Tag Archives: layoffs

Empire, as expected, has gone bust.

The publisher’s properties have been sold to New World IP in the US, and its 49 staff have been laid off.

Administrator KPMG Restructuring has been appointed to wind down the company and is not seeking to sell the business.

“Despite the fact that the gaming industry has been relatively unscathed by the current recession, trading losses, development spend and a delay in recent new product approval had a fatal impact on the Empire’s cash flow,” said KPMG’s Ian Corfield.

“We are not looking to sell the business as a going concern and are effecting an orderly wind-down of Empire’s operations.”

More on GI.

MCV’s published an internal Empire memo which suggests that rumour of the company’s demise were on the money.

“It has been widely reported online that we have entered administration – this has not yet occurred. However it is highly likely that administrators will be appointed in the next few days,” said the note.

“It is also likely that administrators will move to make all the staff redundant. I anticipate that formal redundancy notices will be sent out to all staff upon appointment of the administrators. I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this is the unfortunate reality of our current situation.”

Sorry about that, Empire people. Full thing through the link.

According to this MCV report, Empire’s entered administration.

Says the piece, all staff have been sent home from the firm’s London offices and redundancies are being worked through.

An official announcement’s expected on Monday.

How many people lost their jobs at THQ-owned Big Huge Games last week? This Kotaku piece is rumouring 45 got the axe.

The site’s arrived at the figure by comparing the developer’s current staff page with a cached version. There used to be 125 – 80 remain.

There’s no official confirmation as to how many people lost their jobs as yet.

Layoffs are happening over at Big Huge Games.

The Baltimore, MD, studio was informed by THQ a few weeks ago that if a buyer wasn’t found, the Catan and Rise of Nations developer would be shut down.

“These actions were unfortunate but were necessitated by the difficult economic environment,” said THQ.

It is not known at this time how many staff have been made redundant, nor what will become of the firm’s current project – an RPG by Elder Scrolls creator Ken Rolston.

Thanks, Develop.

NCsoft’s reported Q4 financials, showing a 22 percent loss despite an 11 percent sales rise.

The news comes nipping at the heels of lay-offs and restructuring reports on Wednesday.

Fans wanting Guild Wars 2 will suffer because of this, with the game has been pushed into 2010/2011 to focus more on the release of MMO Aion this year.

Having proved so successful in Korea, the company plans on releasing Aion in Japan in the third quarter. The US and Europe will get the game in Q4.

More over on Massively.

Joystiq is rumouring that between 60 and 130 people have been laid off at Mythic.

Some of redundancies are apparently from WAR development staff, supposedly including senior designers.

Mark Jacobs, however, made a statement on the official Warhammer Online site claiming that staffing numbers are attributed to consumer need and progress with game design.

“With respect to customer service, quality assurance and play testing, prior to the launch of WAR, we hired additional people to deal with the rush of demand associated with an MMO launch,” he said.

“Since the launch last year, the demand for customer service has gone down as players become more familiar with the game. Obviously, demand for a large QA and play-testing staff also falls after launch. As a result, we saw a staff reduction which is in line with the company-wide initiative.”

We’ve contacted Mark for a further statement.

IGN’s Matt Casamassina has published an email from an “inside source” that claims Factor 5 is to close.

From the mail:

We just learned from inside sources that developer Factor 5 has officially closed their doors as of today. That’s some pretty big news considering that those guys have been around for quite a while. It’s definitely a real shame! I hope that this information is helpful to you.

Factor 5 was reported to be in a spot of bother last week as it was rumoured that 37 staff were laid off.

More Christmas cheer for the games industry, it seems.

Thanks, GoNintendo.

By Mike Bowden

After earlier reports outlining EA’s plans to fire 400 and close nine studios, it seems the first outfit to be axed is Need for Speed developer Black Box.

According to IGN, many of the studio’s staff are being relocated to EA’s Burnaby facility in British Columbia.

Apparently the closure will not be immediate, meaning SKATE 2′s development should remain unhindered. Full thing through the link.

By Mike Bowden

As reported by Edge, Free Radical’s administrator – Resolve – has claimed there’s already been good interest in buying the developer.

“We are very confident that we will achieve a sale if we decide to market the business,” said spokesman for Resolve, Cameron Gunn.

“It’s a testament to the employees and the regard of the company that a significant interest has already been shown.”

That report says that “well over 100” people have already left the firm, and that a number of companies were in Free Radical’s home city of Nottingham yesterday to pay condolences and network with the staff.

Realtime Worlds, Codemasters, Monumental and Eurocom all had a presence in the area, according to sources.

Free Radical was confirmed as having gone into administration last night. Staff arrived at the company’s offices to find them locked yesterday.

EA’s just announced plans to lay off an extra 400 staff over and above the 600 redundancies it announced in October.

The sum total of lost EA jobs now planned amounts to 1,000, or 10 percent of the company’s total workforce.

The revised restructuring will result in the consolidation or closure of at least nine studio and publishing locations.

$120 million will be saved annually thanks to the plan, the publisher said today.

EA announced in October it was to shed 600 jobs, or 6 percent of its staff, following the release of Q2 losses.

Tweaktown’s claiming that card manufacturer ABIT will be closing its doors at the end of this month.

There’s not a huge amount of go on through there, but there we are. From the sound of it this’ll be cleared up soon.

Administrator Resolve Partners has confirmed that Free Radical has not specifically closed, but is instead in administration.

Cameron Gunn, a spokesperson for Resolve, told ThisIsNottingham: “The company was placed in to administration yesterday afternoon.

“We will be spending the next three or four days assessing the financial position of the company but it’s business as usual, although we have asked that almost all of the employees apart from a skeleton crew remain at home.

“All employees have been paid up until the end of December and we hope to make another announcement before Christmas or very soon thereafter, but we must stress at this stage that it’s business as usual.”

The developer has 185 staff.

As has been reported throughout the day, staff arrived at work this morning to find a note of the company’s door telling them to meet in a local hotel.

Co-founders Dave Doak and Steve Ellis are rumoured to be starting another firm.

Thanks Shacknews and Hunam.

Multiple sources have confirmed to VG247 that Free Radical is, indeed, closed.

Edge has posted up a lengthy account of recent events at the firm from what looks to be a good source. Apparently founder Dave Doak left earlier this month, and is now in the process of setting up a new developer with co-founder Steve Ellis called Pumpkin Beach.

Free Radical was working on Battlefront III for LucasArts until recently, but the project was pulled, supposedly relocating at Rebellion.

Haze is cited by the Edge source as being the final nail in the coffin, along with the failure to seal the deal with Lucas.

“They had already started working on TimeSplitters 4, and had been for over a year, but due to the failure of Haze and the deal falling through with Lucas, they couldn’t get a publisher to back them,” said the source.

“They had a last ditch attempt last week down South somewhere, but it came to nothing so I think that was the last hope.”

The gossiper continued: “People have been leaving in droves due to lack of security, poor treatment of staff, better offers and guaranteed work from other local developers such as Monumental Games and one in Derby whose name escapes me [Rebellion has a Derby location - Ed].”

To the 150-200 staff now looking at a salary-free Christmas – we salute you.

Thanks, Blerk.

Word’s spreading that Free Radical may have closed its doors.

The UK developer currently isn’t answering its phone.

Free Rad’s known to be working on Star Wars: Battlefront 3 and TimeSplitters 4.

Know what’s going on? Let us know.

Thanks, Hunam.

Update: CVG’s reporting that FRD’s Christmas party wasn’t the most pleasant of affairs. It doesn’t sound good.

Update 2: We’ve been told staff have congregated at a nearby hotel after finding the developer locked this morning. GI’s saying the same thing, and has posted the closure as fact.

Update 3: Just got this from a developer source:

“They changed the locks yesterday, and turned up today to find the place shut and locked up this morning. They are all waiting to find out exactly whats going on and IF the company still exists in some way, or if this is the end of the line.

Shitty thing to happen this close to Xmas, and Haze aside, to one of the best devs in England.”

Update 4: It’s just been confirmed by a solid source to VG247 that Free Rad lost the Battlefront project months ago. Rebellion’s rumoured to have picked it up, but we can’t confirm that. Our source says the developer was “struggling” to find a publishing deal for TimeSplitters 4.

Update 5: And that’s that, pretty much.

GI’s reporting that Turbine’s shedding staff after launching the LotRO Moria expansion, dropping a number of staff at both its Massachusetts and California studios.

“Yesterday, Turbine took steps to align our business to successfully achieve our strategic goals in the years ahead,” said a spokesperson.

“As part of this transition some of our talented colleagues will not be with us going forward.”

The jobs are thought to be from account management and QA. No direct figures have been listed.

Midway’s announced plans to cut 180 staff, or 25 percent of its global workforce.

Its Austin studio is to be closed completely, and “development on several non-core games” has been suspended, the publisher said in a statement.

“The cost-reduction measures are vital for us to rationalize our operations and provide the resources necessary for our core properties to succeed,” said company boss, Matt Booty.

“These initiatives, along with the other steps we have taken this year, are a response to the specific challenges we are facing at Midway, many of which have been amplified by the current economic conditions.”

Midway’s had a rough time of it recently, being sold for a song, watching its share price crater, facing delisting from the NYSE and even facing imminent bankruptcy.

Still. It’s Christmas soon!

To all those caught in the storm: we salute you.

Press release after the break.

More »

According to this Edge piece, a recent blog posting about layoffs and delayed pay at Lair developer Factor 5 is “all true.”

The site’s source said that 37 people were laid off from the Californian studio on Friday afternoon. Around 38 people remain, he said.

“The last time staff got paid was October 15,” the source stated.

Whoops. More through there.

According to this MCV piece, THQ UK is facing some staff cutting in the wake of deepening second quarter losses.

From the piece:

At this stage no official comment has been made by the company but MCV believes that, as part of a global alignment, a number of UK staff have been placed at risk of redundancy and a period of consultation has begun.

THQ looks to be merging its European and UK marketing teams, creating a new function that will drive the business.

In addition, roles in a number of departments are likely to be affected.

UK managing director Roy Campbell and UK marketing director John Webb are amongst those who have been placed at risk.

A 30 day consultation period for some UK staff has already begun, with THQ’s hope being that it can offer some of them new jobs as part of a re-organisation.

More through the link.

According to this GI report, NCsoft may be readying to cut around 50 staff from its Brighton office as part of a “streamlining” effort.

From the piece:

According to a number of sources close to the company the move is set to be made following the decision to stop work on the untitled MMO that was being developed there, a game that was announced this time last year when the office underwent significant expansion.

That expansion, which was to be funded in part by a GBP 950,000 grant from the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA), is now to be reversed as the company streamlines its business. It’s not thought that NCsoft would have received any of that money so far.

More through the link.