007 Legends Dev Eurocom Closes Down as Remaining Staff Made Redundant

27
Richard Walker

James Bond studio Eurocom has ceased trading having run into trouble and issued large-scale redunancies, as reported last month. The developer has made its remaining staff redundant and shut down the Derby-based studio after 25 years of developing video games. 150 staff had been let go last month, meaning the 42 remaining staff were made reduntant this morning.

Eurocom issued a statement to Eurogamer this afternoon, explaining how the studio came to cease trading: "Today Dean Nelson, from Midlands business advisory firm Smith Cooper, was appointed Administrator of Eurocom Developments Limited, who have been experiencing financial difficulties due to expected contracts being delayed, which has resulted in a severe cash flow shortage."

Once again, a so-called "steep decline in the sales of console and PC games" since 2008 was cited as a contributing factor", as it previously was in the initial announcement that redunancies were being made at the troubled studio. "The company has also faced intense competition from developers in countries with lower costs or those subsidised with generous games tax credits," the statement continues.

Attempts were made to save the business, but new contracts to develop games could not be secured in time "and due to insufficient funds to pay outstanding wages, Eurocom today entered Administration," the statement reads.

"The Directors of Eurocom would like to offer their heartfelt thanks to all their staff that have been made redundant at this difficult time, and show their appreciation of all of their hard work in consistently delivering exceptional games."

Administrator Dean Nelson added: “Whilst this is unfortunately the end of the established Eurocom business, efforts are continuing behind the scenes to attract interested parties to Derby in order to help fill the void left by Eurocom. We are still hopeful that there will in the future be a specialist software business operating in Derby in place of Eurocom, but the focus will be completely different and therefore this is sadly the end of the console games development business.”

Eurocom has been making games since the 90s, but is perhaps best know for its work on Activision's James Bond game franchise, with titles like GoldeneEye 007: Reloaded and most recently Skyfall tie-in, 007 Legends, which launched in October.

Comments
27
  • Sad to see people lose their jobs...even if Bond's achievements were balls.
  • I'm going to be quite mean here and say they deserve to shut down after the absolute disgrace that was Legends. A poor man's COD and that is saying something.
  • MERRY CHRISTMAS! Poor sods.
  • Hmmm, lets look at the games they developed: 007 Legends Beijing 2008 Disney Universe G-Force GoldenEye 007: Reloaded Harry Potter for Kinect Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End Vancouver 2010 WELL NO WONDER THEY'RE CLOSING DOWN! Can't believe it took so long.
  • We all saw this coming. with Goldeneye reloaded and now 007 legends getting a very poor reception they made no money. As a student studying Game programming this isn't the type of news i'd like to hear
  • This close to Christmas as well. That sucks, and hopefully they will find work soon. Likely making more awful games, which gamers don't want. Go for something new and not movie tie ins, and you will have a better chance of success.
  • This would likely created more revenue if they did not release it so close to AAA titles like BOPS2 HALO4 and AC3. Probably gouges them on the market share. Sorry I like 007 legends just putting it out there. Giving more action to old school, George lazenby wielding a minimum!
  • Stupid Activision for not checking up and testing properly before 007 Legends releases. Activision should check up with Eurocom if bad then tell them to polishes and 007 Legends would release in 2013 to made sense then 007 Legends would be great. Well I don't blame Eurocom. It's Activision's faults for not check up with Eurocom to making sure it is polishes well. Look at Activision did well with their repeatability CoD. But why can't James Bond? Lol Activision is just care about money and only care about their franchise is CoD. Look at many their franchises were poor recents also closed down some studios. I knew because of sales but it is unfair to me. Prototype 2 were amazing and sales is bad but Activision should give developer more chance and making other title and hopeful to bring more people to play it and sales up for it. I don't blame Activision for sales for some games but I blame Activision for too much closed down and fired too many people. Very sad. :(:(
  • Bond is one of those non-threatening franchises that stays in a comfortable zone between never doing anything groundbreaking and not encroaching on the territory of the alpha-male titles like Battlefield and Call of Duty that piss all over to mark their territory. If they expected to stay afloat with James Bond they were sorely mistaken. The whole series has been screwed anyways, since they keep releasing these titles alongside competition it can never hope to best. Activision fucked Bizarre in the ass releasing Blood Stone one week before Black Ops, Goldeneye came out when Gears 3 was fresh and within two weeks of Modern Warfare 3, Saints 3, and Assassins Creed Revelations, and 007 Legends was released a week after Dishonored and a week before MoH Warfighter. These guys need to release Bond titles well outside the September-December 'AAA' copy-paste-and-add-an-incrementing-integer timeframe.
  • @11 I agree. These games would have been received much better in march, or a summer release.
  • I feel bad for the staff but did see this coming.
  • It sucks that all these people are unemployed now but They made some pretty bad games so I can't same I'm really that surprised. I understand that the smaller Devs don't always have the means to make really good games but a lot of there stuff always seemed really rushed. #11 brought up a good point too, if they had changed their release dates they might have faired a little better. You can't be releasing these run of the mill games at the same time that all of the huge games for the year are coming out.
  • People who were bad at their jobs lost their jobs. If only this happened where I work.
  • So does this mean the multiplayer will be taken down? I have this game, but haven't touched it yet. Yeah, I know the MP is dead anyway, but if it's still boostable...
  • I guess the lesson here is don't make James Bond games for Activision.
  • Hope you all still get a nice christmas. There haven't been a good James Bond game since James Bond Nightfire.
  • @10 cod probably has a much larger budget, activision obviously doesn't care enough about the game and just proceeded with their "they'll buy it anyway" atitude.
  • these bond games are cash in games only. they hope that movie ticket sales will drive the game sales. thing is fat white women go see james bond movies, they dont buy games.
  • It's sad to see people loose jobs and lengthy studios shut down... but who didn't see this coming, look at their history, it's bad game after bad game in recent years. :/ As already stated, releasing along the AAA titles... how stupid can you honestly be? That should never of been the planned release date, it should of been a summer game, that's the only way it'd of made any money, but even then, its nothing but a CoD clone (legends) and a horrible game to sum up the best moments of bond :/
  • Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
  • Rare needs to make a come back.
  • Funny enough I never heard of them, so no big loss there. Even funnier is, now one released press release when I was laid off. Just apat on the back and kick out the door. What a shame!
  • Give Rare another shot at the lisence.
  • ABOUT TIME, GOOD RIDDANCE
  • @6: But did you noticed the names of games they made before 2005? The cause of their fault wasn't because the games they made after 2005, but the greedy companies like Activision or Sega that only ask Eurocom to develop games from movies or oplimpic games. Aside from the most recent bond games, I didn't know well what were there's previous games. When I reserch for it, I found out they made one of my favorite games on the previous generation and work on ports of major games.
  • I do feel sorry for the staff but this was kinda inevitable. All these games the did recently were just assembly line manufacturing to cater for some licences. Now Acti will just put someone else in charge and they will probably get the same small budget and the same tight developing spans. I think the worse you are as a studio the better you can deal with this. Imagine creative developers like Irrational Games or Valve were forced to create a Bond game in a few month. I think they would even more suffer from the drain out and would produce even worse games. Its not the developers fault. I just wonder why Publishers can't see that creative, well done games with longer development cycles (take Skyrim or the Witcher for example) can turn out nice profits as well and don't end up with customers that even though they might have bought the game, will regret it at the end of the day.
  • Sorry to all the guys that lost their jobs I hope you manage to find another. Of course demand for games has gone down, we are in a recession if your like me many people have had to slash their game budget in order to pay bills. that just means that alll businesses have to up their game. Only the best will survive as I now can ony afford to buy games that i know that i will enjoy, and cant afford to take a gamble as i can only afford one new game a month. They should have tried making their own games as then they dont have to pay a fortune for licensing. For me i never buy film games or things like that as they are always a let down and seem that the only reson they are made is to make people a little more money. Playground has shown that it is possible to start a new studio in a recession your game just needs to be original, innovative and immersive. then you will get sales up.
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