MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
UK developer Eurocom is to announce wide-ranging redundancies” today, a report has claimed.
Games Industry believes that the studio is not set to close, though hasn’t got a figure on the exact number of losses. An announcement is expected shortly.
Derby-based Eurocom is due to celebrate its 25th birthday next year, but recent releases have been critical and commercial flops. 007 Legends was widely panned by critics and Harry Potter: Kinect, which at one time looked a sure-fire winner for the studio, was released only to disappear without trace thanks to some shockingly low UK sales numbers and almost non-existent press attention.
In fact, the studio’s workload from the past decade consists mainly of ports and licensed products, with the only notable success being Dead Space: Extraction, GoldenEye 007 and its official Olympic games.
UPDATE: Studio Director Hugh Binns has confirmed the loss of around 150 jobs, with 50 staff remaining at the developer.
"Eurocom are undertaking a restructuring which I regret to say has meant we’ve made the majority of our workforce redundant today," he said. "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."
