Bendy's Big Mistake (Patreon)

Why the Bendy Developers Fired 50+ Employees

Is Bendy and the Dark Revival in trouble? It seems that way. Mike Mood and the Meatly, heads of their very own games studio, Kindly Beast, laid off the majority of their staff this week. Over fifty employees, all without work, right in time for Canadian Thanksgiving. Ouch. In retrospect, this shouldn't have been a surprise. From anonymous reports of the inner workings of the company, it seems that neither TheMeatly nor Mike Mood have much experience at running such a large company. They're creators, rather than business managers. Even at the best of times, even as a tiny two-person indie team, their ability to work sensibly towards deadlines was virtually nonexistant. Our aim in reporting on this story is not to put the boot in while Mike and TheMeatly are down. In our experience, they're lovely - they've shared wonderful comments on some of our previous videos, and even shared our videos, helping many new viewers discover our channel. At the same time, the woes of Kindly Beast tap into a very important issue within the games industry at the moment: that of crunch, and careful time management. Is crunch ever justified? We don't think so. Perhaps you'll think we're being too kind to Mike and TheMeatly considering the accusations that have been raised against them. If so, fair enough, but we're not here to villify anyone. We'd rather not go there. In our opinion, this pair of earnest indie developers simply got in over their heads and bit off more than they could chew. Here's hoping they're able to salvage their studio and upcoming games. Here's also hoping that the many former employees who are now job hunting manage to land on their feet. Thanks for watching. BretonStripes (http://twitter.com/bretonstriped) and Kotor (http://twitter.com/kotor) Sources: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-10-14-bendy-and-the-ink-machine-studio-kindly-beast-lays-off-just-under-50 https://www.glassdoor.ca/Reviews/Kindly-Beast-Reviews-E2564512.htm