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MotoGP developer Monumental Games ends its run
Monumental Games is no more, selling off all its intellectual property, office supplies and tech. Develop reports the Nottingham UK studio, developer of the MotoGP series, currently has "several parties interested in buying" the remains of the studio. It will be fully dissolved by the end of the year.Monumental's final operating business was its Prime engine, which apparently didn't gain traction. Last month the company fired its remaining staff, after attempts to restructure since December 2010. Back then it committed massive cuts to the staff when an unannounced project for a major publisher didn't work out.
Report: Monumental Games fires remaining employees
Monumental Games, developer of the MotoGP series, has let its remaining 20 staffers go. Develop reports that the Nottingham UK studio is now in administration. Monumental Games announced in December 2010 that it was working on restructuring the business and not issuing any more layoffs. The month prior, the company administered deep cuts to the staff after an unannounced project for a large publisher fell through. And, so, we use our depressing "layoffs" tag for the second time in 2012 on the same day.
Monumental Games continues restructuring without further layoffs
MotoGP 09/10 developer Monumental Games suffered a major setback in November when an unannounced project for a large publisher unexpectedly fell through, forcing the company to restructure and reduce headcount. Speaking to Develop more recently, Monumental COO Paul Mayze explained that its subsidiary company has been deemed "technically insolvent." According to Mayze, the UK-based Monumental Games Ltd will enter administration, while owner Monumental Games Group Ltd will carry on trading and retain the 30 staff members at its Nottingham location. "We're securing funding for Monumental Games Group to continue trading, and that's all in the process of being finalised right now," he said. "We're going to continue to focus on the areas that we're already working on. We'll still have the racing studio, we'll still focus on our digital online projects, and we still have the Prime engine business." Prime is a 3D engine for massively multiplayer online games that can be embedded into web browsers. According to Develop, the technology is "gathering strong interest" from several publishers.
Monumental Games loses staff following 'unexpected' project cancellation
Monumental Games will incur an unspecified number of layoffs following the unforeseen cancellation of an unannounced project. The UK-based developer, which worked on MotoGP 09/10, stated that the recently deceased deal (with an unnamed publisher) will force it to restructure its business and reduce head count. "Due to an unexpected project cancellation Monumental has been forced to restructure its business which has resulted in a number of job losses," read a company statement, shared with Develop. "The company is saddened by the cuts and will provide the necessary support to those affected through the change." According to Monumental CEO Rik Alexander, the company will continue its work on "Prime," a 3D browser-embeddable engine being shopped around to MMO publishers, and will keep developing "games in the social gaming space as well as other more traditional work for hire projects." Monumental was ranked 6th in a Sunday Times ranking of the UK's fastest growing private tech companies, published in September 2010.
Monumental buys 50 Cent team for (presumably) way more than that
Before the ink is even dry on its digital tattoos, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand developer Swordfish has been sold to MMO middleware developer Monumental. Don't expect to see the G-Unit team headed to the UK for a visit anytime soon though: Work on Mr. Cent's new game is apparently done, with its release being solely an issue of timing at this point.Ironically, though Blood On the Sand seemed poised to really get the Swordfish name out there, that name has just been changed. You'll be calling them Monumental Manchester when they start on their next project.
