Playnest shuts down after four years of mobile game development
Key takeaways
- Founded late 2022 in Helsinki as Wonder Hive
- Published 12 games and created 30+ prototypes
- Ran over 300 user acquisition campaigns
Playnest has announced it will cease operations after four years of developing and publishing mobile games. The Helsinki-based studio — founded in late 2022 as Wonder Hive — published a farewell post confirming the shutdown and thanking employees, partners, investors and players.
Playnest's public team listing names four people: Gabriele Aimone (CEO), Petri Räsänen (CCO), Tero Paavolainen (CTO) and Jonas Klar (CPO). During its run the studio published 12 games, built several versions of a shared metagame and created more than 30 prototypes. The company also ran in excess of 300 user acquisition campaigns while trying different concepts and launch strategies.
In their goodbye note Playnest wrote, "We had many smaller successes along the way and came close to a breakthrough on a couple of occasions," and added that "a combination of factors, some beyond our control, prevented us from ultimately getting there." The post reads as a concise thank-you: the team expressed gratitude to everyone who supported the company and played its games.
Why it matters
Beyond individual titles, Playnest developed an internal platform for building, testing and releasing games, plus an SDK for external developers and a pilot programme to explore opening the platform to other studios. Those technical assets — the release-and-test platform, the SDK and the pilot — are the tangible outcomes the studio leaves behind after four years in Helsinki.
Original source
PocketGamer.biz
