NetEase pulls the plug on another studio: Former Riot exec's Fantastic Pixel Castle will 'likely close' if a new publisher isn't found soon

Former Riot Games vice president Greg Street, who left the company in 2023 and launched a new NetEase-backed studio called Fantastic Pixel Castle, says the partnership with NetEase is coming to an end, and that the studio will likely close if a new publisher can't be found.

Street delivered the bad news in a message posted to LinkedIn and social media, writing, "I wanted to share the news that Fantastic Pixel Castle’s time as a first party studio within NetEase Games is coming to an end. NetEase Games has been very gracious and supportive of looking for another publisher for our game. However, in the current market environment very few deals are getting made for any game, let alone something on the scale of an MMORPG.

"We’re doing everything we can to find a publisher or investor. At the same time, we’re encouraging our team members to explore future opportunities and supporting them through the uncertainty. If we're unable to find a publisher soon, the reality is that the studio would likely close, and the entire team, leadership included, would be affected."

Street was heading up development of the still-in-development League of Legends MMO when he left Riot in March 2023, saying "it's time for something new." Not too new, though, because in November of that same year he unveiled Fantastic Pixel Castle and a new MMO, codenamed Ghost.

A message from our studio founder, @ghostcrawler.bsky.social - a thread: I wanted to share the news that Fantastic Pixel Castle’s time as a first party studio within NetEase Games is coming to an end. (1/7)

— @fpcstudio.bsky.social (@fpcstudio.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2025-10-10T15:47:21.572Z

Street said he opted to partner with NetEase because it "understands our vision, and gives us the creative autonomy, resources and support to be successful," and, one would presume, also had the funds to support the project's development.

But NetEase has dramatically changed direction since then. In November 2024 it ended funding for Mac Walters' Worlds Untold studio just a year after it was founded; in January 2025 it pulled the plug on Jerry Hook's Jar of Sparks, founded in 2022; and in August 2025 it shut down T-Minus Zero, launched by Rich Vogel in 2023.

NetEase pointed to a change in "business priorities" as the reason for the T-Minus Zero closure, while the end of funding for Worlds Untold arose from "current market conditions [that] have required us to reassess and prioritise our opportunities." Unsurprisingly, it's pretty much the same story with Fantastic Pixel Castle.

"We are supporting Fantastic Pixel Castle in its efforts to find publishing and investment partners, as the studio shared earlier," NetEase said in a statement provided to PC Gamer. "We cherish and value the hard work, dedication, and creativity of every individual and team across all of our studios.

"Developing and investing in video game projects is inherently a long and complex process that requires ongoing evaluation and adaptation. We continue to refine our approach with diligence and discipline, carefully assessing both opportunities and risks in content development to guide investments across our global portfolio."

Street said the Fantastic Pixel Castle team is still trying to find funding, and expressed hope that Ghost will ultimately see the light of day. But he also described the current state of the videogame industry as "absurdly challenging," and on that he's not wrong. Tens of thousands of game industry workers have been laid off over the past few years, and it's starting to seem like nothing can stop it: Microsoft laid off 9,000 people in July while Phil Spencer said its gaming business "never looked stronger," and Funcom made cuts—including the outright closure of The Outsiders—while trumpeting Dune:Awakening, which came out just a few months earlier, as "the biggest release we’ve had in our 32-year long history of making great games." There really is no winning—unless you're the guy who gets hired for Netflix's $840,000 per year director of generative AI for games gig. He'll probably be set.