Vancouver-based Hothead Games has closed and filed for bankruptcy after nearly 20 years of business.
CEO Ian Wilkinson announced the studio’s closer in a LinkedIn post published in December.
“It pains me to announce that Hothead Games Inc. is no more. Hothead closed its doors for the last time on Friday, December 13, 2024,” stated Wilkinson.
“We had a good run over the past 18 years but unfortunately, everything good or bad must eventually come to an end.”
Wilkinson continued by detailing Hothead Games’ origin story and its ups and downs throughout the years.
The company was founded in 2006 by former employees of Radical Entertainment Ltd to create downloadable PC and Console games.
“Next Hothead chose to burn all its bridges and exclusively develop and publish first premium and then free-to-play mobile games. Initially we threw all kinds of small, inexpensive games at the wall to see what stuck. Surprise surprise, surprise nothing stuck,” continued Wilkinson.
The game developer then switched gears to creating shooting games for mobile.
“These series of games were very successful – we finally discovered lightning in a bottle. Those were the most successful years for Hothead,” said the CEO.
However, Hothead “missed the market” when it came to putting out idle games and pivoted again to develop console games.
But securing a contract for certain versions of some games took too long and the mobile publisher and console publisher pulled out of the deal.
“At that point our only remaining option was bankruptcy,” said Wilkinson.
“What Really Matters: It wasn’t the company and surprisingly it wasn’t the games. It was the people. Hothead was chock full of incredibly, smart, talented, loyal, hardworking but mostly just really nice people. People that had your back at work and outside of work,” he added.
The company had an office located in Coal Harbour. The office space is currently listed for sublease on Colliers’ website.
The news comes after Vancouver-based Bench Accounting announced its sudden closure in December. The fintech company was acquired days later by US-based Employer.com.