Blaseball to shut down after layoffs at developer The Game Band
The Game Band is ending development on its eldritch baseball simulation, Blaseball, and laying off some of its team.
The studio broke the news over the weekend and said that supporting Blaseball has become unsustainable.
"Since Blaseball’s inception, we’ve been fighting against the amount of work it takes to keep Blaseball true to itself while financially supporting the team and keeping our staff healthy. We’ve tried countless solutions to make it work, and we’ve come to the conclusion that this fight isn’t one we can win in the long run," wrote the studio.
"The cost, literally and metaphorically, is too high. So we are making the decision to end it here instead of changing Blaseball into something unrecognizable."
The decision means the studio will be laying off a number of employees, noting that "our team size has to change to give us enough runway to even begin to make something new."
It also means The Game Band won't be running the Blaseball "Coronation Era" as originally planned. Instead, the game has been laid to rest.
Although Blaseball is no more, The Game Band said the title–which launched during the COVID-19 pandemic–set out to spark connections during a time when the world felt out of control. Ultimately, the team believes the surreal project succeeded in doing precisely that.
"[Blaseball] was meant to bring people together and connect us across unfathomable distance and despair, and it did. All of you found us, and every person who touched it was a part of this story," continued the studio.
"To Fans of Blaseball, who have cheered and cried with us, who watched Suns die and Eras pass, who have defied the Gods and death itself, who have been with us through the end of the world as we knew it and then what came after:
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