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Journey dev went bankrupt during adventure's creation

Although the critical and commercial pay-off may have been worth it, thatgamecompany skirted financial disaster while working on Journey.

Speaking at DICE Summit 2013, as reported by Destructoid, thatgamecompany boss Jenova Chen said that at the end of the two years of development Sony had agreed to fund, Journey wasn't finished.

Interestingly, it wasn't a technical issue that troubled the developer; it just wasn't happy with the game's emotional impact, noting better results when one tester's playthrough crashed before the ending.

Sony agreed to fund a third year of development, but thatgamecompany took even longer than that, and ended up bankrupt, unable to pay its employees even as they continued to work on the game.

At the end of a play session showing off the completed game, three of 25 play testers cried, Chen said, making it all worthwhile.

Journey wowed critics and quickly became the best selling PlayStation Network release of all time.

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Journey

PS4, PS3, PC

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Brenna Hillier avatar

Brenna Hillier

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Based in Australia and having come from a lengthy career in the Aussie games media, Brenna worked as VG247's remote Deputy Editor for several years, covering news and events from the other side of the planet to the rest of the team. After leaving VG247, Brenna retired from games media and crossed over to development, working as a writer on several video games.

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