Kingdoms of Amalur developers close doors

[Dark Drakan]

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The Kingdoms of Amalur developers 38 Studios and their subsidiary Big Huge Games yesterday announced that they have layed off all of their staff effective immediately. The current enonomic crisis is blamed for it and the lack of success of Kingdoms of Amalur. Official statement was as follows...​

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The Company is experiencing an economic downturn. To avoid further losses and possibility of retrenchment, the Company has decided that a company-wide lay off is absolutely necessary. These layoffs are non-voluntary and non-disciplinary. This is your official notice of lay off, effective today, Thursday, May 24th, 2012.​

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Governor Lincoln Chafee had the following to say about Kingdoms of Amalur...​

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The game failed, in order to break even it needed to sell more than three million copies, a target it didn't come close to hitting.​

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Unclear what will happen to the staff and where they will end up but I wish them all the best in their endeavours.​

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[Tyloric]

That's a shame. I saw all of the hard work that went into the title. Hopefully they might do something with the franchise eventually, whoever their parent company is.

 

[Necromancer]

Damn, that's awful. I absolutely love Kingdoms. I've already beaten it twice, and I'm eventually going to go through several more playthroughs. I was really hoping for them to expand on it by maybe turning it into a sizable series, or at least just giving it a sequel.

 

[Gikoku]

Well the demo certainly didn't do it any justice, but I didn't think the low sales would cause this much damage.. all those lost jobs.

 

[Aions]

Holy hell. That sucks. For one game to bring down a whole company; they must of had a lot riding on it. The game was fun for about a month, but then i got bored of it and played through Skyrim for the second time :/

 

[Dark Drakan]

It seemed to show promise and its a shame that after 1 title in the series the developers have had to close the doors.

 

[Quistrix]

It's very hard these days for a new series to break through the boundaries, it's just such a shame because this game was actually rather enjoyable. Being so closely released around the time of other bigger, more hyped games was probably a mistake on their part. Ah well.

 

[TRA Rotid]

Shame. Amalur certainly had this Fabley vibe - it both brought back memories and was enjoyable in its simple, lighthearted way -,would have been nice to see a more expanded sequel.

 

[Tsuyu]

This is what happens when the gaming industry becomes a business, sadly.

 

[Dark Drakan]

They have also said that unless some miracle happens they can no longer patch the game either.

No new Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning patches "barring some sort of miracle"

 

[IMesh]

It's a shame to see new companies die so quickly, I never actually played this game, but I have the sense it could have been something big.

 

[Necromancer]

They have also said that unless some miracle happens they can no longer patch the game either.

No new Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning patches "barring some sort of miracle"

What? That's ridiculous. I'm fairly certain they didn't even patch it once, and I was hoping for them to fix a small glitch I'm experiencing.

 

[Dark Drakan]

What? That's ridiculous. I'm fairly certain they didn't even patch it once, and I was hoping for them to fix a small glitch I'm experiencing.

They had a list they were working on and new features they were adding but studio closed before they finished them.

 

[Tsuyu]

"While I consider Reckoning a very strong game and not especially buggy," Frazier added, "that's not the same as saying that it's perfectly balanced or bug-free, and it kills me that I'll never get the chance to correct any of its issues."

Oh god, the agony. I'm sort of a perfectionist and I never become happy with what I do, so I can definitely feel his pain.

 

[SelfAppointedGunslinger]

Oh god, the agony. I'm sort of a perfectionist and I never become happy with what I do, so I can definitely feel his pain.

Yeah me too, you should see me when I'm trying to create the perfect Skyrim character.

 

[Angel]

L'il update - Epic Games have thrown a lifeline out to Big Huge Games - got to love their ethos and hats off to them for helping out a struggling company in a time of economic ickiness.

Check out the official blog post about it for the full details, but here's the essential bit:

On Wednesday, the ex-BHG leadership team contacted us. They wanted to start a new company and keep together some of the key talent displaced by the layoff, and hoped that they could use an Epic IP as a starting point for a new game. We loved that they all wanted to keep working together, but it was pretty clear they’d have trouble building a demo and securing funding before their personal savings ran out... The way we see it, there’s been a big storm in Baltimore, and we’re taking in a few of the refugees — as are the awesome folks at Zynga East, Zenimax Online, and other southeastern studios. Epic’s in a situation where we can do this, and it very clearly fits with our company values, so we’re going to give it a whirl.

Seriously? We should see more of this kind of thing - really, we should. Because this is awesome stuff. If you read the whole blog post you'll know that people at BHG were literally struggling to keep going with people having to bring in food because they could not afford their own bills. That Epic Games have stepped out and are doing what they can to put something back together again is brilliant. I've got a lot of respect for that. Ok, so the cynics amongst us may say that Epic are going to benefit from this in the long run but so what? Whether that's the end goal or not, they're meeting a need where it's at and that's something that I, personally, think should be commended.

 

[DarkONI]

So we aren't turning in a Kingdoms of Amalur fansite?!