Castaway Entertainment, a studio established nearly five years ago by former Blizzard North devs, has become the latest casualty in an alarming trend among US game developers. Gamespot has reported that the studio has suspended operations, echoing similar death knells rung earlier this year Perpetual Entertainment, Iron Lore, and Stormfront Studios.
According to the report, Castaway has cut back its staff from nearly 25 people to just six critical staff members, and that all development activity has been shelved. Since Castaway was founded in 2003 the studio has produced only a single title, the XBLA pox Yaris, with other projects such as the unreleased Diablo-style game Djinn never having made it out of the ether.
Reader Comments (20)
Posted: Apr 7th 2008 11:36AM (Unverified) said
You mean there won't be another Yaris game?
Gutted!
Reply
Gutted!
Posted: Apr 7th 2008 11:52AM (Unverified) said
Yeah, it's surprising that people left Blizzard to do Yaris.
Reply
Posted: Apr 7th 2008 12:21PM darkinchworm said
That was developed by former Blizzard folk?
...wow.
Wait, no, not WoW. I take that back.
Reply
...wow.
Wait, no, not WoW. I take that back.
Posted: Apr 7th 2008 11:50AM Shagittarius said
Yaris RROD'ed my 360. Could have been coincidence but I think it was a direct result of playing it.
Reply
Posted: Apr 7th 2008 12:10PM (Unverified) said
What in the hell was Toyota thinking when they decided to have developed a game like Yaris? That little kids were going to beg their parents to buy them a Yaris?, that gamers from 14 to 18 could eventually actually afford a yaris? That anyone in the world would like the Yairs. First of all Yaris have an awful design also they don’t shoot lazers, second have it announce it on the xlive was just plain bad and having a game about it was just a terrible idea then again a free bad game is better than having Yaris ads every-f*cking-where.
Yaris was confusing as hell and the shooting was awful (an error people in the U.S will never forgive) so yeah it was a bad game but is better than having a commercial storm in the damn dashboard.
To be honest you people exaggerate a lot. It was bad game but it wasn’t bad enough to save the president and less to be even remembered.
Reply
Yaris was confusing as hell and the shooting was awful (an error people in the U.S will never forgive) so yeah it was a bad game but is better than having a commercial storm in the damn dashboard.
To be honest you people exaggerate a lot. It was bad game but it wasn’t bad enough to save the president and less to be even remembered.
Posted: Apr 7th 2008 12:30PM Duke said
You are all over the place there - you say it was so bad, and then say everyone’s exaggerating how bad it is.
"To be honest you people exaggerate a lot. It was bad game but it wasn’t bad enough to save the president and less to be even remembered."
What does that even mean?
As far as the marketing side, it seems that there are a lot of people over 16 who own 360's and this is a way to get them to recognize the name of the car. It works for that much.
Reply
"To be honest you people exaggerate a lot. It was bad game but it wasn’t bad enough to save the president and less to be even remembered."
What does that even mean?
As far as the marketing side, it seems that there are a lot of people over 16 who own 360's and this is a way to get them to recognize the name of the car. It works for that much.
Posted: Apr 7th 2008 3:52PM (Unverified) said
That my friend means that is time to get a new keyboard because I'm always typing in a hurry and this keyboard doesn't helps.
Sorry for all the typos, all my posts are usually plagued with those. I'll pick a new keyboard tomorrow with a new xlive gold account.
Now what I meant is that the game is bad but is not Big Rigs” OMG WTF” Bad just bad like a bad design, pure mediocrity, nothing especial that justifies the hate it receives. Like when you watch a movie, there is a difference between a dull boring movie and an Uwe Boll movie.
Reply
Sorry for all the typos, all my posts are usually plagued with those. I'll pick a new keyboard tomorrow with a new xlive gold account.
Now what I meant is that the game is bad but is not Big Rigs” OMG WTF” Bad just bad like a bad design, pure mediocrity, nothing especial that justifies the hate it receives. Like when you watch a movie, there is a difference between a dull boring movie and an Uwe Boll movie.
Posted: Apr 7th 2008 4:06PM (Unverified) said
Hey dudes, thanks for the 1up’s.
Let’s go for a burger …
HA! HA! HA! HA!
Reply
Let’s go for a burger …
HA! HA! HA! HA!
Posted: Apr 7th 2008 2:02PM quickshade said
I think Joystiq needs to step back and ask themselves: "Do we really miss any of these developers" I mean in all honestly of all these studios that have gone under they produced maybe 2 good games all together.
Reply
Posted: Apr 17th 2008 11:27PM (Unverified) said
Wow you guys are hella harsh on developers. Just because they made a bad decision by making Yaris (in collaboration with Backbone Studios i might add) doesn't mean they should get put out of business
have you even seen the game they were working on, Djinn, it looked pretty clean.
Reply
have you even seen the game they were working on, Djinn, it looked pretty clean.
Sorry, you must be logged in to leave a comment.
Featured Stories
The most popular posts
in the last 7 days
- Vita 'UMD Passport' won't be offered in US 221 comments
- Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning review: A tempting fate 153 comments
- David Jaffe leaves Eat Sleep Play, layoffs hit developer [Update] 107 comments
- Blizzard taking Valve to court over 'DOTA' trademark 96 comments
- Don't call it a remake: Final Fantasy X is a 'remaster,' to be clear 95 comments








