505 Games may not be going through the best of times. According to the Gamereactor portal, the company is going to close offices in Germany, Spain and France.
Control
According to Gamereactor, the staff of these offices is quite small. In total, they employ less than ten employees — mainly marketers and community managers. It is unknown if they were offered jobs in other offices of 505 Games.
The impending closure of the offices became known shortly after 505 Games entered into an agreement with Remedy Entertainment to sell full control of the Control franchise. Now the Finnish studio will own the distribution, marketing and publishing rights to the first part of Control, as well as all its sequels and spin-offs. The total amount of the transaction was €17 million.
Remedy Entertainment noted that obtaining the rights will allow the studio to make more profitable deals. She is going to start negotiations with potential partners in the coming months. In addition, now the studio will not be able to share the revenue from Control with 505 Games. Recall that as of February 2024, the net income of the game is $ 100 million.
In turn, Digital Bros, the parent company of 505 Games, said in an announcement to investors that the sale of the rights to the franchise would have a generally positive impact on the company's financial position. However, the deal will have only a minor impact on the results of fiscal 2024. In the report for the first quarter of fiscal 2024 (July-September 2023), Digital Bros reported a 9.7% drop in net revenue to €20.2 million and a net loss of €3.1 million.
In November 2023, Digital Bros announced a restructuring and a decision to lay off 30% of employees throughout the holding — about 130 people. Employees of 505 Games, in particular, were fired.