Crema Games Shuts Down Temtem Showdown And TemCS Esports Tournament

It looks like the PvP side of Temtem isn’t getting as much attention as Crema Games had hoped as it’s decided to shut down both its competitive eSports tournaments and the standalone free-to-play PvP battler Temtem Showdown.

For context, Temtem Showdown was launched on Steam in June 2023 as a way for players to jump right into Temtem battles in casual matches. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as well-received as the original game with “Mixed” reviews and a very disappointing player count.

Temtem’s eSports tournament, the Temtem Championship Series (TemCS), hasn’t fared any better after Crema Games suspended the tournament last year due to various bugs that popped up with Patch 1.5’s release.

Crema Games admits that they had hoped to draw in new players to the main creature-taming MMO with Temtem Showdown and TemCS but only attracted existing players who were already actively engaging in PvP. Temtem Showdown also used up resources that could have otherwise been used on Temtem itself.

“[…] Hindsight is 20/20, and of course, there’s a million things we would’ve done differently knowing what we now know,” the studio said. “These changes will not affect the Temtem game for worse in any way. If anything, it’ll allow us to focus all of our bug finding and bug fixing energy into Temtem.”

Launching standalone spinoffs is quickly becoming a trend in the MMO world as a way to attract more players or as an isolated testing ground for new features. However, most, if not all, end up backfiring on developers as it draws time, manpower, and resources away from their flagship games to the ire and disappointment of its players. Hopefully, this serves as a lesson to other studios looking to go the same route.