Archive for December, 2008

1. Zavvi goes bust

   December 24, 2008

   On Christmas Eve, when entertainment retailers should be raking it in, Zavvi has entered administration, putting 3,400 jobs at risk. The proximate cause is the collapse of EUK. Zavvi is believed to have owed the distributor (owned by Woolworths) over £100 million. Woolworth’s administrators needed to reclaim this money, which may have put unsustainable pressure [...]

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   Posted in: Game Over Zone

   Tagged with: closures, euk, games industry, job loss tracker, retailing, zavvi

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2. Games publisher Aspyr lays off 12 staff

   December 22, 2008

   Publisher Aspyr has made 30 staff redundant. The company, based in Austin, Texas, has reduced headcount by as much as a third. Added to the Job Loss Tracker.

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   Posted in: Game Over Zone

   Tagged with: aspyr, job loss tracker, layoffs, redundancies

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3. EA increases redundancies to 10% – an additional 400 jobs

   December 19, 2008

   In an update to a previously announced round of redundancies, Electronic Arts has announced it will be reducing its workforce by 10%, raising the redundancy total to 1,000. Restructuring charges will increase to $55-65 million with planned savings of $120 million per annum. As part of the restructing, Electronic Arts will be closing or consolidating [...]

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   Posted in: Game Over Zone

   Tagged with: electronic arts, job loss tracker, redundancies, riccitiello 2

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4. Factor 5 believed to have shut down

   December 18, 2008

   Following recent news of redundancies at Factor 5, sources suggest that the studio may have closed its doors entirely. While there has been no official statement, Shacknews and IGN are both reporting that Factor 5 has closed, putting the remaining 38 developers out of work. Added to the GameOverZone.

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   Posted in: Game Over Zone

   Tagged with: closures, factor 5, job loss tracker, layoffs, redundancies

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5. Get Beneath A Steel Sky free now.

   December 18, 2008

   Good Old Games (www.gog.com) has just announced that you can download Beneath a Steel Sky for free. Completely. If you haven’t come across Gog.com, it’s a DRM-free portal for downloading high-quality games of yesteryear. Games like Fallout and Fallout 2, Operation Flashpoint and my personal favourite Jagged Alliance 2, all downloadable for less than $9.99.

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   Posted in: Sandbox

   Tagged with: beneath a steel sky, cd projekt, charles cecil, dave gibbons, digital distribution, free, free games, gog.com, good old games

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6. Launch of Home for Sony Playstation

   December 18, 2008

   Ben Parfitt over at CasualGaming.biz has an interesting post on the much-delayed launch of Playstation Home. He describes it as “one of biggest potential casual gaming platforms ever released” but then goes on to point out the pitfalls of trying to launch a socialising environment in a hardcore service such as the PlayStation 3, and [...]

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   Posted in: Sandbox

   Tagged with: casual games, casualgaming.biz, console, playstation, playstation home, sony, virtual worlds

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7. Ambitious Cities XL looks to change the model of gaming

   December 18, 2008

   OK, so that’s perhaps a little grandiose. But Cities XL from publishers Monte Cristo is shaping up to a be a business-model-busting game. At heart, it’s a sim game in the vein of Sim City 4. Take control as mayor, build a thriving city in a fully 3D world with direct control of public utilities [...]

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   Posted in: Analysis, Featured

   Tagged with: ambitious, cities xl, digital distribution, downloadable content, mmo, monte cristo

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