Marmalade is giving up on its game engine biz to focus on game dev

Marmalade Technologies, maker of the 2D/3D Marmalade Platform that powers mobile games like SimCity BuildIt and Angry Birds Pop, will cease updating the engine as it restructures to focus on game development.

This is important if you're a developer who uses the Marmalade Platform, because (according to a FAQ posted to Marmalade's website) the engine is scheduled to get its final significant update next March. After that the licensing server will be shut down, though all licensed Marmalade Platform devs will gain a perpetual license in that final update which will allow them to continue using the engine indefinitely. 

Intriguingly, from now through October Marmalde says it will also sell interested devs a "Source Edition" of the Marmalade Platform that will "allow you full access to the source code and build capability, enabling you to modify the Marmalade Platform as required." However, the company says it currently has no plans to make the engine available as open-source software.

This comes roughly nine months after Marmalade announced it was losing its CEO and gaining $5 million from investors, funding it said it planned to use to improve its game engine business.

Now, it says it's restructuring and pulling out of that business in order to focus on Marmalade Game Studio, which has used the Marmalade Platform to develop licensed games like The Game of Life: 2016 Edition and original ventures like Spinguins. 

In a statement to GamesIndustry, a Marmalade representative notes that "by doing this, [Marmalade] has reduced the internal resource requirements for developing and evolving the [Marmalade Platform] technology," suggesting the restructuring will involve significant staff cuts.

Gamasutra has reached out to Marmalade for more details on that point. If you or someone you know has been affected by this, you can email Gamasutra to tell your story confidentially.