Night Street Games, the studio associated with the Imagine Dragons band, is laying off staff after its Last Flag multiplayer shooter game failed to hit its targets.
As reported by Game Developer, Jonathan Jelinek, executive producer, said in a LinkedIn post that the capture-the-flag didn’t hit the “financial success” that Night Street anticipated, leading to a “reduction” in the team.
Mac Reynolds, head of the studio and manager of the Imagine Dragons game, and his brother Dan Reynolds, lead singer of the game, had always wanted to make such a game since childhood and they learned a mix of programming and management skills to conceive the title and then they built a studio together.
I enjoyed playing the game in a video that we recorded with friends — Zoid and Mark Chandler — and with the Reynolds brothers in a team of five. It was hard to do an interview while playing the game, but we managed to do it. Yet even with the fame of Imagine Dragons behind them, it turns out that making a hit game was very hard to pull off.
In a message to me, Mac Reynolds said, “Thanks for following our journey, Dean – your support has meant a lot to us as founders and to the entire studio. Our team poured everything into bringing Last Flag to life, and I’m proud of what we built together. Game development is an inherently risky business, and it’s not lost on us what it means to take a chance on something you believe in.”
He acknowledged the team was “very sad to let go some absolutely incredible humans and developers, and we’ll be working with them over the next couple months to help them find new adventures.”
Our video interview inside Last Flag with Dan and Mac Reynolds.
He added, “Our main focus right now is taking care of them in a way that honors the hard work and love they put into making this game. Night Street has always been a small indie team working with some great partners who we treated like our internal team, and if there are folks who have opportunities or resources for the people we are losing, please don’t hesitate to reach out.”
He said that in the meantime, the 13 remaining developers would work to live up to the promise to Last Flag players and roll out new contestants, new maps, a brand new game mode, new cosmetics, and the ability for players to host lobbies with their own custom game rules.
“Putting the future of the game in the hands of our players is something we can all be proud of,” he said. “After that, Night Street Games will be diving back into new game ideas with our 13 remaining developers. We’ll be sharing more on that very soon.”