Pocket Mortys closure: how outsourced live-ops extended a licensed IP by five years
Summary
Pocket Mortys shut down April 13, 2026 after a 10-year run.
Adult Swim closed original developer Big Pixel Studios in 2020.
Scottish studio Pocket Sized Hands ran live-ops for five additional years.
"We created every asset in-house and were given an unbelievable amount of freedom and trust with the IP"
01
From acquisition to studio closure in two years
Big Pixel Studios (London) launched Pocket Mortys in January 2016.
Adult Swim acquired Big Pixel in 2018 as part of a games publishing push.
The studio was shut down in 2020, just two years post-acquisition.
The title retained active players despite losing its original dev team.
02
A 6-month transition brief became a 5-year live-ops contract
Pocket Sized Hands (Scotland) took over after Big Pixel dissolved in 2020.
CEO Alan Yeats confirmed the engagement was scoped at six months.
That scope expanded into full multi-year live-ops stewardship.
IAPs remained active until the final wind-down phase before April 13.
03
What publishers and outsourcing studios should extract from this
Adult Swim retained revenue for 5 years at likely lower cost than in-house.
For external studios, "transition" mandates are high-probability entry points for long-term contracts.
Pre-closure, Adult Swim removed IAPs and unlocked all content.
That clean wind-down playbook protects brand reputation for future IP licensing.
Events
Companies
Games
Locations
—
SYNTHESIZED FROM:
COMPILED BY GAMES ATLAS EDITORIAL
RELATED ARTICLES
EXPLORE MORE
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!