Ignition UK devs given 30 days notice

Tue 28 Jun 2011 11:11am GMT / 7:11am EDT / 4:11am PDT
PublishingDevelopment

London studio's Project Kane team faces redundancies

UTV Ignition

UTV Ignition Entertainment

ignitionent.com

Developers at Ignition's London studio were given their 30 days notice on Friday, GamesIndustry.biz understands.

The game the team were working on, Project Kane (formerly known as War Devil) has been cancelled for the second time, although could be picked up by another developer.

According to Develop, Ignition's studio in Japan will probably shut down once it has completed work on its latest game.

"In order to facilitate shifting the publishing focus to more effectively work with innovative independent developers and explore new platform possibilities, Ignition Games has taken the strategic decision not to continue with internal development of games," said an official statement from the company.

Last week Ignition laid off its entire Austin console team, who had been working on new FPS Reich.

Ignition has not returned requests from GamesIndustry.biz for further clarification.

7 Comments

Simon Hope
Senior Games Recruitment Consultant

Aardvark Swift

Really sad to hear this news, particularly as it looked like the team were being given a renewed level of backing since the last round of redundancies before Christmas. Good luck to all those affected in finding alternative employment. Please drop me a mail if you are someone we haven't already spoken to and we'll do our best to help in whatever way we can.

Posted:A year ago

#1

Tamas Bako
CEO

Artery Studios

Really disappointed as I knew guys there. Quite sudden, too. Wish everyone all the best!

Posted:A year ago

#2

Martin Greenall
Senior Animator

Midway

I may be wrong but I thought under UK law there had to be a 90 day conslutation period? Happened at Midway Newcastle when i was there and happened at Bizarre Creations (tho my contract had finished before that had happened). Different circumstances granted, anyone able to clarify?

Posted:A year ago

#3

Alfonso Sexto
LT Tester (Spanish)

Keyfactor

@Martin: Notice of Termination in UK (Tanken from [link url=http://www.gillhams.com)
]http://www.gillhams.com)
[/link]

"Where a contract does not specify its duration (known as the ‘term of the contract’), it may be terminated on reasonable notice. Reasonable notice depends on the particular contract. There are indicia that may be used to assess what a reasonable time would be in the circumstances, such the frequency of payments made under the contract or deemed automatic renewal periods specified in the agreement. Equally, contracts where licenses are granted to do something may be terminated on reasonable notice. If the licence is gratuitous, it may even be able to be terminated without notice, however whether it can or not will rely on the facts of the particular case."

Hope that helps :)

Posted:A year ago

#4

Fran Mulhern

Recruit3D

Absolutely disgraceful. I hear there was one person who only started last week, having relocated from the other side of the world.

Posted:A year ago

#5

Kunwar Nikhil
3d environment artist

SAD

Edited 2 times. Last edit by Kunwar Nikhil on 30th June 2011 9:44am

Posted:A year ago

#6

Fran Mulhern

Recruit3D

@ Alfonso - I don't think what you've found covers a redundancy situation, just where a contract is terminated in cases where there's no notice period.

More info here:

[link url=http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/RedundancyAndLeavingYourJob/Redundancy/DG_10029835
]http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/R...[/link]

Posted:A year ago

#7

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