Somerville dev, JumpShip, deemed “redundant”

The game developer responsible for Somerville has closed its doors as its parent company, Thunderful Group, deems it redundant. The studio was founded in 2017.

Revealed on LinkedIn, a series of former staff, such as game producer Sara Simmons, announced that parent company Thunderful shut the studio down and these people are now looking for new positions. The shuttering was further confirmed on LinkedIn by former CEO, Dino Patti, who now encourages perspective partners of the studio to reach out to him first so he could provide valuable insight.

“When that is said, if you are a game company considering a partnership or being published by Thunderful, I encourage you to reach out to me before signing anything. I can provide valuable insight that may save you and your team considerable challenges in the future.”

The closure of JumpShip isn’t too shocking, considering Thunderful had previously revealed that it’s “doubling down” on third-party publishing while scaling back internal development.

Gabriel Stanford-Reisinger Editor-in-Chief

Gabe has been a gamer since he was young, playing games like Pajama Sam, Freddi Fish, Guitar Hero, and whatever looked cool on GameFly. Ever since 2018, he's been infatuated with the inner workings of the gaming and entertainment industries, covering a wide range of topics from video games to TV and film. Starting as a contributor for PSX Extreme, he's worked his way up to its Managing Editor. Using what's he learned over the years, he founded Smash Jump to remind everyone to smash jump.