Midway Lays Off Nearly 70% of Austin Branch Staff, Cancels Unannounced Project

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Publisher Midway has laid off 90 of its Austin studio's 130 employees and cancelled an unannounced project in development, the developer announced today.

The layoffs were part of a "strategic workforce reduction" enacted by the troubled publisher, which will see a cut of about 10% of the company's global workforce. Interim CEO Matt Booty expressed remorse over the reduction.

"While this was a very difficult decision, we feel it was the right thing to do for the future of Midway," Booty said. "We view every game as an investment that must meet certain standards for quality, scheduling, and profitability."

While Booty did not specify which title was axed, sources within the company told Kotaku that the cancelled game was Criminal, an open-world crime effort in development at Midway's Austin branch.

Midway had announced in October of last year that it was developing two "ambitious open-world games." The first of the two was eventually revealed as Surreal Software's This Is Vegas (PC, PS3, 360), while Criminal was likely the second.

The news follows last week's revelation of a staggering $34.8 million loss in its 2008 fiscal second quarter, which in turn followed similarly disappointing first quarter losses of $34M.

Shortly after the disclosures, Midway Chicago head Mike Bilder resigned to pursue a position at another Chicago-based game development studio. Midway marketing vice president Mona Hamilton and media relations director Reilly Brennan were also confirmed to have left the company.

The layoffs mark the latest developments in what has proven a difficult year for Midway, which late last year announced a massive restructuring effort to bring the company to its first annual profit since 1999.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    August 11, 2008 4:10 PM

    This is what, six weeks after Texas Governor Rick Perry spoke at E3 (in front of something like, uh, 24 people) about how Texas is so great for game developers.

    I'd like it to be true, but it's not.

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      August 11, 2008 4:31 PM

      It's great for us. Midway has fallen on rough times, it has nothing to do with the state of Texas though. There are lots of studios down here and I hope they each land on their feet.

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      August 11, 2008 5:08 PM

      How is it not true? Austin is a steamy, dripping hotbed of developers, the quality guys who got laid off will get snapped up right quick. The less good ones can go maybe teach at the Guildhall or something

      /oh snap

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        August 11, 2008 5:21 PM

        lol ouch, i know a few teachers at the guildhall :(

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      August 11, 2008 6:58 PM

      We've got a few here in the Dallas area, too. ID, Ensemble, Terminal Reality, 3DRealms, Gearbox, Barking Lizards, Kingsisle, Paradigm, and Nerve, to name some of them.

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      August 12, 2008 11:11 AM

      Are you kidding? You clearly don't know the history of Austin and gaming. One of the Midway guys came into Tek Republik today to get his Playstation 2 fixed and gave me the news. Sucks for them. Area 51 was rushed out, and came out when too many good shooters were available. We get people playing it a bit here, but CoD4 rules the roost.

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