The console video game business is different than it was when British studio Eurocom opened for business in 1988. Back then, a bomb like 007 Legends wouldn't kill a studio. In 2012, that game's failure has forced Eurocom to liquidate nearly its entire staf.
Skyfall may be the best James Bond movie ever made, but this fall’s 007 Legends from Activision and British developer Eurocom didn’t earn the same high praise in the pantheon of Bond video games. The anthology shooter recreating some of the most famous Bond movies received a drubbing by critics with a 45 percent average score on Metacritic. The game failed to break into the sales charts in October. In the vicious business of modern console game making, where Metacrtici scores can make or break a studio, it’s no surprise that Eurocom has suffered severe layoffs in the aftermath of 007 Legends’ disappointing release.
GamesIndustry International first reported on Friday that unnamed sources within the studio claimed it would be hit by “wide-ranging redundancies.” Eurocom studio director Hugh Binns later confirmed that many Eurocom staffers would be losing their jobs.
“Eurocom are undertaking a restructuring which I regret to say has meant we’ve made the majority of our workforce redundant today,” said Binns in a statement, “This includes many very experienced, talented, and highly skilled employees, and we’d like to thank them all for your hard work and efforts.”
“We’ve fought to try and save as many jobs as possible but the steep decline in demand for console games, culminating in a number of console projects falling through in the last week, left us with no option. Eurocom has retained a core staff of just under 50 employees and will be focusing mainly on mobile opportunities moving forward.”
Since opening for business in 1988, Eurocom has never been known for its wild creativity, just a prolific history creating licensed games and ports going all the way back to the Nintendo Entertainment System. Its last moderate hit was the 2009 shooter Dead Space: Extraction, a Nintendo Wii spinoff from the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 horror series. It followed Extraction with the widely Wii remake/reimagining of the most famous James Bond game, GoldenEye 007. That game received positive reviews and decent sales, but that success didn’t help 007 Legends continue to establish the Bond series as a major gaming franchise.
Source : digitaltrends[dot]com
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