Failbetter Games is a British video game developer and interactive fiction studio based in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

History

Founded in 2009 by

Alexis Kennedy Alexis Kennedy (born 1972) is a British video game writer, designer and entrepreneur. His video game work includes '' Fallen London'', ''Sunless Sea'' and '' Cultist Simulator''. He co-founded Weather Factory, an independent game studio in Londo ...

and Paul Arendt, Failbetter is chiefly known for its '' Fallen London'' Victorian Gothic franchise (comprising, to date, the ''Fallen London'' and ''Silver Tree'' browser games and the ''

Sunless Sea ''Sunless Sea'' is a survival/exploration role-playing video game with roguelike elements developed by Failbetter Games. The game was released on 6 February 2015 for Windows and OS X following a successful Kickstarter campaign to crowdfund the ...

'' and '' Sunless Skies'' video games), which has garnered a cult following. Failbetter was also commissioned by

BioWare BioWare is a Canadian video game developer based in Edmonton, Alberta. It was founded in 1995 by newly graduated medical doctors Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk and Augustine Yip, alongside Trent Oster, Brent Oster, and Marcel Zeschuk. Since 2007, ...

to build a browser-game prologue for '' Dragon Age: Inquisition'', and by UK publisher Harvill Secker to create a puzzle game to accompany ''

The Night Circus ''The Night Circus'' is a 2011 fantasy novel by Erin Morgenstern. It was originally written for the annual writing competition National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) over the span of three competitions. The novel has a nonlinear narrative wr ...

''. The studio has consistently won acclaim for the quality of its writing, world-building and storytelling. In 2016,

left Failbetter, citing a desire to work with a variety of other studios and work on his own smaller, more experimental projects. In February 2017, Failbetter ran a successful Kickstarter for a sequel to ''Sunless Sea'', ''Sunless Skies'', raising almost half a million dollars. However, December that same year Failbetter unexpectedly laid off four members of staff, citing the under-performance of the ''Sunless Sea''

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating ...

port, and poor sales of their '' Sunless Skies'' in

early access Early access, also known as alpha access, alpha founding, paid alpha, or game preview, is a funding model in the video game industry by which consumers can purchase and play a game in the various pre-release development cycles, such as pre-alph ...

. Failbetter was subsequently the target of an extensive but inconclusive investigative report by

Eurogamer ''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 and owned by alongside formed company Gamer Network. Its editor-in-chief is Martin Robinson. Since 2008, it is known for the formerly eponymous games trade fair EG ...

, which cited Kennedy and other unnamed staff in claiming poor management and a 'toxic' culture had developed since Kennedy's departure. Failbetter are currently developing a new romantic visual novel set in the ''Fallen London'' universe called ''Mask of the Rose'', which will serve as a prequel to the other games in the franchise.

Games developed

References

External links

* {{Failbetter Games Companies based in the London Borough of Southwark Video game companies established in 2010 Video game companies of the United Kingdom Video game development companies