Tag Archives: rainbow studios

MX vs ATV developer THQ Digital Phoenix – formally Rainbow Studios – has expressed mild interest in buying the license from the defunct publisher when it returns to auction April 15th.

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THQ has send word that Rainbow Studios’ arachnophobia inducing Wii game, Deadly Creatures, will be infesting US retailers on February 9.

The is a Wii exclusive, is voice by Dennis Hopper and Billy Bob Thornton and you can browse our scary screenshots here. If you dare.

Thanks to Shacknews for the tip.

By Mike Bowden

Gamespot’s running a confirmation that THQ has closed five of its studios, as was rumoured last night.

Paradigm Entertainment, Mass Media, Helixe, Locomotive Games, and Sandblast Games were defunct as of yesterday, while Rainbow Studios and Juice Games have suffered redundancies, a THQ rep admitted.

“It’s just constantly trying to react dynamically to the market,” the spokesman explained, “whether it’s because of things happening to our industry or the economic environment as a whole. It’s making sure that we’re set up over the next three to five years to be profitable and successful.”

In a rumoured email published by Kotaku, company boss Brian Farrell apparently blamed “today’s difficult economic environment” for the turbulence, and promised to have a more in depth explanation of the moves in the conference call following the publication of Q2 results on Wednesday.

Read the full email after the link.

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According to this Gamasutra report, THQ has laid off staff at two of its wholly-owned developers, Phoenix, Arizona-based Rainbow Studios and Kirkland, Washington-based Sandblast Games.

The Rainbow staffers were let go in mid-April, with the bad news hitting Sandblast this week, apparently.

From the piece:

The Rainbow layoffs occurred in mid-April, comprising about 30 team members from an unannounced game. According to sources, the production on the project will continue with the reduced staff – and the staff were a minority of the developer’s multi-team setup.

Similarly, an unspecified number of layoffs at Sandblast were conducted this week – though it appears that the company will continue work on its current project, Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

SurferGirl posted this morning that the majority of the redundancies are to come from Sandblast, which is likely to close. Rainbow will continue to operate on a skeleton crew.

A new Rainbow Studios project’s just been announced, namely Deadly Creatures for Wii. To be published by THQ in 2008, the game i s all about surviving in a “venomous world of desert terror”, apparently.

“Players will follow the entwined adventures of an armored scorpion and a stealthy tarantula as they struggle against a variety of creatures including vicious Gila monsters, tarantula wasps, black widows, and the most dangerous predator of all – Man.”

That’s Man with a capital “M”. Rainbow Studios has previously worked on some very big stuff, including Cars, so this is likely to be a big deal for THQ.