Dredge publisher says profits will likely be down this year due to certain games 'not meeting internal expectations'

Team17, publisher of the excellent horror fishing sim Dredge, has warned its profits are likely to be down this financial year, as some of its games struggle to meet expectations and certain projects go over budget.

In a trading update published on Friday (via IGN), Team17 said it "remains well positioned with strong traction across its new release and back catalogue titles" and expects its annual revenue to be "modestly ahead of current market expectations".

However, it admitted that "certain titles" are "not meeting internal expectations", while it has also been "too slow to address some project overspends". The publisher is also unsatisfied with the balance between its first and third-party games, the latter of which it says are less profitable as they require it to pay higher royalties.

Consequently, Team17 says that it's "reviewing a number of titles, both under development and already launched, to assess their revenue in the current market environment". Alongside Dredge, Team 17's releases this year include the brutal 2D soulslike Blasphemous 2 and the underwhelming survival city-builder Gord.

It's been a pretty bleak weekend for the UK games industry. Earlier today, Frontier Developments announced its RTS Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin had underperformed, and as a consequence the company expected to suffer a £9 million loss, having already laid off employees last month. 

Team17 commenced its own round of layoffs in October that could impact as much as one-third of the company. Last year, reports emerged that Team17 staff were "fed up"  with low salaries and long hours, following a controversy over the planned creation of Worms NFTs.