Tale of Tales unlikely to make more games after poor sales of Sunset

In an in-depth blog post detailing the development and perceived failure of their latest title, Sunset, studio Tale of Tales has come to the position where it has decided that it is unlikely it'll go on to develop any more games, especially, as the studio put it, "commercial ones."

The difficulty has arisen out of the dual problem of a less financially-friendly environment in Belgium, with funding for artistic games "drying up," as well as an anticipation that Sunset would do far better than their previous titles, which led to Tale of Tales to going $40,000 in debt. Both of these factors, in combination with poor sales, has meant that Sunset has put the company in a very precarious position. 

On top of this, the post details the different tactics that Tale of Tales employed with the lead-up to Sunset's release, taking lessons learned from their previous titles The Path, Fatale and Bientôt l'été. These included hiring a PR company, purchasing ads on Rock, Paper, Shotgun and being very judicious with which members of the team talked publicly, and how. As far as Tale of Tales is concerned, none of these made a difference. 

Michaël Samyn and Auriea Harvey close off the post with a statement about their intentions going forward: "We are happy and proud that we have tried to make a “game for gamers.” We really did our best with Sunset, our very best. And we failed. So that’s one thing we never need to do again. Creativity still burns wildly in our hearts but we don’t think we will be making video games after this. And if we do, definitely not commercial ones."