Game Development Community

State of Garage Games and associated products

by Brian Szatkowski · in iTorque 2D · 01/24/2013 (12:08 pm) · 10 replies

Hi All;

I just wanted to jump in here to inquire about the disconcerting news I just read on the 3-Step-Studio forum. Apparently, Garage Games has laid off half of its staff.

There was more than one post pertaining to such (one from an actual employee who was let go) so I doubt this is gossip or misinformation. Also, I saw that the Kickstarter project for 3-Step-Studio had been cancelled by GG.

Can someone please verify the status of the current product offerings? Specifically, I'm curious as to the state of moving iT2d/T2D to the MIT version.

It's sad news all around whenever anyone is laid off--the economy still has not recovered and I see more and more companies affected. I wish all affected a speedy recovery of stable income.

Thank you,

Brian
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Torque Owner Richard Ranft
Roostertail Games
#1
01/24/2013 (12:54 pm)
It's life; things happen and we all have to adjust.

Thanks for the kind good wishes! They are appreciated.

To the best of my knowledge the updated Torque 2D will still be released under the MIT license when it makes it through the final QA pass (though admittedly I'm out of the loop now). There should be an announcement "soon" so keep your eyes peeled.

Torque Owner Jules
Something2Play
#2
01/24/2013 (1:26 pm)
Forum posts by non staff may just be hearsay, best wait for the official announcement.

Having said that, if this is the case .. 3SS should be able to sustain itself without crowd funding... but it would need to be out there already, it should also have a free version for hobby and a paid version for indie and commercial usage - hobby or a small team of users would then upgrade when they have a game ready. In addition to a large library of art and code packs to buy and help sustain the free version. I think there is more demand in games than there is for a game engines on crowd funding solutions - I've seen a few engines looking to get crowd funding and they do not meet their targets.

3SS looks like a good product, but there is competition out there. As long as they continue to support multi-platform deployments then I can see a future in it. Hopefully Android too! (lots of consoles coming out for Android).

Having said that, if a product has been developed and its ready to go, you need to cut back on your team unless you have other products in development to keep things going, its business - nothing personal - otherwise you will quickly run out of money and they would need to recoup development costs.

For those that have left, good luck in whatever you do and hopefully we'll see the fruits of your work real soon.

Torque Owner Jules
Something2Play
#3
01/24/2013 (1:44 pm)
More info here - going back to the drawing board on this project is not a bad thing, hope the re-think comes up with a solution.

Employee Eric Preisz
GarageGames
#4
01/24/2013 (1:46 pm)
Not half, but yes, we did have a substantial layoff. T3D MIT and Torque 2D MIT (and the Torque 2D/iTorque updates), are not directly affected in the sense that their team size remains the same as before layoffs. The same is true of the service contracts we are working on with the caveats that there were some rotations of 3SS team members onto service contracts.

Employee Michael Perry
ZombieShortbus
#5
01/25/2013 (4:03 am)
Torque 2D: We are wrapping up QA for v1.8 and it should be released in a matter of days.
iTorque 2D: We are wrapping up QA for v1.6 and it should be released in a matter of days.

Torque 2D MIT: An amazing engine that should be wrapping up in a matter of weeks. How is progress on it?

See

For

Yourself

Torque Owner Richard Ranft
Roostertail Games
#6
01/25/2013 (6:27 am)
Melv is awesome - ask him a simple question and he throws the manual at you! He really knows his stuff.

Thanks for the update, Mich - I know people who are itching for T2D MIT, some of them here....

Torque 3D Owner Brian Szatkowski
#7
01/25/2013 (6:38 am)
First, while it is always great to see such fantastic progress, I'd like to thank Eric, Mich, and Richard for chiming in so quickly, despite the recent struggles at GG. My hat (were I to wear one) is off to you all.

Melv, I bow before your rearchitecturing prowess. *bows*

I am only half way through part one of Melv's three-part blog but I am already beyond impressed. Taml is indeed a friend that will be most appreciated.

I look forward to contributing to GG's rise back to its deserved position of prominance in the gaming/mobile industry.

Thank you,

Brian

Torque Owner Chris Hoopes
Original Dog Party
#8
01/25/2013 (7:49 pm)
That's really great news about Torque 2D. Our project is coming along nicely but I don't think we're so far into dev that updating to the newest version will be that much of a pain. Really curious about iTorque 2D as well as our plan for the future is to use the image assets from our PC game in a mobile title.

And I hope everything pans out for you guys otherwise. I know I've yet to release a product but I wouldn't even be as far as I am now without your tools and support.

Employee Michael Perry
ZombieShortbus
#9
01/26/2013 (6:18 am)
@Chris - iTorque 2D and Torque 2D are approaching end of life. In other words, the next updates released will be the final ones. All future efforts will be focused on the MIT version of T2D.

Torque Owner Chris Hoopes
Original Dog Party
#10
01/26/2013 (7:17 am)
Oh I'm fully aware. I've been following your reports of the MIT version and I'm excited to see what comes of it but I feel our current project and workflow is still suited for Torque2D since that's what I learned on and what everything is written for thus far.

The Torque2D MIT for iOS might be interesting and doable for me since nothing on that project has been started. Ill be keeping up on it for sure.