Tribo Games Shuts Down After Four Years
Tribo Games, the studio behind Rumble Arcade, is shutting its doors after four years, as confirmed by CEO and co-founder Mika Kuusisto on LinkedIn. In his announcement, Kuusisto expressed gratitude towards co-founders, employees, and investors, which include Play Ventures, SISU, and King co-founder Sebastian Knutsson. Tribo Games operated with a small, remote-first team of two to ten members across Europe, predominantly in Finland and Spain. Collectively, the staff have a wealth of experience, having contributed to over 50 games during their tenures at companies like King, Rovio, PopCap, and Wooga.
Rumble Arcade, a pay-to-earn, NFT-based battler, has been available as a browser game for several years, but it never officially launched as a mobile app. According to a post on X, the game's servers will be shut down by the end of July, and the studio is entering insolvency, indicating that future player payouts will be limited. Recently, Tribo attempted to pivot towards becoming an 'agentic distribution platform,' aiming to assist studios in bringing mobile games to the web while leveraging AI agents for acquisition, retention, and monetization.
Kuusisto noted, "We did some truly innovative things with AI agents, live ops and web distribution," highlighting their pride in Rumble Arcade, a PvP strategy game. However, the Rumble Arcade account on X explained the challenges faced: "There was a growing disconnect between the traditional and Web3 gaming audience Rumble Arcade needed and the audience we were able to reach through organic traffic." This disconnect hindered the game's engagement levels.
Why it matters
The statement continued, revealing that the costs of developing and maintaining Rumble Arcade far exceeded its revenue. The studio had initially invested heavily, believing they could bridge the gap, but ultimately concluded that the financial trajectory did not warrant continued investment, with alternative options proving unrealistic and complicating the situation further.
Original source
MobileGamer.biz
