Loadout Shutting Down May 24, Citing "Flat" Revenues And GDPR Expenses

A few weeks ago, we told you about Gravity Interactive ending its services in Europe for Ragnarok Online and the rest of its games, due to the new regulations that will be enacted via the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. That's now claimed another victim, as Edge of Reality's free-to-play shooter Loadout will soon be closing its doors as well -- not only in the EU, but worldwide.

Developer "Rob" posted a heartfelt message on the game's Steam page, thanking players for their support and the dev team for all of its hard work. He detailed a number of reasons for the move, first and foremost the GDPR, which he describes as "well-intended" but ultimately a death blow for Loadout and other small businesses.

Rob went on to say that Loadout's cloud service provider is also closing up shop, a move he believes is related to GDPR, and overall rising costs while Loadout's revenues "stayed flat," causing the game to go "deep into the red, losing an alarming amount of money per month."

To be honest, that last part sounds like as good a reason to shut down, GDPR or no. It's sad for fans of the game, no doubt, as well as the employees, but when your revenues are flat and you're averaging barely 100 concurrent players while your expenses are rising, that's not regulation causing your problems. It's just a crowded market -- and first-person shooters are definitely an example of that -- that you're unable to make an impact in.