Lockpick Entertainment
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Lockpick Entertainment was a Swedish game studio based in Skövde, founded in 2005. It developed Dreamlords, a massively multiplayer online real-time strategy (MMORTS) game released in 2007, which was also published in North America by Aeria Games and later relaunched with Paradox Interactive. The studio peaked at 22 employees and raised about $1.5 million.
02 / Lockpick Entertainment FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
When a close-to-finished publishing deal fell through in spring 2009, the studio could not survive on its own and went through a ‘soft’ bankruptcy. It was restarted as Lockpick Entertainment Sweden AB with fewer staff and ran at a profit under a new publishing deal, but the niche, complex MMORTS genre — with constant server costs and rising player expectations — could not sustain it. Operations were shut down in September 2011, and Dreamlords: Resurrection closed on September 28, 2011.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Company founded
Lockpick Entertainment is founded in Skövde, Sweden to build the MMORTS game Dreamlords.
- Product launch
Dreamlords is released; Aeria Games later publishes it in North America as Dreamlords: The Reawakening.
- Restructuring completed
A publishing deal collapses and the company goes through a 'soft' bankruptcy; it restarts as Lockpick Entertainment Sweden AB with fewer staff.
- Operations ended
Operations are shut down in September 2011; Dreamlords: Resurrection closes on September 28, 2011.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Swedish studio builds MMORTS Dreamlords
- 02
2009 publishing deal collapses; 'soft' bankruptcy, restart
- 03
Niche genre, server costs, rising player expectations
- 04
Shut down Sept 2011; game closed Sept 28, 2011