Tag Archives: midway newcastle

A filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission has revealed that Midway’s managing director for Europe, Martin Spiess, has purchased Midway’s France and UK offices for €1/86 pence.

Midway UK and France are now owned by Spiess Media Holding UG and Midway’s European teams now have 90 days to sell the rest of the Midway stock they are holding.

Basically a management buyout, Midway Germany’s general manager Uwe Fürstenberg has purchased his end as well.

A clause in the agreement says the offices must drop the Midway name immediately.

Loads more financial and legal stuff regarding this are over on MCV.

An ex-Midway Newcastle GUI artist named Steven Pick has detailed the studio’s closure over on his personal blog, stating that work was going on as usual before the doors officially shut.

Pick details how Necessary Force was still being pitched to publishers right up to the last day in hopes of saving it,stating that the rush to provide a complete demo for investors was to help save jobs – which, alas, did not work.

“One thing is for sure – the threat of losing your job is a strong motivator,” he wrote. “We had expected that the closure would be on Friday, and everyone was working to that point. A week after we were told of the failure of the ‘big pitch’, Tuesday July 14 would be a day I will never forget.

“As lunch neared, our secretary noted on the security cameras that Matt Booty – the bigwig Midway CEO at the time – was outside the studio ‘with a bunch of people’. The news filtered through the studio like wildfire accompanied by assorted reactions – mostly of the ‘oh f***’ variety.

Apparently, the studio closed on pay-day, but no redundancy or holiday pay was forthcoming.

“Some of us asked why we were not getting paid when the London office was reportedly cash-rich. After all the work, the praise, the highs and lows of it all… it came down to this. It was heartbreaking seeing everyone slowly filter away from there… wondering what would become of us as individuals now that our team, which was such a solid and incredible machine, had been disassembled like a piece of flat-pack furniture.”

Ouch. Read the rest through the link.

Via GI.biz.

Midway Newcastle has closed its doors, according to an online CV posted by a former staffer.

“Yeah, it looks like this is the end for Midway Newcastle,” the staffer replied to commentary. “The last chance that a lot of guys thought would come through, and were waiting on the outcome of, didn’t end up coming to fruition so unless something happens at the 11th hour it looks like the studio will be closing.

“I’ve just heard that Eutechnyx, another local studio has let 20 staff go so there will be a LOT of people going for the same jobs in the North East at the minute.”

Sad news, that.

Thanks, CVG.

Midway Newcastle’s put up a ton of concept art for promising action title Necessary Force, as you can see here.

Chances of the studio surviving long enough for this to ever be a reality? Remote. Still, we can but dream.

Take a look. Thanks, Joystiq.

Midway Newcastle’s Necessary Force has a trailer. And here it is.

The game was revealed last night, as was the fact that the studio is facing a very uncertain future.

Which is a shame. Because this looks pretty good. Hit it and see.

Midway Newcastle may be on the verge of closing it’s doors, but that has not stopped the team from working on its open-world detective drama, Necessary Force.

Studio head Craig Duncan had a chat with Develop regarding the title, which after three months of work is playable, and says the team is not giving up just yet.

“The idea of a detective who sets his own rules is the sort of story that’s been around in movies for a while, but we don’t think anyone’s managed to capture the essence of those choices and consequences in games,” said Duncan. “That unprecedented level of open world influence and troubled morality is something we’re really keen to explore.

“It’s really important that people know that this is a team that wants to stick together – sometimes when you look at buying a studio you can worry that the real talent, the people, will just flee the ship, leaving you with some IP, kit and an empty building; the pieces of the puzzle that aren’t really worth anything,” he added.

“But everyone here as worked together for at least two years, with the original core team still together after about ten years. We’ve been through the ups and downs and all want to stay working together.

“Despite all that’s been going on, we’ve only had three people leave this year – it just goes to show that everyone wants to stay together, how galvanized they are as a team. They don’t know if they’re going to have a job in a month’s time, but they’re still putting in a huge amount of effort now; staying until nine in the evening working on this – and that’s because they’re all so motivated by the great project we’re working on.”

More through the link.

Thanks, Johnny.

Midway’s Newcastle and San Diego studios may have to close up shop in two weeks if a buyer or investor is not found for the open-world game currently in the works.

“100 percent of my efforts and focus are on finding a solution to keep the studio going forward, making it viable and securing jobs in the team,” Newcastle boss Craig Duncan told the Guardian. “It may sound like a football cliché but this studio is too good a team to have to shut down – it would be a travesty.

“I met with a number of interested parties [during E3]. When we presented the new game everyone loved it and was really impressed with our proposition. What counts against us is the timeframe and the fact the market is tough currently for both investors and games companies.

“If I had £100k for every time someone said, ‘a year ago we would have bought you’, I could buy the studio personally.”

The two studios were not included in the bid $33 million bid Warner Bros made for Midway back in May.

Via CVG.

Ubi’s released a new dev diary from Wheelman, this time showing Big Vin riding round Spain on motorbikes.

It’s all very shooty, what with its bullet time thing, and actually looks pretty good in a “blow things up” sort of way.

After the break. We would have put this up last night, but our Flash encoder hates all Ubisoft movies, for some reason.

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