Back in 2021, indie publisher Devolver Digital announced that it became a publicly traded company. At the time, the company told fans that its staffers would remain the majority owners of the company, retaining some hope among fans that it will remain the wacky company that it has always been. Fast forward nearly five years, and the publisher is now telling investors that it wants to go private once again.
Devolver Digital has proposed to shareholders the cancellation of its shares being traded on AIM, a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange. The announcement also notes a General Meeting to be held on 8 September for investors to vote on the matter. This does require a 75% approval for it to go through. Also in the notice, the publisher’s directors, who hold 25.91% of shares, say that they intend to vote for the company to go back to being a private company.
What’s interesting, though, is the reasoning behind the publisher making this U-turn after almost five years. In the announcement, the company says that “the global video games industry has undergone a period of significant disruption and volatility … Devolver has faced the ongoing challenge of delivering growth in line with market expectations despite those difficult sector conditions, resulting in a valuation disconnect that does not take account of the lifetime and long-tail revenue delivery inherent in the video games business”.
Overall, this can only be seen as a good thing. Publicly traded companies’ need for quarterly profits is inherently incompatible with what can be years-long development cycles. “Being private will allow the Devolver Digital team, especially the finance, legal, and executive team, to singularly focus on the long-term health of the company and less on satisfying the requirements of the public market, which have nothing to do with being a successful game publisher”, the announcement mentions. One can hope more publishers come to the same realisation sooner rather than later.
(Source: Devolver Digital [PDF])
