Following the news that Six Days in Fallujah developer Atomic Games has terminated a number of its employees, a new IndustryGamers report indicates that the developer may be close to shutting down completely.

The report's anonymous source claims that the studio has seen its 75-person workforce reduced to "less than a dozen" employees.

"The remaining team is basically a skeleton cleanup crew that will be gone soon too," said the source. "They are trying to downplay the extent of these layoffs, but the reality is that Atomic is pretty much dead."

Atomic Games yesterday maintained that it was continuing to develop the controversial Six Days, despite being unable to find a new publisher following Konami's departure.

"Due to a mixture of fears about the edgy subject matter of Six Days in Fallujah, as well as low videogame sales this summer, we have been unable to secure full-scale funding from a major publisher for Six Days in Fallujah," reads the release. "Development at Atomic will continue with a smaller team that will be funded by our sister company, Destineer."

A new report by GamesIndustry.biz indicates that the creative director behind the controversial military shooter Six Days in Fallujah, Juan Benito, has left developer Atomic Games, sparking rumors that the game may have finally been cancelled.

Benito's LinkedIn profile appears to show that he has indeed departed the company. Atomic Games has declined to comment on the situation.

A shooter billed as a realistic portrayal of the invasion of Fallujah by US forces, Six Days in Fallujah immediately came under attack following its unveiling earlier this year. Gold Star Families, a coalition of families of soldiers that died in the Iraq war, stated that Six Days "trivialized" the war, and called for its cancellation.

Following the backlash, publisher Konami quickly pulled the game from its lineup. Atomic has since been developing the game independently while seeking a new publisher.

Konami has bowed to controversy and dropped Atomic Games's "realistic" military shooter Six Days In Fallujah, a representative told The Asahi Shimbun, via VG247.

"After seeing the reaction to the videogame in the United States and hearing opinions sent through phone calls and e-mail, we decided several days ago not to sell it."

Six Days purported to be a documentary-style recreation of six days from the 2004 second battle of Fallujah in Iraq, seen through the eyes of a single US Marines squad.

"We had intended to convey the reality of the battles to players so that they... Read more

Like many gamers, I am not easily offended by videogames.

Whenever a morally objectionable gaming issue is raised in the media, or on a forum, the crusty Old-Man Gamer in my head pipes up. He's hardcore, for his age.

"Listen here, son. I was blowing up cops in strip clubs when I was ten years old!" he says. "I've been killing Nazis since I was old enough to crawl! Hell, I invaded Germany wearing the skin of a Teletubby!"

For as often as the media thinks I've been morally assaulted by video games, so far not one of them has coaxed so much as an indignant sniffle out of Old-Man Gamer. This may have a lot to do with routine exposure to certain Counter-Strike sprays, but that's what it takes to become hardcore.

So it was very strange to sit there on a Thursday night, one hand clasped around a Norwegian bottle of spring water, the other clenched tight in a fist around an hours'devours napkin, as Konami's Six Days in Fallujah shocked... Read more

Konami today revealed "Six Days in Fallujah," a third-person shooter developed by Atomic Games.

"Fallujah" is billed as a realistic take on the United States military's attack on the Iraqi city, told over a period of six days.

"We replicate a specific and accurate timeline--we mean six days literally," said Atomic Games president Peter Tamte to the Wall Street Journal. "We track several units through the process and you get to know what it was like from day to day."

Atomic conducted extensive research for the game, consulting with more than three dozen US soldiers that fought in Fallujah. Marine sergeant Eddie Garcia, who served as a consultant on the project, says the game will "add some humanity to the subject."

"It's easy to be an armchair quarterback [about war] when you're at home," said Garcia. "There were 19-year-olds in the Marines making life-altering changes."

The title has been tailored around the experiences of the soldiers. Because troops were more likely to knock over a building than risk running through them... Read more