The encyclopedia · Product & Design · Product decision · 2017–2023
Hyenas: Sega cancelled its most expensive game ever, writing off ~¥14.3B
Sega's Creative Assembly spent five years on a 'biggest-budget-ever' shooter, cancelled it weeks before launch in Sept 2023, and booked a ~14.3B yen loss.
Sega · 2023-09-28
What happened
Hyenas was a planned sci-fi first-person shooter developed by Creative Assembly and published by Sega, conceived in 2017 under the codename 'Project Keaton'. It was described as Sega's highest-budget game ever, exceeding the reported $70 million spent on Shenmue in 1999, with around five years of development.
In late September 2023, weeks after the game's most recent beta on September 17, Sega Sammy announced the cancellation of Hyenas and several unannounced titles, citing low profitability potential and structural reform at its European bases. All three of Sega's European studios were hit, with heavy layoffs following.
Sega Sammy said it expected to record losses of approximately 14.3 billion yen for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024 from the cancellation and write-down of work-in-progress. The company later posted a net loss of ¥6.65 billion (over $41 million) for its 2023–24 fiscal year tied to European restructuring and cancelled games.
Why it happened
- Five years of development and a budget that set a company record produced a live-service shooter with no proven path to recoup its cost before launch.
- Sega's highest-budget game ever was staked on a genre crowded with entrenched live-service competitors, a bet made at the publisher's European base.
- The cancellation came hard on the beta's heels, showing the decision was made late and then made fast — the cost of both the delay and the retreat was booked at once.
The lesson
Scaling a project to a company-record budget in a crowded genre multiplies the downside of a late cancellation — the write-down is the bill for the ambition.
Sources
- Sega Sammy Holdings — Notice regarding cancellation of titles under development
- Wikipedia — Hyenas (video game)
- Automaton — Sega sees net loss of ¥6.6 billion due to business restructuring in Europe
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