The company behind games like Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story, Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, and Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam has filed for bankruptcy after “revenue was sluggish and development costs drove the studio into the red”.
The studio also worked on the remakes of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser’s Minions and Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story + Bowser Jr.’s Journey. The latter was AlphaDream’s final game, releasing in Japan in December 2018, and the rest of the world in January 2019.
Despite recording an annual income of 300 million yen in the fiscal year ending March 2014, by the same period in March 2018, AlphaDream was ¥400 million yen ($3.7m) in debt.
This closure comes on the back of several other closures and cutbacks we’ve seen across studios in recent months, most recently PayDay developer Starbreeze and Amazon Game Studios. Other layoffs and closures include Iron Tiger Studios, ArenaNet, Next Games, Forgotten Key, Define Human Studios, Bandai Namco Vancouver, and Trion Worlds.
