Union Alleges Nacon Premeditated Spiders Studio Closure

The French video game union Le Syndicat des Travailleureuses du Jeu Vidéo (STJV) has leveled serious accusations against publisher Nacon, alleging the company's decision to liquidate Spiders studio was a calculated, intentional move rather than an unavoidable financial outcome.

Seventy-one employees will lose their jobs as Spiders ceases operations. The union describes the liquidation as the result of a deliberate process orchestrated by Nacon's management, calling for a boycott of the publisher in response.

Officially, the closure stems from Spiders' insufficient profits and the absence of a takeover offer. In reality, according to STJV, it represents years of financial arrangements that left the studio vulnerable. Since Nacon's 2019 acquisition (when the company was still known as Bigben Interactive), Spiders operated under a structure where Nacon simultaneously served as owner, president, and sole client.

The union's statement, reported by GamesIndustry.biz, details how Spiders received no royalties on games produced after GreedFall. All income and liquid assets were effectively seized by the parent group, leaving the studio as what the union calls an "empty shell" — essentially a department within Nacon that could be removed at executive discretion.

According to Rock Paper Shotgun, the countdown began last year when Nacon unilaterally cancelled production on Project Dark without concrete explanations. This left Spiders without a contract ensuring survival after GreedFall 2's release.

The union alleges Nacon refused to sign a new contract immediately, repeatedly pushing back deadlines. Administrators confirmed Nacon never expressed intention to sign a contract to continue Spiders' activity, suggesting the group never wished to save the company. Even under judicial reorganization, Nacon could have signed a contract but chose not to.

STJV also claims Nacon prevented Spiders from offering services to other publishers or investors, blocking potential escape routes from the crisis. This restriction, combined with the cancellation of Project Dark, created a situation where the studio had no viable path forward.

Management at both Spiders and Nacon allegedly ignored numerous alerts from worker representatives regarding the company's economic situation, strategy, and management. Employee representatives delivered multiple negative reports during yearly mandatory consultations, warnings that went unheeded.

This isn't the first confrontation between Spiders workers and management. In August 2024, staff organized a strike after publishing an open letter highlighting grievances including global mismanagement, recruitment problems, unacceptable delays in achieving gender equality, lack of transparency, and blocked negotiations. Management condemned these accusations as false and defamatory.

Following the strike, Spiders' leadership promised an audit of working conditions, salary increases, and guarantees for remote work. A month later, these assurances were announced. Yet the studio is now facing liquidation anyway, raising questions about whether those promises were genuine or merely damage control.

In March, Nacon began a court-supervised reorganization to address debt and restructure. Shortly after, four subsidiaries filed for insolvency protection: Spiders, Kylotonn, Cyanice, and Nacon Tech. The broader corporate restructuring appears to have accelerated Spiders' demise.

The union's statement emphasizes that workers already received nothing beyond their salaries, which were "paltry for many." Now, they won't receive even a cent from the studio's game sales. The union refuses to see Nacon "pillaging the still-warm body of our jobs" and urges players to avoid purchasing Nacon titles.

GamesIndustry.biz has requested comment from Nacon regarding the union's accusations. As of publication, no official response has been provided. The company's silence on these specific allegations is notable given the severity of the claims.

From a structural perspective, the situation reveals how corporate consolidation can create vulnerabilities for acquired studios. When a parent company controls all revenue streams, client relationships, and strategic decisions, the subsidiary loses autonomy. Spiders became dependent on Nacon's continued investment — investment that apparently evaporated when corporate priorities shifted.

The timing matters here. GreedFall 2 launched in 2023, and the studio had been operating under Nacon's ownership since 2019. That's six years of integration, during which the union claims financial arrangements systematically drained Spiders' resources. Whether this was negligence or design remains contested.

For the 71 affected workers, the practical reality is stark. Their careers are interrupted, their income slashed, and their professional community dissolved. The union's boycott call is a last-ditch effort to impose consequences on Nacon, though whether consumers will actually respond remains uncertain.

Whether Nacon's actions constitute malice or simply ruthless corporate strategy is less important than the outcome: a studio with a decade of experience, multiple shipped titles, and a dedicated team is being liquidated. The union's characterization of this as premeditated suggests they believe alternatives existed but were rejected.

Time will tell if this becomes a precedent for how acquired studios are treated during parent company reorganizations. For now, the 71 former Spiders employees face an uncertain future while Nacon continues operating with its remaining subsidiaries. Whether players actually heed the boycott call remains the real question.

Artūras Malašauskas is an AI Systems Integrator with 20+ years of production-grade web engineering experience. He has designed, shipped, and scaled enterprise Python/PHP systems for logistics, SaaS, and public-sector clients. For the past year, he has focused exclusively on AI integrations: deploying open-source LLMs, building generative media pipelines (image, audio, video), and engineering multi-agent workflows for real production environments. His standard: reproducibility, security, cost-efficient inference—no vaporware. He documents and evaluates emerging AI tooling, separating verified capabilities from marketing noise. Technical editor at: muza-ai.eu, ai-verslas.lt, ai-naujinos.lt Connect on LinkedIn