At Pocket Gamer Connects Nordics in Helsinki next week, the panel “Ending Well: The Art Of Killing Your Game” will explore how studios balance creative ambition with commercial reality, handle the emotional and practical fallout of ending a game, and make sure every project leaves something valuable behind.
As a teaser ahead of next week's event, all four panellists, freelance and consultant Jasmin Verollet-Dahncke, Henri Lindgren of Kokoon Games, Elena Lobova of Burny Games and Niko Pyrhönen of Psyon Games share how they decide when a game has run its course.
Elena Lobova, head of strategic partnerships at Burny Games, sees the decision from a publisher’s side. When a game sits in a wider portfolio, the question changes. It’s less about whether the game can succeed and more about “whether it’s the best use of the company’s resources.”
“A game might show decent results and still not justify further investment if other projects have stronger potential,” she explains. “It’s not necessarily a bad game, but the opportunity cost of continuing development can be too high.”
A portfolio makes those calls easier because the company isn’t relying on one title. But it also takes discipline “to avoid keeping underperforming projects alive simply because time and money have already been invested.” For Lobova, the key is “knowing when to stop iterating and redirect resources toward opportunities with greater potential.”
” The team started again, carrying over the lessons and tech, and that work became its cross-platform flagship, Liberators Inc.
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