
The studio behind Cursed Mountain has been shut down by parent company Koch Media.
The game was Deep Silver Vienna's first piece of Wii software and is one of the few third-party titles that was backed by a healthy television advertisement campaign but, although there are no hard sales figures to go on, it is generally regarded that the game sold poorly.
Koch Media have not cited poor sales of Cursed Mountain as a reason for the closure, simply stating that the “current overall economic situation” forced the decision. It is thought that the current employees of Deep Silver Vienna will be offered positions within Koch Media. Co-founder Hannes Seifert however, is rumoured to have now become production director at IO Interactive, according to his LinkedIn profile.
We quite liked the game here at Nintendo Life and would like to wish all its staff good luck with the future.
[source develop-online.net]
Comments 27
wow, bummer. It is sad that the one industry that was thought to be "recession proof" is showing cracks in its facade. Nothing is invulnerable to the lack of funds other than ideas and the human spirit. Still, an industry based on these ideas still needs money to get by. I wish the developers the best
Deep Silver isn't shut down. It's located in Germany and doing just fine. The company that HAS been shut down is Deep Silver Vienna.
Duly noted and edited - thanks, KeeperBvK!
I blame the assistant editor myself
eh? cursed mountain came out already??
damn, are copies still easy to come across in stores?
Too bad, I bought Cursed Mountain tough. Haven't played it yet, but I was surprised by what I've seen so far.
@Tsuchinoko - I reviewed it in September last year, and I've seen quite a few copies in my local stores since then. Try an online retailer if you can't find it in stores
TV advertising? When?
Guys, Deep Sliver is the publisher. The company that should have gone under is Sproing, because they are the develper. Should you change the article title?
It's shame to hear this, as Cursed Mountain seemed pretty unique. I've been meaning to pick up one of the discounted copies at my local Best Buy (another hint that it probably didn't sell well.)
Seems Deep Silver Vienna developed the game in conjunction with Sproing, who are still going.
I take it as a bad sign that I have no idea what anyone is talking about. It seems to me that all the TV advertising the in the world won't help if you fail to connect with your customers.
I haven't seen a commercial in Holland, but the game is dropping in price here. I got it for 20 Euro, a week later it was 15 Euro in a winter sale.
In Canada it's only 10 bucks.
this is sad news cursed mountain is a great game and i was looking forward to more games by the company
Don't blame a lack of advertising on this game, my guess was the budget for this game was laughable at best, let along money being left over for advertising.
I own it as well and it is indeed a good game.
That just sucks!
I liked this game too, very atmospheric - the slow climb really giving you time to appreciate the increasingly harsh and isolated environment into which you are forever moving forward, kinda Silent Hill vibe about it...
I'm really not surprised. I don't see the game having a large audience, and the commercials didn't make it seem that interesting. Too bad, though. It would've been nice to see what else they could produce had they stayed in business.
reason I haven't bought this game is because I can't find it anywhere. & where was it advertised on tv? I never saw any adds, I only found out about this game from this site.
Cursed Mountain was one of the best games I played in 2009.
Sad news indeed. Cursed Mountain's a pretty good game so far (I bought it, started it, but not through it) and its a shame it was written off as "just another bad horror/wii game" because it got reviews in the 7s. Sad also because for the team's first Wii game, they showed a lot of potential that I could only see them rising to meet in future games (not unlike High Voltage Software).
Its also surprising that Cursed Mountain was one of the few Wii games to get a Limited/collector's/special edition release, aside from Rock Band bundles.
Worst game I've played on the Wii, and front-runner for worst game of my 32-year life. I can see why it sank Deep Silver Vienna. If only the game could be sank ... preferably to the bottom of the ocean.
Those limited edition Cursed Mountain games could be worth some money someday.
lol, well, if you're right, then people should probably jump on them.
Amazon, one of the very few if only outlets to carry the Cursed Mountain LE, currently has them for $30. Even if they aren't worth something, at least they'll bolster Cursed Mountain's sales. Too little too late, perhaps but still.
If I didn't already have the regular edition I would consider getting the limited edition. While it's sad that the studio closed down, I'm sure the employees will be alright. Looking at Cursed Mountain, it's clear they are all very talented and would be a great asset to any other developer.
This is very sad, because this game would have had loads of success on xbox 360 or ps3. Mainly because of awesome graphics and Controls.
Trust, I thought this game was amazing. I bought it and played to the end. The game was really great, but the graphics were so horrible that when it came to the gray screen when entering extremely paranormal areas. you had a hard time see what you were doing. not to mention that killing the ghosts and demons was a great ordeal. The motion controls barely responded, I had to do a damn dance and everything to get the motion it told you to do down. That or the controls didnt respond, it was frustrating.
this game would have been so much better on the other two system, nintendo has pretty much oriented the wii toward non-gamers and kids so to put a hard core or good game on wii is suicide
I just bought the game last night and I think it's great. Graphically, I'm pretty happy with it and I personally would never say the graphics were horrible ( @ nightsky071 ) and it's unfair to make that statement as the game shows a nice attention to detail. I haven't noticed any glitches in the graphics and haven't noticed any problems seeing what is happening on screen. Maybe if you compare what a game would have looked like on a PS3 you may think the graphics suck, but for what the Wii is - they are quite good.
I don't agree with the statement that a hard core game on Wii is suicide, but I do think that Nintendo did make it a challenge for developers by under-powering the graphics abilities of the Wii and not fully realizing the potential of a better graphics engine combined with the unique control scheme of the machine and how that could have appealed to the hard-core crowd.
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