Hello folks. A short preface before we get started:
This is about a game studio called Toontown: Corporate Clash.
As of writing, this game studio still exists, but their staff have been dropping like flies.
Years ago, Clash was able to raise over $50,000 for charities. As far as a fanproject goes, this was a nuclear success.
And then… silence.
What is Corporate Clash?
Toontown: Corporate Clash (also referred to as TTCC) is a mod of Disney’s Toontown Online.
It has achieved great success, and it holds a very active, passionate fandom.
As a useful metric, Makeship sales between TTCC and Bloons Tower Defense are almost matched.
Much of the project’s success can be attributed to the game’s November 2022 update “Hires & Heroes”, which overhauled the game in many ways and added 16 new boss fights (compared to the existing, like, 7).
The team kept their momentum entering April Fools 2023, creating High Roller: a boss battle so over-the-top that it pawsibly caused someone to change their gender (good).
And then… it stopped. That update was over two years ago now, and the game has not significantly changed since.
They’ve had some small updates since then, sure, but there’s not much of a difference playing Clash today versus two years ago.
So, what happened?
The Beatles
The year is 1960. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Tim Allen, Ringo Starr and Santa Claus have just formed The Beatles.
In 1964, they play a show in Liverpool. It’s a smash hit. Their album “I’m Big Beatle” goes ULTRA PLATINUM.
Tragedy strikes in 1965…
A helicopter accident ends up killing sixty% of the band.
The unique sound of The Beatles was lost forever.
Even though Tim Allen and Santa Claus are still alive, the work of The Beatles was dependent on those specific musicians coming together at that precise moment in history.
Without those individuals, you will not have The Beatles, even if they were replaced.
The hell are you talking about
When a band loses their members, that part of the band dies. For creative projects, an individual’s contributions are paramount to its artistic success.
When critical people leave, the team dies.
This applies to TTCC, the team where I led production and direction for both Hires & Heroes and High Roller.
Neither of those updates could have been made without the individuals contributing to them (several of whom have since been shunned from development).
Let’s play a game
So keeping that in mind, I present a question:
How many of the people who worked on Hires & Heroes (v1.3.0) have since left the team?
Answer: sixty%
Many staff are inactive, so it could go up to ninety%
The unique sound of TTCC was lost forever… just like da Beatles…
Though this chart is imperfect:
- It has pretty extreme errors in terms of assigning effort. After all, Main only receives one credit for implementing the entire social panel. That one credit took a full year, while others took days, maybe hours.
- Corporate Clash has gained many new members to replace those who have left.
While both of these are true, they do not dispute two solid truths:
- Almost all of the developers behind Hires & Heroes are gone — even if TTCC does release another update, it will necessarily be different in a significant, discernable fashion.
- Something caused dozens of Corporate Clash’s senior staff to quit over the span of two years.
And it was not burnout from Hires & Heroes, since we were able to follow up with High Roller. This outcome is due to a categorical failure in management after my departure.
So, why did Toontown: Corporate Clash stop updating?
Well, everyone left. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯