Monumental Games goes into administration
25 jobs lost as UK studio closes; hopes to sell IP to interested parties
UPDATE: Administrators acting for Monumental have confirmed to GamesIndustry.biz that all 25 employees at the studio have been made redundant.
"The Company has some valuable intellectual property which we are marketing at present and several parties have already expressed interest in purchasing these assets, we are hopeful a deal can be concluded quickly," said Patrick Ellward of RSM Tenon.
Original story: UK studio Monumental Games officially went into administration last week.
The Nottingham-based developer worked on Moto GP 10/11 for Capcom and Little Horrors, a 3D browser game built using the company's own Prime engine.
In 2010 Monumental closed down its Manchester studio and later let more staff go following the loss of a project, believed to be the Transformers MMO which is now in development at Jagex.
The company was also in the process of securing partners to use its in-house Prime Engine, partly funded by the Technology Strategy Board.
The company promoted former Codemasters chief exec Nick Wheelwright as CEO this time last year as it focused the majority of efforts on the browser market.
As well as offices in Nottingham, Monumental also has a presence in Pune, India. Monumental Games has not yet responded to requests for comment.
Nick is an exceptionally bright cookie so it would be interesting to know what has happened here.
The good news is that the market for talent has never been stronger with startup app companies springing up everywhere.
Best of luck to all affected by this loss.
And what Martyn said - new start ups are exciting, but excitement doesn't pay the bills, unfortunately. Having said that, we've seen some awesome successes over the last few years.
Good luck to all you guys.
Good look to all affected
Any coders from Newcastle/north east wanting to to go to a small creative studio in North Shields, we've just opened a new dev studio there and looking to build a cross platform team during 2012. dave@bigheadgames.co.uk