In mid-2016, a few months before the release of their first game, Mafia 3, the developers at Hangar 13 in Novato, California gathered for an all-hands meeting. There, according to two people in attendance, Christoph Hartmann, president of the game's publisher, 2K, told employees that their bonuses would be tied to the game's aggregate review score on Metacritic.

In 2012, as work on Mass Effect 3 came to a close, a small group of top BioWare employees huddled to talk about the next entry in their epic sci-fi franchise. Their goal, they decided, was to make a game about exploration -- one that would dig into the untapped potential of the first three games. Instead of visiting just a few planets, they said, what if you could explore hundreds?

It seemed like a surefire hit: a Star Wars take on Uncharted, published by Electronic Arts and developed by the longrunning studio Visceral Games. But nothing is sure in the video game industry, and on October 17, 2017, when employees of Visceral were told that the company would be closing, some who had worked for the studio found themselves unsurprised. In many people's eyes, doom was inevitable.

There's an old commercial for Westwood College that's become something of a running joke in the video game world. Two young men sit at a couch, hammering away at PlayStation controllers. A woman walks in. "Hey guys, finish testing that game yet?" she asks. "I've got another one I need designed."

In the summer of 2013, months before they were supposed to ship their next video game, the game developers at Bungie went into panic mode.

After a year of financial hardship, Crytek is closing its studios in Budapest, Bulgaria, South Korea, China, and Turkey, the developer said today. Crytek says they plan to "refocus on its core strengths of developing innovative games and game-development technology."

A former Crytek artist wants to sue the company for not paying its staff -- and he's crowdfunding a lawyer to make it happen.

Game company Crytek is again facing financial trouble and hasn't paid many of its employees in months, according to a number of people who work there. Paychecks have been missing or late throughout most of 2016, Crytek employees say.

Video game development studio Red 5, best known as the company behind the online game Firefall, missed payroll last week and could not pay its staff on Christmas day, according to several people familiar with goings-on there.

One day in March of last year, video game writer Andrew Dice wrote out a check for all of his company's money. He stuck it in the doorframe at his business partner's apartment in Portland, Oregon, then went back to his own place. (They live in the same complex.) He closed all the windows. Then, as he tells it, he laid down on his bed and picked up a knife, preparing to plunge it into his chest.

One week in early February, three top employees from the independent game studio Darkside Games flew to Redmond, Washington for a secret meeting with Microsoft.

There's still trouble at Crytek, the independent game developer behind games like Crysis and Ryse. And as of yesterday the bulk of employees at Crytek's UK office are no longer going to work, according to people familiar with the situation.