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UPDATE: Realtime Worlds Is Bankrupt
UPDATE: It seems that Activision may be trying to help ease Realtime Worlds' woes. According to Develop Online,
the megapublisher is flying six key RTW staffers out to a recruitment
event in the United Kingdom. If any news comes out of this, we'll be
sure to update further.
ORIGINAL STORY: Realtime Worlds, the developer behind the original Crackdown, has entered administration – a process in the UK similar to bankruptcy proceedings in North America.
According to the BBC, the studio currently employs about 200 people (after cutbacks last week), but things aren't looking good for the future of Realtime Worlds. The appointed administrators are attempting to find a buyer for the business.
The likely culprit for the developer's woes is APB, which was poorly received by critics and consumers alike. After a five-year development cycle, the game just didn't deliver the necessary sales, which put the company in a bad place. Unless a buyer is found, future support of APB is doubtful.
Also caught up in the fiasco is MyWorld, the next game scheduled to come out from the studio. A commenter at Rock, Paper Shotgun claiming to be an ex-Realtime Worlds employee said: "MyWorld is an innocent bystander caught up in the demise of APB. Which is a real shame, because it is genuinely ground breaking, though not aimed at the traditional gamer audience. It was going great guns over the last year or so, coming on leaps and bounds, impressing everyone who saw it." The anonymous commenter also offers some insight as to what went wrong with APB: "The sheer time spent and money it took to make APB is really a product of fairly directionless creative leadership."
Even if APB wasn't a huge success, it's still sad to see another development house in trouble. We wish Realtime Worlds and its employees luck for whatever lies ahead.
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