Thick as Thieves developer OtherSide Entertainment has laid off 18 employees, according to a Game Developer report, a move that comes just two weeks after the studio laid off 17 people following the cancellation of a new game it had in development. A studio rep told the site that following this round of cuts, “fewer than 10” people remain employed at OtherSide, working on updates for Thick as Thieves, and that there are “currently no plans for the studio to work on any future games.”
“OtherSide’s DNA is built on immersive sim games that have lengthy development cycles,” the rep said. “This, unfortunately, has been an increasingly challenging space to occupy in recent years. Despite the encouraging response to the launch of Thick as Thieves’ introductory campaign, it has become clear that the continuation of the studio in its current shape is no longer a commercially viable path.”
It’s true that immersive sims have a hard time in the modern game market. As Nightdive CEO Stephen Kick said earlier this year, they generally appeal to “a very small, niche group,” and thus tend not to be huge sellers. This limits the appeal of the genre to developers and publishers alike, especially in the current era of ‘make a huge hit or immediately go out of business.’
But Thick as Thieves made some misplays, too. After being announced and promoted as a PvPvE game, Otherside announced a new direction shortly before launch as a singleplayer/two-player co-op game. It was pretty good when it came out and had plenty of room to grow, but some of the game’s mechanics—particularly the mission time limit and exit countdown—were, and are, grating. For people looking for a modern Thief-like experience, Thick as Thieves just wasn’t quite it.
Thick as Thieves was also relatively tiny, offering an estimated four hours of gameplay out of the box. To compensate, Otherside priced it at just $5/£5/€5, which it hoped would be low enough to attract a sizable audience of players and “give the team the flexibility to develop additional content informed by how players engage with the game.” Judging by the player counts on Steam, though, that’s not really happening.
As a fan of immersive sims, and Thief in particular, I hate to see this outcome. Thick as Thieves wasn’t quite what I was hoping for in the way of a proper Dark Project follow-up, but I wanted it to succeed so OtherSide could continue to work on bigger and better things in the field. The world needs more immersive sims! I need more immersive sims! Underworld Ascendant was an extremely unfortunate misfire, yes, but I was really holding out hope that a new Thiefly game from two of the OG immsim guys would have the juice. Alas.
There’s no official indication at this point that OtherSide will close, but with the cancellation of the project codenamed Argos in June and this latest round of cuts leaving such a small number of employees at the studio, it’s hard to imagine where else it might go from here. I’ve reached out to OtherSide for more information and will update if I receive a reply.
