It was revealed earlier today that Eurocom, whose most recent offerings was 007 Legends and the GoldenEye 007 remake, has let go its remaning 42 employees and that the studio is effectively being shut down.
According to Eurogamer, 150 staffers were released last month after various console projects fell through. The reason is for such a downturn in business is touched upon near the top of the official statement from Eurocom:
"Since 2008, there has been a steep decline in the sales of Console and PC games, which has led to a severe contraction in the number of new games being commissioned from global publishers of entertainment software. The company has also faced intense competition from developers in countries with lower costs or those subsidised with generous games tax credits."
Attempts were made to keep the studio intact, but in the end, nothing could be worked out:
"As a result of pressure from HMRC, the directors of Eurocom filed a Notice of Intention to Appoint an Administrator at Court in order to allow time for attempts to save the Eurocom business. The Administrator and the company's directors have been negotiating with customers surrounding new contracts to develop console games, however these contracts could not be secured in time and due to insufficient funds to pay outstanding wages, Eurocom today entered Administration.
As a result, the remaining 42 employees have been made redundant today and the business has ceased to trade after some 25 years, having grown organically to become one of the largest and most prolific independent console games developers worldwide."
Eurocom has been a staple of the UK game scene for over a decade. While never reaching the dizzying heights of fame as some of its colleagues, it has always been a dependable workhorse which came into is own as a development house that did fairly decent ports of console titles for other platforms throughout the 90s.
And in the 2000s, it began developing games based on licensed properties. Unfortunately, both critics and consumers alike universally panned its most recent release, 007 Legends.
