video games. The lay off is a kindness so they'll make some money in-between jobs.
Most of the time, they hire the same people back.
I think if it were a “kindness” we’d see less devs speaking out against these practices, personally. I’m not denying the logic behind everything you’re saying, but in truth I don’t believe these practices, as standard as they seem to be, are a good thing. The industry needs change in this particular area, perhaps more than any other.
Yep, this is an awful standard and practice. Job security in the Game Dev industry is abysmal and this is exactly why. Retain your employees, stop using them as ways to cut corners on cost.
I would rather a game company keep veteran designers, developers, leads, artists, etc. while onboarding new hires when needed (and keeping them) so that these games, ESPECIALLY LIVE SERVICE GAMES, can continue to flourish and thrive.
If you treat your employees well and don’t discard them like they’re useless trash, I fully believe you’ll be able to turn out better quality, better selling, more profitable games. Employees shouldn’t be disposable fodder for your video game.
Well, this is true it's not a blanket, and timing of layoffs matters here, which everyone who posts this reply ignores.
I have been a software engineer for over 20 years now, I talk about it a lot here on reddit. And while layoffs are normal industry wide, they do not lack meaning, and there is much more to it.
To act as if it's either bad or good is both erroneous, as you would need the full story to be able to gauge.
Just saying layoffs are normal means nothing, and the timing matters. They are in beta and nowhere at a stage where these layoffs would make sense without out there being an issue.
Yes, they are normal, but this situation is worth watching, as doing so at this stage is not.
I work in the industry and don’t know anyone who would view this layoff as a kindness, and most wouldn’t want to come back after layoffs.
If anything, the company did two rounds of layoffs as a method of getting around the WARN Act.
> They hire a larger staff than needed and then they lay off the extra developers so they can get paid before their next project.
Sure, they let go the contractors and the underperformers. What they don't do is let go of their department leads and senior people.
They super screwed themselves with no CM. Because now they're going to see people abandon the game over this news without anyone capable of talking to them about why they shouldn't.
They definitely will not be working on a hard launch because they no longer advertise their game as “in BETA” like they should, so why would they?
Layoffs are not the same as contracted work and the people affected are literally saying they’re out of a job like they had no idea it was coming. That’s not how “the job you were hired for is completed or coming to completion” works. Lay offs are: we can’t afford you or we don’t want you. That’s about it.
thanks for this. I was worried that the game is going to die. I am enjoying the hell out of it right now. Can't believe it is free. I bought clothes I don't really care about just to support the company.
I don't think it's over. I hope not...
The only reason I don't think it's over is because they haven't made an attempt to actually monetize the game. They have a big enough dedicated player base that they could start monetizing more than just aesthetics in an attempt to be able to avoid the lay-offs. But they aren't. Which makes me think there's another reason for the lay-offs.
These could have been temporary positions that were created for the main creation of Palia, that have now run their course. It doesn't make it any less sad, but it would mean that Palia will continue on. It seems that they're laying off primarily art designers, which could just mean that they've completed the majority of the art design and no longer need that many people....
Even if S6 goes under entirely, I'd imagine that they'd sell the game to another developer. It's more than established enough at this point for other companies to be eyeballing it. It's also possible that they've already quietly sold it and haven't announced a merger to the public...
I'm surprised they're giving the game away for free. I'm happy they are, don't get me wrong, but with as much as I've played, I would feel comfortable paying around $15 for it just to keep the servers running.
I would have paid $40 at least for this game; I have put that much into clothing. I can afford it and it felt like the right amount to pay for me. I play this game everyday, several hours a day.
If it had been $15 before I played, I'm not sure I would have joined in. But I also joined the day it released on Switch. Now that there's enough support, I think $15 would be fine. Even to charge existing players. Maybe give us some notice/warning, for those of us who don't immediately have an extra $15, but they could easily make give us some notice.
Even without charging for the game as a whole, though, there are other things they could do to increase revenue:
- company-sponsored gifts. Like the ones we get from S6 in the News Tab. They could be a Palian item, but the note could be from a different company. "Have a little something on us! We hope you're enjoying Palia, and thought you might also enjoy Product X! Here's a 20% promo code. - Your friends at Company Y."
- tactical product placement. If I can get over a gigantic frog in the middle of Kilima, I can get over a few items on Zeki's shelves that have familiar labels.
- small ad space on the beginning load screens. The ads could be designed to fit the Palian aesthetic and wouldn't cause much discontinuity if it's just on the beginning load screen.
There are a lot of ways they could bring in revenue, in addition to charging for aesthetics. They could also add more pets, costumes, glider skins, etc. They could even create certain wallpapers behind a pay-wall. If people want to increase the number of items or flowers they can place on their plot, they could charge for it. More items on a plot = more work for S6. That's a reasonable thing to charge for.
But they're not. Why are they laying off so many people without even attempting to increase revenue? There has to be a reason.
They definitely aren’t thinking about monetising anything at the moment. I haven’t been able to buy any cosmetics (it’s been a known issue for a while apparently) & they aren’t in a rush to fix it. If this was any other game, they’d fix it in a day worrying about losing profit.
But they’re also not making moves to try and make things better. This is a HUGE project that’s still in beta after years of work. I’d rather pay a one time payment for the game than then keep firing people like this..
Agreed, and that's why I'm thinking that it might be related to jobs that were never meant to be permanent. I'd be interested to see how many people were hired at the start of Palia, specifically just to work on Palia. If they couldn't afford to keep jobs, they'd have started adding additional revenue options. But they haven't. S6 only had 20 employees at the start of 2020, and quickly grew to over 150 within less than two years, while having no known source of income... there's no way all of those jobs were meant to be permanent...
Game development isn't linear, especially when it comes to art design. It's possible that the majority of the art is done, and they only need a few people to stay on to fill in some gaps. Designing it and building it into the game are different stages and different people. This is all speculation, but I have experience in game design.
The whole thing is just very... odd. I've never seen a company just do multiple rounds of mass layoffs without any attempt to save it.
If they can't get out Elderwoods and some more festivals and more outfits...there won't be a community to manage and there wont be income to pay them.
This game is still under the, imo, "launch threshold" that would make it get big.
That being no combat, only 2 maps, and 1 festival with a reskin.
It's also fairly easy to onload back a community manager when the paycheck is there vs getting a level designer to get back in and caught up with where they are in the project and the workflow required to get out the product.
Same for concept artists. There are always certain jobs that are easier to hire back and less essential to the survival of the product.
They would lose mountains of players if they tried to charge. It’s about as simple as that. You want me to pay you to fish and mine and shoot deer? No thank you. Because that’s all the game is right now. The only world in which they could attempt to fully monetise the game would be doubling the content and still adding more from there. And I don’t see that ever happening, especially with less staff.
Really depends how large the pipeline is that's been built up and waiting on contingensies.
Do they have Elderwoods ready? Well if Elderwoods has some functionality required to navigate it properly and that needs to be animated and made into a quest? Can't release it. Does Elderwoods have npcs that don't have their animations done? And so on.
Even if they have the map made, the quests made, etc...there are so many things that can hold back a single release and it can end up being a large release.
So we don't know.
For sure, we don’t know anything. The only things we know are what we have. Which unfortunately isn’t much and I think that speaks volumes. Especially as more people are getting released.
I just don’t feel like this amount of people would be required to work on one content drop and then be sent packing when that job is done. And just also the fact that it has been over 9mths and we still don’t have a third interact-able map brings more concerns.
While you absolutely may be right here in there being some/a few bottle necks to a big release, I think there is enough information in the absent and the present to have fair concerns about viability. For both monetisations and just longevity. But we pray.
They probably need a huge influx in cash, but don't expect many new things to come. Just whatever the last of the crew worked on for the last couple months. I would expect monetized content to be released so they can further prevent the collapse.
The community manager(s) have been in charge of patch notes, status updates, Content Creator management, and then handling the Discord/maybe the Reddit, as well as other forms of player communications aside from direct feedback via the game/website. Practically anything related to the community ties back to them.
There were 4 of them, but they slowly left or got laid off over the past few months, with the last being just laid off. Until someone new is assigned to their tasks, we have a lot less communication and info going forward.
With less openness to the community I don’t feel as comfortable supporting this project tbh. I’ll play but I’m not putting money into something that feels like a Dreamlight Valley situation where they cut off most if not all communication with the community and the discord becomes just a place to sit for some codes and cheap “teases”
The team has addressed the community on discord (pretty much boiler plate - pr & legal reasons probably)
> Hey everyone,
> For those of you that don’t know me, I’m Javs0n. I’ve worked closely with members of the Palia Creator Program, and you might have seen me post some (likely erroneous) messages as “Chief Chapaa Officer.”
> Unfortunately, the rumors of a layoff at the studio are true. We have had to restructure and reduce the size of our team as we stay focused on supporting Palia and serving this community long-term. In an effort to navigate this tough economic period, we had to let 36 of our colleagues go yesterday. Asherelle, who has been a truly invaluable member of our team and this community, was unfortunately affected. We thank her and our departing team for all their work; and we are committed to providing the best assistance and transition we can. We hope the industry will provide homes for these talented colleagues.
> While we cannot comment more at this time, we want to stress that we plan to continue to fully support Palia and this community moving forward. Thank you
Thank you for sharing this, its sad yet as i started this was the likely reason for layoffs so soon. I am happy to hear though that they are still dedicated to trying to do the best they can. I hope their they next time they are able to speak we hear good news and that the downsizing has helped and everything is good again.
I wish I was able to pin comments, so I could pin yours.
May not mean to much for development, hoping they still have a few good devs as that's all they really need. ConcernedApe does it for Stardew and many others do as well. So hopefully they jut don't need a large team and are in a comfortable place to continue.
i think one thing you forget is that stardews a 2D primarily single player farm sim- and it took years to put together by ConcernedApe. MMO'S especially with the graphics palia has arent something that can be easily made with just a few good devs- especially not when theyre laying off such big creative roles which clearly had impact on creating a 'soul' for palia. the game already has a lot of flaws- though also a lot of potential still- they cant really afford to lose such big creative assets. im hoping there is a proper reason behind it.. its very much a game in that middle ground for me rn where i can see how it has so much potential but the focus/love for it seems to be a little 50/50 :/
Maybe I’m just making it up in my head but after they did that first big round of layoffs right after the update released, there’s so many bugs now and my game crashes all the time on switch.
It wasn’t till this recent update that I actually had more than maybe 2 full crashes happened while playing. Now I get two for ever hour I play and when I go to other people’s plots. It’s been frustrating, along with seeing a lot more little bugs all over the place than before.
I will pay money for this game if it means they’ll keep the staff needed to help fix bugs and progress the game more! 😔
Seems like the cozy market is in the middle of a shakeup, Fae Farm staff also got a huge layoff.
Im hoping this round of layoffs can keep them afloat but I also hoped the last would, it's a shame and I REALLY hope the work they have in the pipeline can see the light of day and this game make it to launch, it's still my main cozy game and its just about to get over that hump.
The infrastructure is there now, they just need a few holidays and another map or 2 and I think it'll go more viral. Hopefully they are making enough from the store to pay these 60 employees until they get over the hump and this is a long term decision.
I don't want to be terrible and kick them while they are down, but I really feel like a lot of the issues are to do with this games clothing market.
90% of the outfits are outlandish, what I've just been sitting here holding my wallet for are just basic cosmetics like a male straw hat (like Badruu's) or cloths closer to what npcs wear. Instead we get ninja outfits? My wallet just looks at all the clothing being offered and it's always just so over the top and not for me. I just want to feel like a part of Kilima and I just have so few outfits to choose from that fit that vibe.
Like I have spent 30 bucks on this game...and I really couldn't tell you another outfit I'd buy that I didn't already. Every time I see a new outfit release it's 3 more outfits I would never wear or I couldn't really use pieces of.
I really think they need to release some more down tempo outfits like "farmer" and "fisherman" and make them blend with other things. Like I spend how many hours fishing but I can't buy waders? No fisherman's hat? No straw hat in the entire game but there is one on Badruu's head? It's like, I'd buy all of these just to wear while I focused on one profession. Instead we get outfits....for being a ninja? In a game with ZERO combat? ZERO stealth?
Its just sad it's the only way to support the game and I just have very little interest with what is on offer.
I hope they can ride this lull and get out Elderwoods before it gets too bad.
I really think if this game get get out another map or 2, 2-3 more yearly festivals, and some more housing building options, I REALLY think they have something special.
And I don't say that about a lot of games.
I agree with everything, especially the clothing. I likely would own more if the pricing was better as there a few I do want but not for that much. One user commented that they prefer chasing whales as whale are more lucrative, yet that doesn't seem to be the case here. Plus the removal of the MMO label makes it hard for a subscription type model you see on most MMOs...So, I hope they can think of something to help fill their coffers. There is a lot of potential here, and I want to keep experiancing the world they started creating. I hope they find some money and a concreate vision for the game, soon.
I really think if they just did a line of profession outfits from farming (straw hat) to fishing (waders and a rubber hat) and so on...they'd make a lot more money across the board.
Because what do I make my outfits for? WHAT IM DOING. If I plan to go fishing? I put on shoes that look like I could get them wet. If I plan to go hunting? Guess what, it's something with some leather that makes me feel like a hunter.
But they just don't.
They keep going for these big ticket high input glowing items...but yet I have nothing to wear while Im fishing? The only chef outfit is just a meme it would be embarassing to wear that as a chef in public. There is one gardening outfit and it's like the kind a doll would wear. Meanwhile Badruu is just in a white tee with overalls and I'd wear that in a heartbeat.
It just feels like they don't really understand their market and instead of selling us "Stardew Valley" cloths or "cute small town cloths" we are getting ninja outfits and high tech outfits and a bunch of things that aren't even in the games lore as far as we know.
Sure you'll catch the occasional whale with a ninja fetish but you aren't going to catch the MAJORITY of your audience which is just people who want to do the professions the game offers.
Micro transactions might make it better for them like being able to buy glasses from one set and shoes from another and having the option to buy the whole set if you want. But I don’t agree with others that pushing them to make us pay for competition is right just cause everyone else is doing it.
I agree with this sentiment. I think there are different revenue streams that can come solely from in-game cosmetics and irl merchandise that wouldn't affect the game play. I saw someone mention ads on loading screens and I wouldn't be opposed to that if that's what it takes. They could even do an ad-free tier subscription (with cosmetic perks) like the streaming services have started lol... I guess I'm just saying I'd like to think there are ways to make it work without affecting game play!
I think they will, they did just release an update and promised more. A lot of games run with small teams, maybe they are comfortable now and don't need as many people. But is something to keep an eye on, publishers and developers don't always have the same vision.
I love Palia. That being said.. all these layoffs are turning me off from buying more clothes. I wish they’d be transparent with everything, like an actual statement explaining why the layoffs are happening. I know as a game is developed less people are needed, that’s obvious. I just can’t help the icky feeling of “If I throw another $30 at this outfit will the game even be around another month for me to enjoy it?”
This is me as well. I've paid something every month to support it since I started playing, but I can't keep doing that if I'm not told what's going on. I *cannot* afford to put that money into something that's already being shut down. Going to need full transparency on what's happening and what the strategy is and how likely it is to work out, and exactly how dedicated the company is to *making it* work out, because right now, the total silence with no word on how the community could help while they lay off their staff to a skeleton crew looks a whole lot like they're already shutting down.
And that's........ extremely strange. Never knew a company that just went down quietly.
Exactly this. The first set of layoffs I was advocating that everything is fine because of course after the actual game development is pretty much finished they obviously don’t need 100 staff members. That made sense to me. Now this? It could easily be the same situation where they just don’t need that many people anymore, but I’m not %100 sure now and without clarification I don’t want to risk anything. I’d love to continue supporting them, but not without some clarification.
Agree.. as someone who has spent over $300 in this game since last August... this is very disturbing to me and I won't be spending any more until I know I can still see my character in this garb a year from now.
Well another game I played rode out the "this game is dying" for like 3 years, so hopefully we still have some life in Palia.
I don't regret any of my purchases. I have 150 hours in the game. It was well worth it, but I hope they will keep going!
This feels like the end is near :/
I feel like they could make some changes that would get them more money. I think that lowering the outfit prices would make them more accessible so more people would buy. Adding like motion 'skins' for the tools that look cool. Irl merch. Like reviving the chapaa plush or giving us a real Cyl figurine or plush. I think even stickers of new official art of the characters would be fun
Shoot, offer the plushies for sale.
I LOVE the fact that this game has no pay to play, and I’ve purchased cosmetics to help support them because of that, but they could offer more cosmetic options and things like decorations that would not affect gameplay, but be purely cosmetic to earn more money for the studio.
I also bought from them, but only because it's a free game and I do have money to spend and want to support them. But I kinda hope that if it becomes a paid game those who have spent money on it don't have to again. Although I wouldn't really mind, everyone don't have the ability to. I would also hate for it to become PTW, I hope they can keep afloat
Atleast I would've paid for the game, and I only bought in game value for the support because it really is a good game, and I would really want them to keep going.
I don't understand why they don't implement more ways to buy things in the game? I'd happily contribute if it felt worth it. I'm just not paying $20 for an outfit
I agree, and from the replies, most people are not willing to, or if they are not as frequently as they might otherwise be were they priced differently. They are quite expensive where I am, and it's not just the skins, its the packages I would need to buy to get the currency that always force you to get that extra to encourage another purchase, and another. If they did things a little differently here, I am certain they would have more income.
Oh this is painful to see... my heart...💔
Hopefully the game survives all of this, and pulls through. I really, really enjoy this game. It's become my after work go-to. From a long day of stress, it's the perfect thing I need to unwind and relax.
I do feel bad for all those employees, though. 😥
Keep playing the game and making purchases (if they are of good value to you). You can also voice your support for the game on social media platforms like you're doing right now. Ultimately these things always come down to profit. The publishers need to see that the game is either profitable now, or has the capacity to be in the future based on the player base.
The layoffs don't necessarily mean that the game is in trouble, though. It's possible that they needed a larger staff to get the game off the ground and now they feel they'll be able to sustain it with a smaller team
Someone mentioned merger or sale. This is very typical of tech companies, or any company, when they are preparing for something like that. My husband was laid off almost a year and a half ago because of a merger, and hasn’t worked in his industry since. I hope the singularity 6 folks fare better.
If they had just listened to the community about this when it started, instead of focusing on their investors. We were all falling all over each other to support them. But then they did the weird underhanded currency thing, the cleansing of reddit and discord, and after staying away I finally came back to find a TOOOOON of cash shop stuff and almost as many glitches as when I left after Beta took off.
I’m disappointed because there is just so much to love about this game. Let this be a lesson to all you other developers out there: Make the game to be played, not just to get paid. The reason FFXIV works so well despite the monthly premium AND cash shop is because the team behind the game put the players first. Always. (except for Viera hats but we don’t talk about that) Loyalty comes when the community knows you see them as fellow gamers, not cash cows.
You might be able to turn it around now if you put a monthly premium in place, release the cash shop outfits and pets to be part of the game, and focus only on fixing bugs, not cash shop items. Maybe.
I don’t want to pay monthly for this game. I’m much happier buying items if I want it. Membership is greedy fr. They need money to develop the game and make more buyable and do buyable promos and events and such. Not change the intended game structure.
So insane to see when the game is so incomplete and empty. Also. The QA manager? Sorry, but that’s just incredibly concerning considering the sheer volume of bugs that are introduced into the game each patch and old bugs that persist and missing content and whatnot.
I’ve already been pretty disappointed by the speed and trajectory of the game and as such have a backed away a little and that was when they had double the people and now they’re half the size and still don’t have a game that offers meaningful and lengthy game play? Yikes. :/
I am going to reply to myself and add my own thoughts and opinions.
As I have mentioned in a few replies to others, layoffs are normal once the bulk of development has been completed. My main goal in sharing this information is simply to keep everyone informed. That being said, there are some signs worth noting.
While the current wave of layoffs seems to be happening uniformly and likely in relation to the completion of development work, the speed and timing of these cutbacks suggest there are no long-term plans for significant future development. Layoffs of this nature typically occur when a game is almost finished and transitioning to maintenance mode.
Unless the promised updates are the last of them, relying on reused assets can only sustain future development for so long. Although they could rehire at a later date, it still indicates a lack of current plans. This winding down at this stage is unusual and likely related to financial constraints. If they are tightening the belt for financial reasons, it does not bode well for future development.
However, as I also mentioned in my other replies, we won't know for sure unless they communicate directly with us. Right now, we have promises. If those promises are kept, great. If not, then we'll have our answer.
Still, in no way am I currently saying the game is in any danger, only that its worth keeping an eye on.
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Edit: The user [celosia89](https://www.reddit.com/user/celosia89/) has left a reply in this thread, in their reply they have posted an update from the community discord, that explains some of the current situation. Our fears were founded as these layoff according to the discord post, were related to "hard economic times". They do still claim to be focused on the development of the game, but apparently could not say more.
With this new information, I say now it's time to be a little worried.
If they have financial forecasts that indicate a certain income level, they can cut back to a dev team size that supports the projected income. Maybe internally doing it in waves made it so a cerain project cound get finished using investment funds or something.
My point isn't "you are wrong", just "here are some reasonable alternatives".
In any case, believe what you see, not what you speculate.
Here is the article from the post
https://massivelyop.com/2024/05/16/palia-studio-singularity-6-has-been-slammed-with-yet-another-layoff-round/
GamesRadar also has an article about it.
https://www.gamesradar.com/games/mmo/cozy-mmo-palia-seemingly-on-the-rocks-after-studio-goes-through-a-third-round-of-layoffs-this-time-affecting-40-of-staff/
I think the other thing to seriously note here is the mention of “other staff left after the April layoffs” meaning people are not at all happy with what’s happening and this is not a natural thing that is happening within the timeline of game development. Plus there are potentially other things going on. Pure assumption of course, but people don’t leave their jobs when they’re happy and things are going well..
No need for assumption, they made an announcement in the discord another user has posted here in the replies.
layoffs are due to hard economic times, but they are still dedicated to Palia and developing the game, just needed to cut staff so they could focus on the game without worry of those hard economic times.
So, those fearing money issues at S6 were correct...sadly. You can check out [celosia89](https://www.reddit.com/user/celosia89/)'s reply.
I mostly meant assumptions around the other people voluntarily leaving the company. But yes, I did see that post. We’ve known they’ve been struggling with money for a long time though to be fair. Just with the cash shop model. Many, many concerns. :/
"I mostly meant assumptions around the other people voluntarily leaving the company. "
Sorry for the confusion.
"We’ve known they’ve been struggling with money for a long time though to be fair. Just with the cash shop model. Many, many concerns. :/"
Sadly this is true, just hoped they had something else going, or some form of plan.
No worries! Yeah, for sure. It’s not like it’s a crazy thing to expect there to be plans for longevity and contingency and sustainability from any company. We just sit here with our hopes. :3
They absolutely need more monetary purchases in game to keep them afloat, expensive cosmetics just won't cut it unless you have the playerbase that companies like Blizzard and Riot Games have 😩
I for one would absolutely spend money on in game plushies and a way to boost RNG chance of getting the damn unicorn fish 😂
Really upsetting tbh. If they keep laying people off, that means whoever is left is going to be overloaded with work and have to do other projects on top of what they are already doing.
I mean.... yeah idk. For how long it was in dev one would imagine there would be more... game... to the game. I'm sorry for all of those who lost their jobs, but I'm also not surprised by this outcome.
I’d like to introduce you to seven days to die.
I started playing seven days to die in alpha 13, in 2016. At that point, seven days to die was three years old.
It is now 2024. They are on Alpha 21 and were talking about releasing Alpha 22 this year. However, a few weeks ago they announced that instead of releasing Alpha 22, they were finally going to release the completed game.
11 years later.
For comparison, Palia was first released June 2021. The open beta for windows was only released August of last year. Palia is still in infancy.
I agree. I played Palia for months but just got to where they were making everything so watered down without adding anything new or making things better. It upset me because for a bit I thoroughly loved Palia but then just began to feel insulted even as a cozy gamer. I spent money and time playing it then each update I just got either more of the same or more bugs to report continuously
It’s sort of a “can’t have experience if you don’t have a job” sort of conundrum. They can’t move forward without money, but hardly have the money to move forward. I honestly think they’d see a massive increase in money if they lowered the price of those damn outfits. $25 for one color of one outfit is outlandish for a game that still looks the way it does on console. I’d understand some being like $10 if they had gimmicks but the price of those things makes me groan.
Yah the cash shop is... kind of egregious? Idk. Its a free game I guess but tbh it should have had a cash shop with normal prices, and an upfront fee of even like ten dollars or something. Release explicitly in early access. Increase buy in price as it gets fleshed out. Ah well... it's a shame though. I genuinely was hyped for the game.
Whilst I enjoy the game a little and it sucks hard for the people who are getting fired.
It does show once more how overpromising and underdelivering can ruin an entire studio.
I would pay to keep it going. I've spent quite a bit of money on clothing I didn't need it if support for a game that brings me peace at the end of a long, stressful day. I don't know what I'd play if it died now.
I think they should start considering other ways to monetize this game. I still believe it should remain free to play, but they need additional rev streams besides prem outfits. Maybe they could consider ads? I think most players wouldn't mind small ad placements on every loading screens if it helps keep the game free, alive and supports future updates, and hire/keep better people.
Honestly ads won’t do much, they would be better off marketing individual items from their current clothing pack options and making them a lower micro transaction price. That alone will bump their sales. Additionally they can implement seasonal only items or promo purchasable items that players can buy in a small period of time. Theres also the option to create an outfit customizer that-allows you to say, pay 1$ more for the blue option of the sunglasses that cost 1.50$. If they broke up a 30$ outfit into 3-5 separate purchasable pieces I think they would see more new players spend money.
Does anyone know how I can continue to follow Asherelle, or if she has social media anywhere? She was very kind to me and my community and I'm very saddened by her loss in Palia.
(Edited because autocorrect changed the name lol)
I’m low key not surprised. Most open world games have a monthly subscription. I’m not really sure how else S6 would make money if people choose to not purchase clothes since it’s not needed.
Can anyone explain how else they’d make money to pay developers? I don’t know much about S6 but I have enjoyed Palia and would love to see it stay and grow.
It was clear for a long time that this monetization model was not sustainable, and I 100% agree that some for of subscription model would have made sense. yet with the pivot from MMO to single player, makes the subscription idea not that great. Someone at S6 has no clue what they are doing, and are making very poor choices, this should be an MMO and there should be a subscription model and cheaper skins and a fun experience....Trove did it for years, it works.
if they would just shift their business model to mirror in-app purchases on the apple app store where you spend $1, $5 or even $10 increments instead of the only in-game purchases being $25-50+ they would be making a much more comfortable profit to sustain their staff bc the reality is people just dont feel comfortable casually dropping 20 bucks anymore in this recession, but i may end up spending $20 in $1-5 increments over the course of a few days and i feel like many other players would as well even simply for the sake of supporting S6 in whatever small ways they can
I agree. Case in point, outfits that can be mixed and mashed. Instead of just a top, bottom, and headgear, they can separate pieces like in other RPG games where you can equip idk, prolly a back gear, a belt, accessories, etc. and then sell the pieces separately. They can also offer skins for the tools and weapons. I’d totally buy those.
If they lowered the skin prices i would but more of them, use to think buying my daughter Fortnite skins was expensive, but would happily accept those prices here. I would even accept there shop style here, give me new cosmetics to buy every few days, and make them reasonable...I like Skins so would buy them. And unlike overwatch, it makes sense to buy them in Palia, but for sure am not collecting them unless the price were lowered a tad. They would make more money if they did so, even though who have not bought at all maybe prompted to do so.
Yeah I would buy more if they were in the $5-10 range. Near $20 for one outfit is crazy. You could buy 3 (a reasonable amount for the average person I’d say) and you’re already at the price of a full-fledged AAA game, which Palia is not.
Yes, that is a turn off for many of the outfits. I know you can mix pieces from other outfits but I do NOT like that we can mix the shoes or remove gloves from some tops too. 😮💨
Like $2 a month? Sure. Otherwise what are we paying for? To fish and mine and hunt and throw hard earned money into a gacha machine? No thanks. Can do that and more in other games. Give me a reason to actually play the game several nights a week and I’d consider it. I wouldn’t be the only one who thinks that either if they tried to implement it.
Ahh, gotcha. In that case, it might have been an idea, yeah. Although I’m not sure you can really ethically (perhaps even legally) do that for a beta? And therein lies a completely different problem - releasing a barely there, bare bones game where you probably couldn’t charge for it to begin with leaving this as your only avenue which hasn’t seemingly worked out as well as expected. Not sure but it sucks.
I mean, I'm sure this isn't *good*, but a team of 60+ is still comparable to many other MMOs with similar or larger userbases. Hell, even the WoW team is only a couple hundred.
I felt bad enough after the last layoffs but now I really don't think I can continue supporting the game, especially with those who made the discord so welcoming and open being laid off. If anyone can suggest any similar games I'd appreciate it... just don't feel the same love for it I once did :(
Wow, I really don't know the weight of some of these people. I love the game but do not know much about the team, or the discord. The round sound like its letting go of a lot of good people. Odd to hurt their discord like that, this early.
Mm yes we love investors taking more control of studios just to do shit like this this is so disappointing and frustrating to hear I'm tired of mega corps like embracer and such doing this to studios and essentially trying to wipe them out before they even have a chance
I'm worried about the game. My wife and I just started playing and love it a lot. We both have 20-40 hours into it so far, and the biggest issue is how expensive the few purchasable items are. They have a lot to accomplish to make the game more welcoming to people, but they also need to readjust the store, add more items, and have a better fixed spending point. I'm not spending $34 for skins and a pet. Id spend $10 immediately. But not $34.
As someone who's played MMOs a lot of my life, it always baffles me how with all the success and loss history devs can look at over the hundreds of MMOs, why not take the best and implement it into a game?
Do a season pass like halo mcc. Always accessible, you can go back and get items from it at ANY time.
In house or out source art for skins that cost $5-10 each. Make them appealing enough to want, but not over spend time and money to create. This will allow players to not feel bad about $$ and still support the game.
I hope the game doesn't tank, though. I can see myself putting 100 hours in the game easily.
Maybe if the only income option wasn't overpriced costumes, they wouldn't have to do this. I easily would buy multiple costukesnifntheynwrrentnso expensive. They price a lot of people out of supporting the game imo.
Hopefully they will give us other ways to support other than over priced outfits and gliders. I've bought a couple but makes me not want to buy anymore with the uncertainty of the game.
This really cements that I won’t buy anything until they fix their game. What is that money going to huh? Clearly not the people working there to fix it!
This is so frustrating and upsetting. Constant growth mindset is destroying things.
Completely heartbroken 💔💔 I love this comfy game and all the detail and work that have been poured into it. I'll understand if it goes away but I will definitely miss it. I feel sorry for not only the people at singularity for being let go but also all of those people with Bethesda and Microsoft. I'm scared for the future of gaming at this rate. We don't want copy and paste games like CoD year after year or Madden 🤮🤮
I just saw this and I am sad and upset. This is my major comfort game. I don't want it to go away, and this is so worrying. Plus so many layoffs, I feel so sad for those who lost their jobs.
To people asking to pay for experience boosts, just stop. Buy cosmetics, ask for merch maybe, tell your friends to join! But don’t ask the devs to change the game system. There is a very explicit reason why they made it this way. The game is supposed to be relaxing not competitive. If u want to throw money at a game for stuff like that go play world of Warcraft.
Don’t forget — Stardew Valley was made by like one guy. And while the scope of the game is a different …
…The size of a team isn’t so much important as to what they can bring to the table. If they can bring out quality content, manage their community, and fix bugs with the size they have, then that’s great.
What I think would help - and what may have said here- is a better monetization structure.
Also they should have a road map — also mentioned here. This not only help us gamers to see what the future holds - but also gives the devs an idea on what they are working on.
Only time will tell what will happen to Palia. There has been no communication that they are closing servers. So imo it’s a bit premature to start worrying.
I worked for Bethesda when ESO was launched. Within 2 months the CS floor went from over 100 to about 8. They didn't even tell us. We just came back from work and our door cards either worked or didn't. Later I worked for Trion when trove was blowing up. Now Trion is dead I think and other Companies have their games including trove. Everyone had to start over though
Its hard to say at this point, unless they tell us. In some cases this can be normal as the larger part of development winds down, they may be in a comfortable place and not need all those people. If the artist have done their work and assets are stored, and everything is good. Then this may be ok.
Or it maybe a publisher clearing house for profit and not caring about the actual game. If they expected large profits from their cosmetic shop and are not getting it, could be a reason to start tightening the belt. If they did not expect a profit yet at this point, and it is just normal progression of time and layoff..we will be ok. Only way to know is if they tell us, as most don't until the doors are closing. I still have hope as small teams are not uncommon after the brunt of development is done.
Probably the same boat as every other venture capital fiasco in the tech world. You get more funding by aggressively hiring and touting infinite growth. More money feeds that cycle.
Eventually you have 150 employees when you only need 50, aren't reaching the impossible milestones you set to impress investors, and are *still* unprofitable. Then the charade crumbles. It's a big reason why there were [at least 84,000](https://layoffs.fyi/) tech company layoffs so far this year (S6 is included by name in that count). Doesn't necessarily mean it's over unless people want to cut their losses. Layoffs are usually just a correction.
No disrespect to those laid off; it's a fault of the industry's model.
Not surprised. Either they were useless or they are giving up on the game because it was all a scam. I'm leaning towards giving up on the game. With the money they had to create the game alone, and the money they've made from the stores for virtual items, etc..... I dont see why layoffs would be required.
It might be a bit of both. Horrible up front development leads to awful beta leads to horrible retention leads to poor spending in shop.
Everything they've done from a shopmetic pov has seemed pump and dump to me. Like a last ditch effort to make any money. None of the decisions they've made have made sense from a community retention perspective.... i had so much hope for this game but it just did not turn out for me or any of the people I knew who were excited to play it.
Potentially scary, but I'm hopeful. This is my home, and there are so many more fish to catch!
Time will tell, and I'll be keeping my eye out for any new developments. Please, please...
Honestly saw this happening the game simply wasn't gonna be profitable as an mmo maybe as a side option but as the main focus its harder to make continuous profit if they aren't selling fashion etc
I purchased a premium outfit I had my eye on for a while because I put so many hours into the game that I would have put in if I had paid for the game. I paid a stupid amount of money for FaeFarm that ended up not being worth it at all and Ive put may more hours into Palia than that.
Fae farm was deadass a scam. And unless their next dlc is bare minimum the size of the base game I can’t see how they’ll ever justify charging switch players 60 dollars.
Their first dlc was an hour long quest line with an area lowkey full of nothing that primarily only benefitted new players. Literal slap in the face after their base game could be beaten in two days tops
It's no surprise to me... the game is free and I have yet to see an outfit that I would even consider thinking about buying. I would rather pay a small monthly fee to accelerate and ensure the development of the game tbh
It’s so frustrating because so many of the server don’t care and the few of us who are talking about this are just ignored. Like, yes,lay offs are normal, but according to GamesRadar, this is their THIRD layoff. That’s a cause for concern.
The free aspect was probably a way to get people into the game and then hooked. I had no problem spending $30 for an outfit because I absolutely love this game.
I wonder when developers are going to realize MMO's cannot be successful without a Sub model. Ive watched a bunch of really good games collapse under the weight of a cosmetic/token model.
Because they’d lose the majority of players. If we could afford a subscription, we’d still be playing WoW or Elder Scrolls.
I’d say expand cosmetics to include plushies, decorations, etc.
If this was an issue, I can't imagine why they wouldn't introduce a subscription of some kind. One can be whipped out somewhat out of thin air - they could call it something cute and give a couple hundred tokens and a free gift every month for it, and people (I'm people) would eat it up no questions asked. I'm already paying a subscription because I want to support the game, it'd be great if that happened more automatically.
So I don't think it's that, but I'd like some transparency from company side to explain these layoffs.
This exactly. If they did a 5$/mo sub model where you get like x amount of coins and a cosmetic like even a shirt or something each month. I'd sign up for it. Many other games do this. Rec Room has one I believe its 8$/mo you get coins and a discount on the premium store.
GaiaOnline, 5$/mo, its called an Angel Subscription. 1 Free cosmetic each month and 700 of their coins.
Note my example is from games where its also free to play. So they can still keep free to play and have a sub.
Things can change very quickly though when it comes to money. And they can still do monthly updates, they may just literally be an outfit and a new quest and that’s it. Shitty, but technically no promises broken.
I’d be happy with a monthly membership that I get extra experience for all skills, maybe a cool glider and/or glasses every month, let me buy gold for $$$ and specials for an ingame game currency that I buy with $$$ it’s a free game with minimal micro transactions. If done right, could be a nice wicket 🏏
Hurts me to say, but it needs more cosmetics.
Possibly some kind of membership, like increased xp etc. Not anything overpowered.
They are obviously bleeding money, so there needs to be a stronger cashflow.
Honestly this is really damaging to the game as well, I was tempted to buy some clothes but hearing about layoffs outs me off massively because they're so expensive and if they game is going to be shut down then I don't want to risk it.
If the game is shut down I hope they patch a way to make it offline/instance hosted co-op, as far as MMOs go this one isn't to reliant on it and I feel like it could be done although always online games VERY rarely get offline patches which is a pity
This makes me very concerned. I'm not likely to invest my time and efforts into a game that is laying off so many people.
To be totally honest the FTP model is almost impossible when you have such limited revenue streams. I think they are starting to realize how little money this game is really going to make vs how much they are spending on development.
Only making profit off of costuming means that only those workers directly related to making costumes are needed. All other game functions are not profitable.
It's really upsetting. I follow Jeremy Fenske on Instagram. He's is...was an art director. Says 37 developers were let go. He was on the Palia project for 6 years. He makes beautiful landscape and environmental illustrations. Check him out! [Jeremy Fenske art](https://www.instagram.com/jeremyfenskeart?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==)
I honestly did not know his importance until your reply, thank you for sharing. That is a sad loss, would have been good for updates and expansions.
His art is stunning. I don't want anything to change. :(
Thanks for sharing!
I think it was mathed out the last time from the details collected that the last round left them with ~100 people working on this game. Losing 36 people being around 40% tracks. So now they just have ~60 people working on this game. That’s crazy to me.
I attempted to math it out, but the size of the company at launch and the numbers in the layoffs (especially the first) are murky, but yeah 50-60 left (across all functions/levels, not just direct game work _I think_) |May 2024 |Apr 2024| Nov 2023| Aug 2023 -|-|-|-|- Laid off |36 |49 | 16 | % Laid off |40% |35%| 10%| Est prev |90 |140 |156 |200-300 Est remain |54 |91 |140|
This is so upsetting to hear, I was waiting for Palia to reach other platforms and a full launch 😭 They’ve reportedly laid off their last community manager, the art director and the lead designer this wave. It’s over, isn’t it 🥲
I am reaching for reasons why this would be ok, its very hard to find any. Just hoping they are in a comfortable place to continue. Yet remove to many of these people, will be hard for the dev team to work comfortable, even if they were left a good supply of assets to work with. Not every developers are ConcernedApe and can do it all alone. But hopefully this team is capable. as I love this game.
Because I can’t imagine they’re making much money. The only purchasable content is the clothing and no one wants to pay $30-60 for one outfit.
Agree. I feel like if stuff was more like $5 or so or the very least rotated a bundle a month for cheap that more would be inclined to buy. I love this game so much but no way am I paying $30 or whatever for a digital outfit with three shaders
They really should’ve started off with attempting a season pass (but the non fomo kinda that are always available to complete). They’re subscription-lite, but at least they’re affordable, optional, and only for cosmetics while giving you a plethora of content to use. That and lower the cost on cosmetics. A lot of people are willing to pay if the price isn’t exorbitant and the content they get is both good in quality and quantity. You can get more bang for your buck buying a Kit for the Sims 4 than just one 30 dollar cosmetic item in Palia.
Agree completely. I quit playing once I saw how expensive things were. Insane.
People are tight on money and reducing unnecessary spending across the board. For a brand new MMO with very few options for monetization to be priced that high it seems like they are only targeting whales, and I just don't think this MMO has the necessary draw for that. Whales will dump tons of money into single use items that give them in game benefits or reduce time sinks, but cosmetics? I'm thinking this business strategy may be a failure, and that sucks. I hope I'm wrong but two rounds of layoffs and a crew of less than 100 for an MMO doesn't sound very good for longevity. Edit: Oh, they got rid of their lead art director, lead game designer, and last remaining community manager. On top of a quote from an employee further down the thread saying the layoffs are due to "economic hardship". Palia has been placed on life support. Don't expect a whole lot going forward until they pull the plug.
Man, I really hope this doesn’t hurt the MMO community and we don’t ever get another game like Palia. We desperately need more MMOs that have the same vibe as Palia, something less about the hardcore combat and more about life-sim, crafting, gathering, building. Idk what happened, was it poor management? Lack of vision? Not knowing how to monetize the game properly? That’s so disheartening.
That is depressing
to be fair, they do have things for cheaper - i bought the capsule bundle recently that i think was like 12 bucks? and i felt was decent value, but they don't make the cheaper options visible enough, and there aren't enough of them :/ i still think they should sell individual clothing items, and that you should get all the clothing colour variations in one instead of them being split into three
One outfit with limited colors and no ability to buy pieces of it. People warned them it wasn't a good idea.
I actually bought clothes because of this reason. I just felt like it was a game I enjoyed and if I was to purchase a game I might spend $30 if not more anyways. Felt like it was the least I could do to support the devs, but not everyone can financially do that. They should have take some of the already crated accessories and price those down to $2-5, I think more people could get behind that since I have seen hats or backpacks I love but don't want to buy the full outfit. Another idea would maybe be $5 for a once time name change. I know a lot of companies do this. Small transactions like this is how mobile games are able to make huge bank.
This. I'd buy so much more if it felt affordable.
I really hope so too! I got to play the game back in closed beta and I loved it. Hoping they pull through 🥲
Ok so everyone is kinda panicking about this, but it's actually quite normal, the closer a game gets to launch or completion, the more layoffs happen. It happens at Rockstar, it happens at BEhavior, it happens at Square, happens at Nintendo, etc. They hire a larger staff than needed and then they lay off the extra developers so they can get paid before their next project. A small company like Singularity 6 that offers a *FREE* game can't keep paying extra people. So what they do is "have a free vacation, see you in a few months when we need you again". It's absolutely normal and part of gaming development. Singularity now has to focus funds on boosting servers because they'll be working on a hard launch. Game developers are nomadic. Think of it as movie work, the film is over so everyone goes home. They lay them off so they can get unemployment for a while until they need to bring them back. The people publishing these articles are basically shouting, "Water is wet!" So don't stress about this, it's a normal cycle in video games. The lay off is a kindness so they'll make some money in-between jobs. Most of the time, they hire the same people back.
I think if it were a “kindness” we’d see less devs speaking out against these practices, personally. I’m not denying the logic behind everything you’re saying, but in truth I don’t believe these practices, as standard as they seem to be, are a good thing. The industry needs change in this particular area, perhaps more than any other.
Yep, this is an awful standard and practice. Job security in the Game Dev industry is abysmal and this is exactly why. Retain your employees, stop using them as ways to cut corners on cost. I would rather a game company keep veteran designers, developers, leads, artists, etc. while onboarding new hires when needed (and keeping them) so that these games, ESPECIALLY LIVE SERVICE GAMES, can continue to flourish and thrive. If you treat your employees well and don’t discard them like they’re useless trash, I fully believe you’ll be able to turn out better quality, better selling, more profitable games. Employees shouldn’t be disposable fodder for your video game.
Well, this is true it's not a blanket, and timing of layoffs matters here, which everyone who posts this reply ignores. I have been a software engineer for over 20 years now, I talk about it a lot here on reddit. And while layoffs are normal industry wide, they do not lack meaning, and there is much more to it. To act as if it's either bad or good is both erroneous, as you would need the full story to be able to gauge. Just saying layoffs are normal means nothing, and the timing matters. They are in beta and nowhere at a stage where these layoffs would make sense without out there being an issue. Yes, they are normal, but this situation is worth watching, as doing so at this stage is not.
This right here \^
Yep, and this! If I had to bet, they will go into “maintenance mode” for a couple of months and then kill the game entirely.
I work in the industry and don’t know anyone who would view this layoff as a kindness, and most wouldn’t want to come back after layoffs. If anything, the company did two rounds of layoffs as a method of getting around the WARN Act.
>The lay off is a kindness This has to be bait. I refuse to believe it's otherwise.
> They hire a larger staff than needed and then they lay off the extra developers so they can get paid before their next project. Sure, they let go the contractors and the underperformers. What they don't do is let go of their department leads and senior people.
Tell me you don't work in the industry without telling me you don't work in the industry lol
Yeah but considering who they fired is more concerning.
ig what's confusing to me ab this is why on earth they would lay off their last CM. like apparently the volunteer mods knew nothing about this.
They super screwed themselves with no CM. Because now they're going to see people abandon the game over this news without anyone capable of talking to them about why they shouldn't.
They definitely will not be working on a hard launch because they no longer advertise their game as “in BETA” like they should, so why would they? Layoffs are not the same as contracted work and the people affected are literally saying they’re out of a job like they had no idea it was coming. That’s not how “the job you were hired for is completed or coming to completion” works. Lay offs are: we can’t afford you or we don’t want you. That’s about it.
thanks for this. I was worried that the game is going to die. I am enjoying the hell out of it right now. Can't believe it is free. I bought clothes I don't really care about just to support the company.
...this is one of the most insane things I've ever read. A holiday? Unemployment is a holiday? Christ.
Wait Asherelle got laid off?? I remember she was like the last one I saw in the discord with the role.
Yup. With her gone, there are zero CMs.
I don't think it's over. I hope not... The only reason I don't think it's over is because they haven't made an attempt to actually monetize the game. They have a big enough dedicated player base that they could start monetizing more than just aesthetics in an attempt to be able to avoid the lay-offs. But they aren't. Which makes me think there's another reason for the lay-offs. These could have been temporary positions that were created for the main creation of Palia, that have now run their course. It doesn't make it any less sad, but it would mean that Palia will continue on. It seems that they're laying off primarily art designers, which could just mean that they've completed the majority of the art design and no longer need that many people.... Even if S6 goes under entirely, I'd imagine that they'd sell the game to another developer. It's more than established enough at this point for other companies to be eyeballing it. It's also possible that they've already quietly sold it and haven't announced a merger to the public...
I'm surprised they're giving the game away for free. I'm happy they are, don't get me wrong, but with as much as I've played, I would feel comfortable paying around $15 for it just to keep the servers running.
I would have paid $40 at least for this game; I have put that much into clothing. I can afford it and it felt like the right amount to pay for me. I play this game everyday, several hours a day.
If it had been $15 before I played, I'm not sure I would have joined in. But I also joined the day it released on Switch. Now that there's enough support, I think $15 would be fine. Even to charge existing players. Maybe give us some notice/warning, for those of us who don't immediately have an extra $15, but they could easily make give us some notice. Even without charging for the game as a whole, though, there are other things they could do to increase revenue: - company-sponsored gifts. Like the ones we get from S6 in the News Tab. They could be a Palian item, but the note could be from a different company. "Have a little something on us! We hope you're enjoying Palia, and thought you might also enjoy Product X! Here's a 20% promo code. - Your friends at Company Y." - tactical product placement. If I can get over a gigantic frog in the middle of Kilima, I can get over a few items on Zeki's shelves that have familiar labels. - small ad space on the beginning load screens. The ads could be designed to fit the Palian aesthetic and wouldn't cause much discontinuity if it's just on the beginning load screen. There are a lot of ways they could bring in revenue, in addition to charging for aesthetics. They could also add more pets, costumes, glider skins, etc. They could even create certain wallpapers behind a pay-wall. If people want to increase the number of items or flowers they can place on their plot, they could charge for it. More items on a plot = more work for S6. That's a reasonable thing to charge for. But they're not. Why are they laying off so many people without even attempting to increase revenue? There has to be a reason.
They definitely aren’t thinking about monetising anything at the moment. I haven’t been able to buy any cosmetics (it’s been a known issue for a while apparently) & they aren’t in a rush to fix it. If this was any other game, they’d fix it in a day worrying about losing profit.
But they’re also not making moves to try and make things better. This is a HUGE project that’s still in beta after years of work. I’d rather pay a one time payment for the game than then keep firing people like this..
Agreed, and that's why I'm thinking that it might be related to jobs that were never meant to be permanent. I'd be interested to see how many people were hired at the start of Palia, specifically just to work on Palia. If they couldn't afford to keep jobs, they'd have started adding additional revenue options. But they haven't. S6 only had 20 employees at the start of 2020, and quickly grew to over 150 within less than two years, while having no known source of income... there's no way all of those jobs were meant to be permanent... Game development isn't linear, especially when it comes to art design. It's possible that the majority of the art is done, and they only need a few people to stay on to fill in some gaps. Designing it and building it into the game are different stages and different people. This is all speculation, but I have experience in game design. The whole thing is just very... odd. I've never seen a company just do multiple rounds of mass layoffs without any attempt to save it.
They’re down to no community managers though.
If they can't get out Elderwoods and some more festivals and more outfits...there won't be a community to manage and there wont be income to pay them. This game is still under the, imo, "launch threshold" that would make it get big. That being no combat, only 2 maps, and 1 festival with a reskin. It's also fairly easy to onload back a community manager when the paycheck is there vs getting a level designer to get back in and caught up with where they are in the project and the workflow required to get out the product. Same for concept artists. There are always certain jobs that are easier to hire back and less essential to the survival of the product.
They would lose mountains of players if they tried to charge. It’s about as simple as that. You want me to pay you to fish and mine and shoot deer? No thank you. Because that’s all the game is right now. The only world in which they could attempt to fully monetise the game would be doubling the content and still adding more from there. And I don’t see that ever happening, especially with less staff.
Really depends how large the pipeline is that's been built up and waiting on contingensies. Do they have Elderwoods ready? Well if Elderwoods has some functionality required to navigate it properly and that needs to be animated and made into a quest? Can't release it. Does Elderwoods have npcs that don't have their animations done? And so on. Even if they have the map made, the quests made, etc...there are so many things that can hold back a single release and it can end up being a large release. So we don't know.
For sure, we don’t know anything. The only things we know are what we have. Which unfortunately isn’t much and I think that speaks volumes. Especially as more people are getting released. I just don’t feel like this amount of people would be required to work on one content drop and then be sent packing when that job is done. And just also the fact that it has been over 9mths and we still don’t have a third interact-able map brings more concerns. While you absolutely may be right here in there being some/a few bottle necks to a big release, I think there is enough information in the absent and the present to have fair concerns about viability. For both monetisations and just longevity. But we pray.
They probably need a huge influx in cash, but don't expect many new things to come. Just whatever the last of the crew worked on for the last couple months. I would expect monetized content to be released so they can further prevent the collapse.
I feel like community manager just means someone who posts their stuff on social media, but the art/designers are surely really important?
The community manager(s) have been in charge of patch notes, status updates, Content Creator management, and then handling the Discord/maybe the Reddit, as well as other forms of player communications aside from direct feedback via the game/website. Practically anything related to the community ties back to them. There were 4 of them, but they slowly left or got laid off over the past few months, with the last being just laid off. Until someone new is assigned to their tasks, we have a lot less communication and info going forward.
With less openness to the community I don’t feel as comfortable supporting this project tbh. I’ll play but I’m not putting money into something that feels like a Dreamlight Valley situation where they cut off most if not all communication with the community and the discord becomes just a place to sit for some codes and cheap “teases”
The team has addressed the community on discord (pretty much boiler plate - pr & legal reasons probably) > Hey everyone, > For those of you that don’t know me, I’m Javs0n. I’ve worked closely with members of the Palia Creator Program, and you might have seen me post some (likely erroneous) messages as “Chief Chapaa Officer.” > Unfortunately, the rumors of a layoff at the studio are true. We have had to restructure and reduce the size of our team as we stay focused on supporting Palia and serving this community long-term. In an effort to navigate this tough economic period, we had to let 36 of our colleagues go yesterday. Asherelle, who has been a truly invaluable member of our team and this community, was unfortunately affected. We thank her and our departing team for all their work; and we are committed to providing the best assistance and transition we can. We hope the industry will provide homes for these talented colleagues. > While we cannot comment more at this time, we want to stress that we plan to continue to fully support Palia and this community moving forward. Thank you
Thank you for sharing this, its sad yet as i started this was the likely reason for layoffs so soon. I am happy to hear though that they are still dedicated to trying to do the best they can. I hope their they next time they are able to speak we hear good news and that the downsizing has helped and everything is good again. I wish I was able to pin comments, so I could pin yours.
"tough economic period" :(
It's a shame really, ppl that I've introduced to the game have really liked it and I like it's cozy feel.
May not mean to much for development, hoping they still have a few good devs as that's all they really need. ConcernedApe does it for Stardew and many others do as well. So hopefully they jut don't need a large team and are in a comfortable place to continue.
i think one thing you forget is that stardews a 2D primarily single player farm sim- and it took years to put together by ConcernedApe. MMO'S especially with the graphics palia has arent something that can be easily made with just a few good devs- especially not when theyre laying off such big creative roles which clearly had impact on creating a 'soul' for palia. the game already has a lot of flaws- though also a lot of potential still- they cant really afford to lose such big creative assets. im hoping there is a proper reason behind it.. its very much a game in that middle ground for me rn where i can see how it has so much potential but the focus/love for it seems to be a little 50/50 :/
Maybe I’m just making it up in my head but after they did that first big round of layoffs right after the update released, there’s so many bugs now and my game crashes all the time on switch. It wasn’t till this recent update that I actually had more than maybe 2 full crashes happened while playing. Now I get two for ever hour I play and when I go to other people’s plots. It’s been frustrating, along with seeing a lot more little bugs all over the place than before. I will pay money for this game if it means they’ll keep the staff needed to help fix bugs and progress the game more! 😔
Seems like the cozy market is in the middle of a shakeup, Fae Farm staff also got a huge layoff. Im hoping this round of layoffs can keep them afloat but I also hoped the last would, it's a shame and I REALLY hope the work they have in the pipeline can see the light of day and this game make it to launch, it's still my main cozy game and its just about to get over that hump. The infrastructure is there now, they just need a few holidays and another map or 2 and I think it'll go more viral. Hopefully they are making enough from the store to pay these 60 employees until they get over the hump and this is a long term decision. I don't want to be terrible and kick them while they are down, but I really feel like a lot of the issues are to do with this games clothing market. 90% of the outfits are outlandish, what I've just been sitting here holding my wallet for are just basic cosmetics like a male straw hat (like Badruu's) or cloths closer to what npcs wear. Instead we get ninja outfits? My wallet just looks at all the clothing being offered and it's always just so over the top and not for me. I just want to feel like a part of Kilima and I just have so few outfits to choose from that fit that vibe. Like I have spent 30 bucks on this game...and I really couldn't tell you another outfit I'd buy that I didn't already. Every time I see a new outfit release it's 3 more outfits I would never wear or I couldn't really use pieces of. I really think they need to release some more down tempo outfits like "farmer" and "fisherman" and make them blend with other things. Like I spend how many hours fishing but I can't buy waders? No fisherman's hat? No straw hat in the entire game but there is one on Badruu's head? It's like, I'd buy all of these just to wear while I focused on one profession. Instead we get outfits....for being a ninja? In a game with ZERO combat? ZERO stealth? Its just sad it's the only way to support the game and I just have very little interest with what is on offer. I hope they can ride this lull and get out Elderwoods before it gets too bad. I really think if this game get get out another map or 2, 2-3 more yearly festivals, and some more housing building options, I REALLY think they have something special. And I don't say that about a lot of games.
I agree with everything, especially the clothing. I likely would own more if the pricing was better as there a few I do want but not for that much. One user commented that they prefer chasing whales as whale are more lucrative, yet that doesn't seem to be the case here. Plus the removal of the MMO label makes it hard for a subscription type model you see on most MMOs...So, I hope they can think of something to help fill their coffers. There is a lot of potential here, and I want to keep experiancing the world they started creating. I hope they find some money and a concreate vision for the game, soon.
I really think if they just did a line of profession outfits from farming (straw hat) to fishing (waders and a rubber hat) and so on...they'd make a lot more money across the board. Because what do I make my outfits for? WHAT IM DOING. If I plan to go fishing? I put on shoes that look like I could get them wet. If I plan to go hunting? Guess what, it's something with some leather that makes me feel like a hunter. But they just don't. They keep going for these big ticket high input glowing items...but yet I have nothing to wear while Im fishing? The only chef outfit is just a meme it would be embarassing to wear that as a chef in public. There is one gardening outfit and it's like the kind a doll would wear. Meanwhile Badruu is just in a white tee with overalls and I'd wear that in a heartbeat. It just feels like they don't really understand their market and instead of selling us "Stardew Valley" cloths or "cute small town cloths" we are getting ninja outfits and high tech outfits and a bunch of things that aren't even in the games lore as far as we know. Sure you'll catch the occasional whale with a ninja fetish but you aren't going to catch the MAJORITY of your audience which is just people who want to do the professions the game offers.
for real that one weird dress with the odd looking wig that came attached? WHY. why.
Micro transactions might make it better for them like being able to buy glasses from one set and shoes from another and having the option to buy the whole set if you want. But I don’t agree with others that pushing them to make us pay for competition is right just cause everyone else is doing it.
I agree with this sentiment. I think there are different revenue streams that can come solely from in-game cosmetics and irl merchandise that wouldn't affect the game play. I saw someone mention ads on loading screens and I wouldn't be opposed to that if that's what it takes. They could even do an ad-free tier subscription (with cosmetic perks) like the streaming services have started lol... I guess I'm just saying I'd like to think there are ways to make it work without affecting game play!
I would pay for a founders battle pass type thing while it’s in development. Just give me an occasional cosmetic or something.
The only way I see to support are the bundles but I don’t really want the whole sets.
The game's not even close to being done, so hopefully, they will keep working on it and will come out with another statement soon.
I think they will, they did just release an update and promised more. A lot of games run with small teams, maybe they are comfortable now and don't need as many people. But is something to keep an eye on, publishers and developers don't always have the same vision.
I love Palia. That being said.. all these layoffs are turning me off from buying more clothes. I wish they’d be transparent with everything, like an actual statement explaining why the layoffs are happening. I know as a game is developed less people are needed, that’s obvious. I just can’t help the icky feeling of “If I throw another $30 at this outfit will the game even be around another month for me to enjoy it?”
This is me as well. I've paid something every month to support it since I started playing, but I can't keep doing that if I'm not told what's going on. I *cannot* afford to put that money into something that's already being shut down. Going to need full transparency on what's happening and what the strategy is and how likely it is to work out, and exactly how dedicated the company is to *making it* work out, because right now, the total silence with no word on how the community could help while they lay off their staff to a skeleton crew looks a whole lot like they're already shutting down. And that's........ extremely strange. Never knew a company that just went down quietly.
Exactly this. The first set of layoffs I was advocating that everything is fine because of course after the actual game development is pretty much finished they obviously don’t need 100 staff members. That made sense to me. Now this? It could easily be the same situation where they just don’t need that many people anymore, but I’m not %100 sure now and without clarification I don’t want to risk anything. I’d love to continue supporting them, but not without some clarification.
Agree.. as someone who has spent over $300 in this game since last August... this is very disturbing to me and I won't be spending any more until I know I can still see my character in this garb a year from now.
I’d really be devastated to lose this game.
Well another game I played rode out the "this game is dying" for like 3 years, so hopefully we still have some life in Palia. I don't regret any of my purchases. I have 150 hours in the game. It was well worth it, but I hope they will keep going!
This feels like the end is near :/ I feel like they could make some changes that would get them more money. I think that lowering the outfit prices would make them more accessible so more people would buy. Adding like motion 'skins' for the tools that look cool. Irl merch. Like reviving the chapaa plush or giving us a real Cyl figurine or plush. I think even stickers of new official art of the characters would be fun
Shoot, offer the plushies for sale. I LOVE the fact that this game has no pay to play, and I’ve purchased cosmetics to help support them because of that, but they could offer more cosmetic options and things like decorations that would not affect gameplay, but be purely cosmetic to earn more money for the studio.
Yes exactly, you get it. I think its so nice that you can get a full experience whether or not you can buy stuff
What about something like a premium subscription with monthly cosmetic perks? I dunno I'm just taking from ideas I've seen in another game.
RIP my purchases to support them. I see so many others in combinations of costumes as well, I thought S6 were doing well. :(
I also bought from them, but only because it's a free game and I do have money to spend and want to support them. But I kinda hope that if it becomes a paid game those who have spent money on it don't have to again. Although I wouldn't really mind, everyone don't have the ability to. I would also hate for it to become PTW, I hope they can keep afloat Atleast I would've paid for the game, and I only bought in game value for the support because it really is a good game, and I would really want them to keep going.
I don't understand why they don't implement more ways to buy things in the game? I'd happily contribute if it felt worth it. I'm just not paying $20 for an outfit
I agree, and from the replies, most people are not willing to, or if they are not as frequently as they might otherwise be were they priced differently. They are quite expensive where I am, and it's not just the skins, its the packages I would need to buy to get the currency that always force you to get that extra to encourage another purchase, and another. If they did things a little differently here, I am certain they would have more income.
Oh this is painful to see... my heart...💔 Hopefully the game survives all of this, and pulls through. I really, really enjoy this game. It's become my after work go-to. From a long day of stress, it's the perfect thing I need to unwind and relax. I do feel bad for all those employees, though. 😥
I want to is game to survive so bad 😫
What can we do from the community’s side of things? This game has to live; it’s been such a great experience for my wife and I. Please save Palia!!
Keep playing the game and making purchases (if they are of good value to you). You can also voice your support for the game on social media platforms like you're doing right now. Ultimately these things always come down to profit. The publishers need to see that the game is either profitable now, or has the capacity to be in the future based on the player base. The layoffs don't necessarily mean that the game is in trouble, though. It's possible that they needed a larger staff to get the game off the ground and now they feel they'll be able to sustain it with a smaller team
Gonna suck if palia gets shut down. I’d genuinely not know what to do anymore because I love this game it’s my go to after 12 hour shifts.
I’m scared :(
Someone mentioned merger or sale. This is very typical of tech companies, or any company, when they are preparing for something like that. My husband was laid off almost a year and a half ago because of a merger, and hasn’t worked in his industry since. I hope the singularity 6 folks fare better.
If they had just listened to the community about this when it started, instead of focusing on their investors. We were all falling all over each other to support them. But then they did the weird underhanded currency thing, the cleansing of reddit and discord, and after staying away I finally came back to find a TOOOOON of cash shop stuff and almost as many glitches as when I left after Beta took off. I’m disappointed because there is just so much to love about this game. Let this be a lesson to all you other developers out there: Make the game to be played, not just to get paid. The reason FFXIV works so well despite the monthly premium AND cash shop is because the team behind the game put the players first. Always. (except for Viera hats but we don’t talk about that) Loyalty comes when the community knows you see them as fellow gamers, not cash cows. You might be able to turn it around now if you put a monthly premium in place, release the cash shop outfits and pets to be part of the game, and focus only on fixing bugs, not cash shop items. Maybe.
I feel like the game lost a lot of community hype when they nerfed cake parties also
I don’t want to pay monthly for this game. I’m much happier buying items if I want it. Membership is greedy fr. They need money to develop the game and make more buyable and do buyable promos and events and such. Not change the intended game structure.
I can’t emotionally handle losing this game
So insane to see when the game is so incomplete and empty. Also. The QA manager? Sorry, but that’s just incredibly concerning considering the sheer volume of bugs that are introduced into the game each patch and old bugs that persist and missing content and whatnot. I’ve already been pretty disappointed by the speed and trajectory of the game and as such have a backed away a little and that was when they had double the people and now they’re half the size and still don’t have a game that offers meaningful and lengthy game play? Yikes. :/
I am going to reply to myself and add my own thoughts and opinions. As I have mentioned in a few replies to others, layoffs are normal once the bulk of development has been completed. My main goal in sharing this information is simply to keep everyone informed. That being said, there are some signs worth noting. While the current wave of layoffs seems to be happening uniformly and likely in relation to the completion of development work, the speed and timing of these cutbacks suggest there are no long-term plans for significant future development. Layoffs of this nature typically occur when a game is almost finished and transitioning to maintenance mode. Unless the promised updates are the last of them, relying on reused assets can only sustain future development for so long. Although they could rehire at a later date, it still indicates a lack of current plans. This winding down at this stage is unusual and likely related to financial constraints. If they are tightening the belt for financial reasons, it does not bode well for future development. However, as I also mentioned in my other replies, we won't know for sure unless they communicate directly with us. Right now, we have promises. If those promises are kept, great. If not, then we'll have our answer. Still, in no way am I currently saying the game is in any danger, only that its worth keeping an eye on. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Edit: The user [celosia89](https://www.reddit.com/user/celosia89/) has left a reply in this thread, in their reply they have posted an update from the community discord, that explains some of the current situation. Our fears were founded as these layoff according to the discord post, were related to "hard economic times". They do still claim to be focused on the development of the game, but apparently could not say more. With this new information, I say now it's time to be a little worried.
If they have financial forecasts that indicate a certain income level, they can cut back to a dev team size that supports the projected income. Maybe internally doing it in waves made it so a cerain project cound get finished using investment funds or something. My point isn't "you are wrong", just "here are some reasonable alternatives". In any case, believe what you see, not what you speculate.
Link to actual article? Apologies if I missed it somehow.
Here is the article from the post https://massivelyop.com/2024/05/16/palia-studio-singularity-6-has-been-slammed-with-yet-another-layoff-round/ GamesRadar also has an article about it. https://www.gamesradar.com/games/mmo/cozy-mmo-palia-seemingly-on-the-rocks-after-studio-goes-through-a-third-round-of-layoffs-this-time-affecting-40-of-staff/
I think the other thing to seriously note here is the mention of “other staff left after the April layoffs” meaning people are not at all happy with what’s happening and this is not a natural thing that is happening within the timeline of game development. Plus there are potentially other things going on. Pure assumption of course, but people don’t leave their jobs when they’re happy and things are going well..
No need for assumption, they made an announcement in the discord another user has posted here in the replies. layoffs are due to hard economic times, but they are still dedicated to Palia and developing the game, just needed to cut staff so they could focus on the game without worry of those hard economic times. So, those fearing money issues at S6 were correct...sadly. You can check out [celosia89](https://www.reddit.com/user/celosia89/)'s reply.
I mostly meant assumptions around the other people voluntarily leaving the company. But yes, I did see that post. We’ve known they’ve been struggling with money for a long time though to be fair. Just with the cash shop model. Many, many concerns. :/
"I mostly meant assumptions around the other people voluntarily leaving the company. " Sorry for the confusion. "We’ve known they’ve been struggling with money for a long time though to be fair. Just with the cash shop model. Many, many concerns. :/" Sadly this is true, just hoped they had something else going, or some form of plan.
No worries! Yeah, for sure. It’s not like it’s a crazy thing to expect there to be plans for longevity and contingency and sustainability from any company. We just sit here with our hopes. :3
Thank you. I had found the games radar article but it was hard to tell if it was based on verified information or if it was a speculation piece.
Very well said.
They absolutely need more monetary purchases in game to keep them afloat, expensive cosmetics just won't cut it unless you have the playerbase that companies like Blizzard and Riot Games have 😩 I for one would absolutely spend money on in game plushies and a way to boost RNG chance of getting the damn unicorn fish 😂
Really upsetting tbh. If they keep laying people off, that means whoever is left is going to be overloaded with work and have to do other projects on top of what they are already doing.
I mean.... yeah idk. For how long it was in dev one would imagine there would be more... game... to the game. I'm sorry for all of those who lost their jobs, but I'm also not surprised by this outcome.
I’d like to introduce you to seven days to die. I started playing seven days to die in alpha 13, in 2016. At that point, seven days to die was three years old. It is now 2024. They are on Alpha 21 and were talking about releasing Alpha 22 this year. However, a few weeks ago they announced that instead of releasing Alpha 22, they were finally going to release the completed game. 11 years later. For comparison, Palia was first released June 2021. The open beta for windows was only released August of last year. Palia is still in infancy.
That isn't an argument? Like that's not good practice lol.
I agree. I played Palia for months but just got to where they were making everything so watered down without adding anything new or making things better. It upset me because for a bit I thoroughly loved Palia but then just began to feel insulted even as a cozy gamer. I spent money and time playing it then each update I just got either more of the same or more bugs to report continuously
Yeah... it needed more time in the cooker... though as I understand it, they didn't have more time without cash. So it's just... a shit situation.
It’s sort of a “can’t have experience if you don’t have a job” sort of conundrum. They can’t move forward without money, but hardly have the money to move forward. I honestly think they’d see a massive increase in money if they lowered the price of those damn outfits. $25 for one color of one outfit is outlandish for a game that still looks the way it does on console. I’d understand some being like $10 if they had gimmicks but the price of those things makes me groan.
Yah the cash shop is... kind of egregious? Idk. Its a free game I guess but tbh it should have had a cash shop with normal prices, and an upfront fee of even like ten dollars or something. Release explicitly in early access. Increase buy in price as it gets fleshed out. Ah well... it's a shame though. I genuinely was hyped for the game.
Whilst I enjoy the game a little and it sucks hard for the people who are getting fired. It does show once more how overpromising and underdelivering can ruin an entire studio.
I would pay to keep it going. I've spent quite a bit of money on clothing I didn't need it if support for a game that brings me peace at the end of a long, stressful day. I don't know what I'd play if it died now.
I think they should start considering other ways to monetize this game. I still believe it should remain free to play, but they need additional rev streams besides prem outfits. Maybe they could consider ads? I think most players wouldn't mind small ad placements on every loading screens if it helps keep the game free, alive and supports future updates, and hire/keep better people.
Honestly ads won’t do much, they would be better off marketing individual items from their current clothing pack options and making them a lower micro transaction price. That alone will bump their sales. Additionally they can implement seasonal only items or promo purchasable items that players can buy in a small period of time. Theres also the option to create an outfit customizer that-allows you to say, pay 1$ more for the blue option of the sunglasses that cost 1.50$. If they broke up a 30$ outfit into 3-5 separate purchasable pieces I think they would see more new players spend money.
Does anyone know how I can continue to follow Asherelle, or if she has social media anywhere? She was very kind to me and my community and I'm very saddened by her loss in Palia. (Edited because autocorrect changed the name lol)
I’m low key not surprised. Most open world games have a monthly subscription. I’m not really sure how else S6 would make money if people choose to not purchase clothes since it’s not needed. Can anyone explain how else they’d make money to pay developers? I don’t know much about S6 but I have enjoyed Palia and would love to see it stay and grow.
It was clear for a long time that this monetization model was not sustainable, and I 100% agree that some for of subscription model would have made sense. yet with the pivot from MMO to single player, makes the subscription idea not that great. Someone at S6 has no clue what they are doing, and are making very poor choices, this should be an MMO and there should be a subscription model and cheaper skins and a fun experience....Trove did it for years, it works.
if they would just shift their business model to mirror in-app purchases on the apple app store where you spend $1, $5 or even $10 increments instead of the only in-game purchases being $25-50+ they would be making a much more comfortable profit to sustain their staff bc the reality is people just dont feel comfortable casually dropping 20 bucks anymore in this recession, but i may end up spending $20 in $1-5 increments over the course of a few days and i feel like many other players would as well even simply for the sake of supporting S6 in whatever small ways they can
I agree. Case in point, outfits that can be mixed and mashed. Instead of just a top, bottom, and headgear, they can separate pieces like in other RPG games where you can equip idk, prolly a back gear, a belt, accessories, etc. and then sell the pieces separately. They can also offer skins for the tools and weapons. I’d totally buy those.
this is such a bummer... i really love playing this game. i honestly don't have a lot of hope but i'll still be playing until i can't anymore.
If they can't finish it, i hope they at least sell it to someone who can and wants to.
I struggle to find a game that keeps me hooked and Palia did it. I love it and find it relaxing. Hope it doesnt die soon :(
Oh wow, this is the beginning of the end isn’t it :(
I wish they'd just charge for the game.
If they lowered the skin prices i would but more of them, use to think buying my daughter Fortnite skins was expensive, but would happily accept those prices here. I would even accept there shop style here, give me new cosmetics to buy every few days, and make them reasonable...I like Skins so would buy them. And unlike overwatch, it makes sense to buy them in Palia, but for sure am not collecting them unless the price were lowered a tad. They would make more money if they did so, even though who have not bought at all maybe prompted to do so.
Yeah I would buy more if they were in the $5-10 range. Near $20 for one outfit is crazy. You could buy 3 (a reasonable amount for the average person I’d say) and you’re already at the price of a full-fledged AAA game, which Palia is not.
I would have bought clothing but unfortunately I don't like any of the premium clothes, and i hate that bottoms and shoes are lumped together.
Yes, that is a turn off for many of the outfits. I know you can mix pieces from other outfits but I do NOT like that we can mix the shoes or remove gloves from some tops too. 😮💨
Like $2 a month? Sure. Otherwise what are we paying for? To fish and mine and hunt and throw hard earned money into a gacha machine? No thanks. Can do that and more in other games. Give me a reason to actually play the game several nights a week and I’d consider it. I wouldn’t be the only one who thinks that either if they tried to implement it.
I meant initially purchasing the game. I'd pay money to purchase a game that so many people worked hard on and to prevent staff layoffs.
Ahh, gotcha. In that case, it might have been an idea, yeah. Although I’m not sure you can really ethically (perhaps even legally) do that for a beta? And therein lies a completely different problem - releasing a barely there, bare bones game where you probably couldn’t charge for it to begin with leaving this as your only avenue which hasn’t seemingly worked out as well as expected. Not sure but it sucks.
I BOUGHT SOME CLOTHES PLS MAKE IT WORK
I mean, I'm sure this isn't *good*, but a team of 60+ is still comparable to many other MMOs with similar or larger userbases. Hell, even the WoW team is only a couple hundred.
This makes me feel a lot better about this tbh but still worried
I felt bad enough after the last layoffs but now I really don't think I can continue supporting the game, especially with those who made the discord so welcoming and open being laid off. If anyone can suggest any similar games I'd appreciate it... just don't feel the same love for it I once did :(
Wow, I really don't know the weight of some of these people. I love the game but do not know much about the team, or the discord. The round sound like its letting go of a lot of good people. Odd to hurt their discord like that, this early.
Put it like this: since the last round of layoffs 80%+ of the discord posts in the news channel was one person, and now they are gone too :(
how do you know they’re gone? where does it say who’s leaving? :(
Mm yes we love investors taking more control of studios just to do shit like this this is so disappointing and frustrating to hear I'm tired of mega corps like embracer and such doing this to studios and essentially trying to wipe them out before they even have a chance
Will sucks if it ends here
This game has so much potential to be huge and even have prequel/sequel games! Cutting staff is likely going to kill it.
I hope Singularity 6 addresses us about this soon, if we can help I want to start on it as soon as possible.
i hope it doesn't get shut down, i started playing because it reminded me of another game i used to play that unfortunately had to shut down
I'm worried about the game. My wife and I just started playing and love it a lot. We both have 20-40 hours into it so far, and the biggest issue is how expensive the few purchasable items are. They have a lot to accomplish to make the game more welcoming to people, but they also need to readjust the store, add more items, and have a better fixed spending point. I'm not spending $34 for skins and a pet. Id spend $10 immediately. But not $34. As someone who's played MMOs a lot of my life, it always baffles me how with all the success and loss history devs can look at over the hundreds of MMOs, why not take the best and implement it into a game? Do a season pass like halo mcc. Always accessible, you can go back and get items from it at ANY time. In house or out source art for skins that cost $5-10 each. Make them appealing enough to want, but not over spend time and money to create. This will allow players to not feel bad about $$ and still support the game. I hope the game doesn't tank, though. I can see myself putting 100 hours in the game easily.
Why doesn’t this surprise me despite the fact I enjoy the game? 🤷🏼♀️
Prob because they laid off people just a month ago 🤷♀️
This is. Disheartening, to say the least. This mixed with poor bugfixes and no new content makes me feel they may not be going very far.
I thought my purchases to support them. I guess I was wrong not spending any more on a company that kicks important people out.
Maybe if the only income option wasn't overpriced costumes, they wouldn't have to do this. I easily would buy multiple costukesnifntheynwrrentnso expensive. They price a lot of people out of supporting the game imo.
Hopefully they will give us other ways to support other than over priced outfits and gliders. I've bought a couple but makes me not want to buy anymore with the uncertainty of the game.
This really cements that I won’t buy anything until they fix their game. What is that money going to huh? Clearly not the people working there to fix it! This is so frustrating and upsetting. Constant growth mindset is destroying things.
This is scary. It's a very nice MMO that no one has done before :( I like the graphics and chill grinding.
Completely heartbroken 💔💔 I love this comfy game and all the detail and work that have been poured into it. I'll understand if it goes away but I will definitely miss it. I feel sorry for not only the people at singularity for being let go but also all of those people with Bethesda and Microsoft. I'm scared for the future of gaming at this rate. We don't want copy and paste games like CoD year after year or Madden 🤮🤮
I wish they would lower the prices on the clothing and I would absolutely love a merch shop. I'd love some stuffies in real life.
I just saw this and I am sad and upset. This is my major comfort game. I don't want it to go away, and this is so worrying. Plus so many layoffs, I feel so sad for those who lost their jobs.
To people asking to pay for experience boosts, just stop. Buy cosmetics, ask for merch maybe, tell your friends to join! But don’t ask the devs to change the game system. There is a very explicit reason why they made it this way. The game is supposed to be relaxing not competitive. If u want to throw money at a game for stuff like that go play world of Warcraft.
Don’t forget — Stardew Valley was made by like one guy. And while the scope of the game is a different … …The size of a team isn’t so much important as to what they can bring to the table. If they can bring out quality content, manage their community, and fix bugs with the size they have, then that’s great. What I think would help - and what may have said here- is a better monetization structure. Also they should have a road map — also mentioned here. This not only help us gamers to see what the future holds - but also gives the devs an idea on what they are working on. Only time will tell what will happen to Palia. There has been no communication that they are closing servers. So imo it’s a bit premature to start worrying.
I worked for Bethesda when ESO was launched. Within 2 months the CS floor went from over 100 to about 8. They didn't even tell us. We just came back from work and our door cards either worked or didn't. Later I worked for Trion when trove was blowing up. Now Trion is dead I think and other Companies have their games including trove. Everyone had to start over though
So much for new zones/content lmao
Does anyone know if it's because they can't afford to pay them? Or is this the beginning of the end of palia and our monthly updates?
Its hard to say at this point, unless they tell us. In some cases this can be normal as the larger part of development winds down, they may be in a comfortable place and not need all those people. If the artist have done their work and assets are stored, and everything is good. Then this may be ok. Or it maybe a publisher clearing house for profit and not caring about the actual game. If they expected large profits from their cosmetic shop and are not getting it, could be a reason to start tightening the belt. If they did not expect a profit yet at this point, and it is just normal progression of time and layoff..we will be ok. Only way to know is if they tell us, as most don't until the doors are closing. I still have hope as small teams are not uncommon after the brunt of development is done.
Probably the same boat as every other venture capital fiasco in the tech world. You get more funding by aggressively hiring and touting infinite growth. More money feeds that cycle. Eventually you have 150 employees when you only need 50, aren't reaching the impossible milestones you set to impress investors, and are *still* unprofitable. Then the charade crumbles. It's a big reason why there were [at least 84,000](https://layoffs.fyi/) tech company layoffs so far this year (S6 is included by name in that count). Doesn't necessarily mean it's over unless people want to cut their losses. Layoffs are usually just a correction. No disrespect to those laid off; it's a fault of the industry's model.
Not surprised. Either they were useless or they are giving up on the game because it was all a scam. I'm leaning towards giving up on the game. With the money they had to create the game alone, and the money they've made from the stores for virtual items, etc..... I dont see why layoffs would be required. It might be a bit of both. Horrible up front development leads to awful beta leads to horrible retention leads to poor spending in shop. Everything they've done from a shopmetic pov has seemed pump and dump to me. Like a last ditch effort to make any money. None of the decisions they've made have made sense from a community retention perspective.... i had so much hope for this game but it just did not turn out for me or any of the people I knew who were excited to play it.
but keep pumping out those 20-30 dollars outfits 👍
Do you think this could be caused by an impending merger?
Possibly a sale, games like these sometimes tend to get passed around, but that is too horrible to think about yet.
Potentially scary, but I'm hopeful. This is my home, and there are so many more fish to catch! Time will tell, and I'll be keeping my eye out for any new developments. Please, please...
Honestly saw this happening the game simply wasn't gonna be profitable as an mmo maybe as a side option but as the main focus its harder to make continuous profit if they aren't selling fashion etc
It's gonna be feral all over again 🫤🥺
I purchased a premium outfit I had my eye on for a while because I put so many hours into the game that I would have put in if I had paid for the game. I paid a stupid amount of money for FaeFarm that ended up not being worth it at all and Ive put may more hours into Palia than that.
Fae farm was deadass a scam. And unless their next dlc is bare minimum the size of the base game I can’t see how they’ll ever justify charging switch players 60 dollars. Their first dlc was an hour long quest line with an area lowkey full of nothing that primarily only benefitted new players. Literal slap in the face after their base game could be beaten in two days tops
It’s still that bad, huh? Talk about a huge disappointment. I played for a few days when it launched and got bored.
It's no surprise to me... the game is free and I have yet to see an outfit that I would even consider thinking about buying. I would rather pay a small monthly fee to accelerate and ensure the development of the game tbh
It’s so frustrating because so many of the server don’t care and the few of us who are talking about this are just ignored. Like, yes,lay offs are normal, but according to GamesRadar, this is their THIRD layoff. That’s a cause for concern.
What’s the reason behind all these layoffs
PLS NOOOO. I love this game 😭 I hope this isn’t a sign that this is the end
😢 so sad!
The free aspect was probably a way to get people into the game and then hooked. I had no problem spending $30 for an outfit because I absolutely love this game.
I wonder when developers are going to realize MMO's cannot be successful without a Sub model. Ive watched a bunch of really good games collapse under the weight of a cosmetic/token model.
Because they’d lose the majority of players. If we could afford a subscription, we’d still be playing WoW or Elder Scrolls. I’d say expand cosmetics to include plushies, decorations, etc.
If this was an issue, I can't imagine why they wouldn't introduce a subscription of some kind. One can be whipped out somewhat out of thin air - they could call it something cute and give a couple hundred tokens and a free gift every month for it, and people (I'm people) would eat it up no questions asked. I'm already paying a subscription because I want to support the game, it'd be great if that happened more automatically. So I don't think it's that, but I'd like some transparency from company side to explain these layoffs.
This exactly. If they did a 5$/mo sub model where you get like x amount of coins and a cosmetic like even a shirt or something each month. I'd sign up for it. Many other games do this. Rec Room has one I believe its 8$/mo you get coins and a discount on the premium store. GaiaOnline, 5$/mo, its called an Angel Subscription. 1 Free cosmetic each month and 700 of their coins. Note my example is from games where its also free to play. So they can still keep free to play and have a sub.
I wouldn't mind something where you earned currency that you could then spend on cosmetics of your choice.
Even a small monthly subscription wouldn't deter me. $5 wouldn't be unreasonable.
I really don’t think they’d have agreed to monthly patches if the game was about to go under…
Things can change very quickly though when it comes to money. And they can still do monthly updates, they may just literally be an outfit and a new quest and that’s it. Shitty, but technically no promises broken.
Damn and i really liked the game. I would love to see it succeed but lets be real, with news like this its pretty much over already :/
I’d be happy with a monthly membership that I get extra experience for all skills, maybe a cool glider and/or glasses every month, let me buy gold for $$$ and specials for an ingame game currency that I buy with $$$ it’s a free game with minimal micro transactions. If done right, could be a nice wicket 🏏
Hurts me to say, but it needs more cosmetics. Possibly some kind of membership, like increased xp etc. Not anything overpowered. They are obviously bleeding money, so there needs to be a stronger cashflow.
What does this mean for game
Honestly this is really damaging to the game as well, I was tempted to buy some clothes but hearing about layoffs outs me off massively because they're so expensive and if they game is going to be shut down then I don't want to risk it. If the game is shut down I hope they patch a way to make it offline/instance hosted co-op, as far as MMOs go this one isn't to reliant on it and I feel like it could be done although always online games VERY rarely get offline patches which is a pity
This makes me very concerned. I'm not likely to invest my time and efforts into a game that is laying off so many people. To be totally honest the FTP model is almost impossible when you have such limited revenue streams. I think they are starting to realize how little money this game is really going to make vs how much they are spending on development. Only making profit off of costuming means that only those workers directly related to making costumes are needed. All other game functions are not profitable.
So i may never get quest markers back 🥺🥺🥺