Greedfall studio Spiders’ liquidation is a “premeditated and deliberate choice by Nacon’s management” claim union as they call for a boycott

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After the news that Greedfall 2 developer Spiders is closing down, the French video game workers’ union (STJV) released a statement accusing Nacon’s leadership of intentionally causing the studio’s failure. The union is now asking gamers to stop buying Nacon’s products as a protest.

According to a statement from the STJV, the game studio will close down within weeks, leaving 71 employees without jobs. While the official reason given is a lack of profit and no offers to buy the studio, the STJV believes this is actually the result of intentional actions by Nacon and mismanagement by both Nacon and Spiders.

The union statement continues as follows:

After Nacon acquired the studio in 2019, it created a problematic financial situation where Nacon simultaneously owned, managed, and was the sole customer of the development team. The studio didn’t receive any royalties from its games, and Nacon effectively took control of all income and assets. Essentially, the studio became an empty entity, functioning as a department within Nacon but structured in a way that Nacon could easily dismantle it. This is now happening, as the abrupt cancellation of the ‘Dark’ project last year, without clear reasons, initiated a countdown for the studio. They had no contractual guarantee of survival after the release of ‘GreedFall 2’.

Nacon initially hesitated to renew their contract with Spiders and repeatedly delayed signing a new one. They also prevented Spiders from seeking funding or partnerships elsewhere, cutting off a potential solution to their financial difficulties. Even while undergoing restructuring, Nacon had the opportunity to offer Spiders a contract, but the court-appointed administrators confirmed Nacon never showed any interest in doing so, indicating they didn’t want to rescue the company.

Spiders and Nacon’s leadership didn’t handle the studio well. They consistently overlooked warnings from employee representatives about the company’s financial health, plans, and how it was being run – concerns repeatedly raised in annual meetings. We believe this demonstrates that the decision to shut down the studio was intentional and made deliberately by Nacon’s management.

So, the developers’ union is calling for a boycott of Nacon after what happened with Spiders – it’s rough, man. Apparently, we were already barely making ends meet, and now, with the studio gone, we won’t even see a penny from any future game sales. It feels awful to see the people who caused this mess potentially profit off our hard work. We still want people to enjoy our games, but we’re asking players not to give Nacon any money – we don’t want them rewarded for what they did.

I’ve reached out to Nacon for comment.

This isn’t the first time Spiders and its management have received criticism from developers through the STJV. In 2024, studio employees wrote open letters and threatened strikes, raising concerns about issues like poor overall management, high employee turnover, difficulties with hiring, slow progress on gender equality, a lack of openness, unwillingness to address problems, and stalled negotiations.

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2026-04-30 17:55