Loot Crate files for bankruptcy, not shutting down

The grandaddy of the subscription box is having a bit of trouble as of late. A new bankruptcy filing though, should keep the lights on.

Empty crates

Was Loot Crate the first subscription box service? I honestly don’t know. If they weren’t, then they were definitely one of the first ones though. The company started operations in 2012, and blew up fast.

According to Wikipedia they had somewhere around 200k subscribers in just two short years. Not only is that incredible growth, but they also started a trend that raged pretty heavily for a while.

We reviewed/unboxed a bunch of Loot Crate offerings here on BG. For the most part, the stuff that was included ranged from okay to pretty fun, with a few awesome things here and there. I remember one box that included a Multi-Pass from the Fifth Element. That was a neat one.

For whatever reason though, Loot Crate has found itself on the short end of the financial stick. They hope that the downturn won’t last for long however, thanks to a sale to a new corporate owner that’ll be taking place now that they’ve entered into bankruptcy.

Making sure to trim the budgets further, Loot Crate is also cutting staff. According to industry site MCV, the company now counts just 60 employees in its ranks with the latest cut taking place just before the bankruptcy announcement.

Outside of those cuts though, Loot Crate says that operations will continue as normal. Though there might be a little bit of wishful thinking here, they say Crates will go out to subscribers and fans should expect the company to continue.

Source: MCV