Torquay based Drop Bear Bytes placed into voluntary administration

Staff have been axed and administrators called in but the director of a Surf Coast video game studio said he was “immensely” proud of the company’s achievements despite its troubles.

Drop Bear Bytes founder Craig Ritchie said making a video game is challenging “at the best of times”. Picture: YouTube

A Torquay-based video game developer, which was given more than $100,000 in government funding, has laid off all staff in a bid to save the company less than a year after producing its first game.

Drop Bear Bytes entered voluntary administration in late February, with an urgent assessment of the company currently being undertaken by WLP Restructuring.

Craig Ritchie is listed as the sole director and majority owner on Australian Securities and Investments Commission documents.

A WLP spokeswoman said administrators were working closely with Mr Ritchie and other stakeholders.

“While this evaluation takes place, the administrators will continue to trade the company on a business-as-usual basis,” she said.

Drop Bear Bytes, registered in January 2019, has the goal of “serving the niche role playing game audience”, according to its website.

At its peak, the studio had 16 employees and contractors. Now, only Mr Ritchie is left.

It released its debut game, Broken Roads, in April 2024 after multiple delays and the closure of publishing company Versus Evil months earlier.

Broken Roads, which came out in 2024, is the debut video game of developer Drop Bear Bytes.

Mr Ritchie said he was “immensely proud” of what his team had accomplished.

“The game was on the cover of PC Gamer, the industry magazine for PC games, who only pick 12 games a year out of literally thousands and we managed to attract enough interest for that,” he said.

According to website Video Game Insights, the game sold more than 10,000 copies and generated $270,000 in gross revenue.

Creating a video game from scratch is no mean feat, Mr Ritchie said.

“So many games get cancelled, it’s so competitive … taking it to market is immensely challenging at the best of times.”

Between 2019 and 2023, the developer received more than $165,000 from four state government grants.

Upon its release, the Mad Max-inspired post-apocalyptic role-playing game (RPG) suffered from some particularly negative reviews despite an overall mixed reception.

Entertainment media company IGN named it as one of the worst games of 2024 and gave it a 4/10 review.

“It’s the definition of mixed … we were confused because we were getting eights and nines on one hand and threes and fours on the other.” Mr Ritchie said.

“The harsher treatment was definitely harmful.”

However, he said there were still many positives to take away from the release.

“From one perspective, you have a failed launch that didn’t work out, but along the way that failed launch created many jobs.”

The game received a major update on January 29, less than a month before the business was placed into administration.

Originally published as Torquay based Drop Bear Bytes placed into voluntary administration