Game Studio Behind Sleeping Dogs Has Shut Down

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According to this article, United Front Games, the developers best known for Sleeping Dogs, has suddenly shut down. There has been no announcement or statement from the company at this time.

United Front Games, the maker of Sleeping Dogs, ModNation Racers and the now-cancelled early access title Smash + Grab, has closed its doors today. Reports about the studio shutting down hit the internet around 11:00 AM Sydney time. It was a surprise rumour given that United Front Games had just run a free weekend on Steam for their latest title, an early access third-person brawler. Quickly after, people started noticing that Smash + Grab had been pulled for purchase from Steam.
 
That sucks. SD was a terrific game. First they cancelled the sequel, then axed the spin off mid-cycle, and now this. That's really too bad. While SD never had the humor or compelling plot of GTA, it had better gameplay across the board. Better fighting, shooting, and driving.
 
well that's a bummer! I loved SD and their Smash + Grab game looked like it could have had some potential but a game I wasn't exactly interested in myself.
 
This is why small devs need to stop trying to make MMOs. They are too expensive and they never work out. They tried to pivot to something else, but it was too late.
 
I also really liked Sleeping Dogs. I liked it better than the GTA franchise. I thought the story, gameplay, and world were more engrossing. The main character was much more interesting to me. I feel SD was more story driven within a sandbox. Where as GTA seams more like a sandbox with some story elements to justify said sandbox.
 
cocheese256 said:
I also really liked Sleeping Dogs. I liked it better than the GTA franchise. I thought the story, gameplay, and world were more engrossing. The main character was much more interesting to me. I feel SD was more story driven within a sandbox. Where as GTA seams more like a sandbox with some story elements to justify said sandbox.
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Same. I was looking forward to another core SD game but I guess we're never gonna get another one by the same crew.
 
Agreed. I really loved SD. Heck it introduced me to songs (while driving around), that I ended up buying (just to cruise around and listen to in RL).
 
Hope the best for all the devs in finding other jobs in the field they love. SD had a great following, maybe another studio with more budget and foresight could buy the IP?
 
Maybe someone else with a bigger budget can have the series some back after buying the IP.
 
Damn, I still fire up SD for S&Gs, it still looks good at 4K today.

This is an issue with a studio not riding their momentum. A Sleeping Dogs 2 with online 2-6 player cooperative multiplayer (NOT MMO) would have been a MUST BUY from me.
 
going by the name of the title that never happened... they likely were part of the group that has been offering contracts to create assets out of house and then not paying for the work. Many of the free assets up on unreal's market are because the original rights owners found out that people were selling unreleased game assets under contract as works for hire to multiple studios so they shrug and tell epic to make the assets free so that when people see them and go I have seen that some where before, artists snicker and say those are the freebies to get people interested in the work that were good enough to use but not good enough to pay for... good studios bring talent in house and hang onto it so they are not training their competition on how to build their flavor of mouse trap better. Every in trying to make money, and some are trying to make a fun game. You need the money to pay for tech and things like food... and things to do when you are not working... but there is a site games industry news that you have to have worked in the industry to post, but anyone can read the articles. You can see the developers that thought building games was just taking advantage of few people and the reactions of the companies that actually understand you hang on to the talent building almost anything is still ninety percent hard work, but because of the middle management cycle we had were getting hired to management directly out of college with a biz management degree causes thousands of companies to fold as they sold off assets the company was still paying for, fired employees as they said they would just hire a foreigner who would work for less than minimum wage... then move to another company claiming to have saved thousands of dollars, rise and repeat and you have group of people with great paper resumes like the one guy who got hired as the ceo of yahoo who have never worked in IT but it was necessary for the job requirements... they have no ethics and no actually job skill set other than getting rid of the things companies need to actually function let alone make money.
The USA is slowly getting rid of them even if they have to fire ninety percent of their staff to do so. That said some of them still made enough money to mess with corporations boards. I watched EA which was never the most ethical company get bought out by a unknown investor and trash the value they had in most of their stuff because they decided they could tell the teams that were making money what was appealing to them... instead of trying to create a game company based on those ideals. I figure the only good thing is they lost so much money do that, they don't have as much money to try taking over more companies... but ya sleeping dogs had from another game or vice versa I did not work there, I just kept mixing up the screenshots of the two games. Artist have a style, you can learn to mimic it and maybe if you want to be like that game you do that but a game is more than pretty pictures. Just look at what happened to allen wake and the last of us... good story but...
 
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