Free Radical to Close?
December 18th, 2008 | Written by Jacob Stutsman | Topic: Industry News, Rumors
According to multiple sources, Free Radical employees came into work this morning and were turned away by locked doors and a darkened office, left to a place where it is always cold. The purveyor of the acclaimed Timesplitters series has been on rocky financial ground ever since Haze debuted as far back as 19th place on the May NPD charts. Shortly after, a deal with LucasArts to develop Star Wars Battlefront III fell through. Unable to find a publisher for Timesplitters 4, the independent developer is on the verge of closing its doors for good, another casualty of the heightened stakes of the HD generation. Twenty employees, as reported by Edge, were given the opportunity to join co-founder Steve Ellis’s new development house, Pumpkin Beach. The rest were let go.
Free Radical’s financial situation might have been tenuous, but it’s unfortunate that they could not recover. The reality of game development now is analagous to a minefield. All it takes is one step, one average game. Those mainstream developers who do not see gaudy returns often take a bigger hit than ever before. Those who have not prepared for the winter will have a hard time surviving this financial climate.
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