Selling Your Studio: How It Works
Quick guide on a feature I built a while back but never properly explained (and there were some issues with surfacing this in the UI, which we updated in the recent release for Wine and Real Estate).
So if you've been wondering whether you can ever "exit" your studio and start fresh without losing your empire, this is for you.
What it is
You can now sell your game studio at any point in the run. It is not a game over. Your personal empire (cash, wine cellar, real estate, yachts, passion projects, prestige, ethics, persona, mogul rank) all survives. The studio itself is what gets sold off. You then spend some time "between studios" as a wealthy mogul before founding your next one.
Think of it as a chapter break, not the end of the book.
How to access it
Open the Mogul Profile tab
Scroll down to the red Studio Exit card near the bottom
Click Sell studio
The Sell Studio Wizard opens
If the button is greyed out, your studio is not currently eligible (reasons might include too much debt, an active acquisition offer, mid-deal already, etc.). Hover the button to see why.
Three sale modes
You pick one inside the wizard. Each affects what your old studio becomes in the world and how the press writes about you:
Acquisition: a competitor buys your studio. Old studio continues operating under new ownership. You receive a lump sum to personal cash.
Founder Block Sale: only available if your studio is publicly traded. You cash out your founder stake. The studio carries on independently without you.
Wind-down (Liquidation): dissolve the studio entirely. Assets sold off, lower proceeds but a clean exit. The old studio vanishes from the world.
The wizard shows the estimated net proceeds for each mode based on your current company financials so you can compare.
The 3-week countdown
Once you confirm in the wizard, a 3-week deal countdown begins. During that window:
Your studio keeps operating normally. Revenue still flows, releases still ship, staff still work
An amber banner pins to the top of every tab showing "Closing in N weeks" plus a one-click Withdraw sale button so you can pull out at any time. It turns orange at one week left, red on the closing week
Press headlines drumbeat the countdown each week
You can keep playing as normal, working through your last weeks at the helm
If you change your mind, click Withdraw sale at any point during the countdown. No penalty.
The closing week
On the actual closing week, a confirmation modal pops up before anything happens. It shows you:
Exact net proceeds being credited to personal cash
What your post-closure personal cash will be
A checklist of everything that survives (passion projects, properties, wine bottles, yachts)
You then choose Confirm closure or Withdraw sale. The modal cannot be dismissed by clicking outside or pressing escape, so the call is always deliberate.
After confirmation: the interlude
You enter "between studios" mode. Specifically:
What stays
Personal cash (now boosted by the sale proceeds)
All your real estate, wine cellar, yacht collection
All passion projects (racing team, golf club, newspaper, football club, wrestling federation, space venture, philanthropy, etc.) keep running as normal
Mogul rank, persona, ethics, prestige, founder profile
Your full history (released games archive, awards, the works)
What goes
The studio company itself (staff, projects, IP, factories, stock listing, all company-side state)
Operational tabs (Projects, Staff, Teams, IP, Hardware, etc.) lock with a friendly placeholder explaining you need an active studio to use them
Your old studio reappears in the world as an AI competitor (except in Liquidation mode where it vanishes). You can watch your former company compete from the outside
What you can do during the interlude
Manage your passion projects and lifestyle empire normally
Collect rent, age your wine, run your racing team, all that
Found your new studio whenever you are ready (see below)
The world keeps ticking. Weeks advance. Your portfolio still earns rent, your wine still ages. There is no time pressure to found a new studio.
Founding your next studio
When you are ready:
Either click Found new studio on the Mogul Profile card (where the old Studio Exit card used to be)
Or click any operational tab while in interlude. The placeholder there has a Found new studio button too
The Found Next Studio modal opens. You configure:
Studio name (give it a fresh identity)
Country
Difficulty
Culture (your starting cultural preset)
Seed capital from your personal cash (you choose how much to inject)
Once you confirm, the new studio is alive. Operational tabs unlock. You are back in business with the empire you built last time as a leg up.
Why you'd do this
Three main reasons:
Strategic reset: you have peaked with your current studio, want to try a new genre, country, or strategy without throwing away your save
Cash extraction: you want to convert company equity into personal cash to buy more property, expand the wine cellar, or fund a giant passion project
Narrative arc: you want a fresh start as a billionaire founder rather than starting from scratch. Found your next studio with $50M in the bank instead of $50k
Tips
The longer your studio has been profitable, the better the sale proceeds. Selling a struggling studio gives weak proceeds. Selling a hit-making juggernaut nets a big payday
Founder Block Sale (public companies only) usually pays the most because it values company equity at market price
Liquidation is the worst financially but the fastest exit. Use it if you just want to wind down quickly
Take advantage of the 3-week countdown to release one last game or land one last sponsorship. The studio is still operating
Properties and wine that appreciate over time will appreciate just as well during the interlude period. No rush to refound
Feedback welcome
This feature has been in for a while but is barely documented in-game. Let me know:
Does the wizard explain the modes well enough?
Is the 3-week window the right length?
Should there be more variety in what happens to your old studio after a sale (e.g. dramatic press storylines, watching it succeed or fail)?
Other exit modes you'd want (e.g. management buyout, merge with another studio, hand to your kids in a dynasty mode)?
Cheers for any thoughts.