But "the industry" as a whole (in regard to games) is a collection of all the people, who are involved in some way, in creating games.

And Mimimi Games are only a small part of "the industry" (but they are not "the industry"), and they have only themselves to blame for their stress - not the rest of "the industry".
They were even self-publishing their final game...so, no "outside" pressure was involved.

So - they themselves are the (how did you put it?) "fuckwits telling me to kill myself for money".

The rest of "the industry" can't do anything to ease the stress of its individual parts (here: Mimimi Games).

Seems the website is inaccessible ATM. Forbidden 403

Oh, that's very sad news.

Soon, all small developers and studios will be reduced to contributing textures, models and effects for Call of Duty <increment by 1>.

Sad to see them go but I understand why they are closing. Loved their games.

Sad news, but I wish them all the best.

Yeah, for quite a while now. Seems like they had too many people accessing it at the same time and shut it down for the moment.

Sad news. Hope I manage to get Shadow Gambit before it gets pulled or something, at least. Wish the devs all the best.

Does it? Frankly, it sounds crazy to me. They created a relatively strong brand, a precious thing, and now they'll be starting from scratch in different places. I don't understand why they had to close down the studio just to "put their well-being first". It's their studio, no one would force them to immediately start working on more "increasingly ambitious games". They could have just taken time off, or made their next project something small. Unless they are rich enough to retire, I don't see how losing their own studio and looking for/starting new jobs is supposed to be less stressfull.

But hey - I guess there must be some sense to it, even if it baffles me.

No, but as I alluded to, societal issues cause a lot of burdens on individuals, but that's something more inherently political and I'll avoid discussing. A company closing their doors because they no longer have interest in their work is natural de-escalation. When there is interest in such projects, both developer and consumer, someone will pick up the pieces.

I was more commenting on what wolfsite started, so this is just general blabber about the workplace not properly accommodating their workers. You know, the people who can get a game cancelled by willingly no longer working on it.

Developing games for passion only works if you don't have bills to pay.

If you only have 2 or 3 people in your 'company', then you can rely on savings, maybe get a few bucks from Patreon or whatever and do your thing.

But a company with - let's say - 20 people who have families, can't afford to create games for passion.

Sure, Kickstarter is an option, but what if your project won't get funded? Then you lost months of planning and creating a demo and peope don't get payed.

Getting money from the big ones? That creates dependency, that brings someone in who can tell you what you should do and how to change your game. That's the end of passion.

Using previous games for funding? Sure, that's the ideal case but we all know that these games don't sell very well and if you don't have any second plan in case the production takes longer as planned, you're screwed.

It's hard for a company of this size to remain financially independent and 'do their thing'.

The way the website was worded it sounded like the 2 owners decided this themselves. They might not need to work again. It's their employees that probably do.

My guess is (and this is speculation)...

... Mimimi's work in the stealth genre -- although great -- hasn't been as pofitable as they had hoped. With that being the case, they probably have been using credit often. With credit drying up worldwide, making games for a small studio that punches above its weight is getting exponentially harder -- making a difficult situation almost impossible... unless they were willing to just sell out? But if no one is buying?

That's my guess... but again, it's too bad. I hate to see any studio that delivers quality games dissolve.

For them is the right decission, seems are tired. Their IP's won't be touch again if they don't want. They could sell the company or search a new ceo or design leaders. A pity that it closes.

Agreed. This came completely out of nowhere. Back in August 17th Gog published this interview with their head designer, and I quote: so basically "we worked hard to get this creative freedom and this new IP and now we're going to do nothing with it". Doesn't make sense to me either. And it was a short time, the interviewee must have had an idea that maybe the closure was in the cards.