Staff at Conflict series developer notified of closure today; small team of specialists will be kept by SCi
Pivotal Games has been closed down by Eidos.
A company spokesperson told Develop: "‘Eidos’ parent company SCi Entertainment Group announced on 29 February its plans to re-structure its business and to focus on cornerstone studios and core franchises.
"As part of this process Eidos confirms that, despite reviewing a number of alternative options, we are closing Pivotal Games – but we will be keeping a team of 10-12 specialists in Bath, who will work on specific projects for group.’"
Pivotal was best known for its Conflict series - the most recent of which, Conflict: Denied Ops, was released in February this year. It had also worked on Conflict: Global Storm, Conflict: Vietnam, Conflict: Desert Storm II, Conflict: Desert Storm, The Great Escape and Warzone 2100. Based near Bath, the studio employed over 100 people and was, up until a few months ago, actively recruiting for more staff.
According to a source, employees were notified today that the studio will be closed in 30 days.
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Specialists my ass, they wanna keep on enough people to reduce the redundant amount below the 100 amount they need to give people little to no redundancy pay!
Something about if you shut down a company with more than 100 employees being made redundant you have to pay 3 months redundancy rather than 1.
With Eidos keeping on 10 "specialists" they are only making 99 people jobless so only have to pay 1 month redundancy to everyone.
Cheers anonymous bloke! Makes me feel so much better while I update my CV...
Hey Pivotalboy
I think what you're getting at is that if they make redundancies that will AFFECT more than 100 people then they have to provide a 3 month consultation period, but just 1 month if it affects less.
I would have thought even if some are staying they're still "affected" - but there we are.
Shame, good studio. Decent bunch of people.
Flame bait extinguished (post 4). Now's not the time to gloat or snipe.
clarification: I mean what post 4 is referring to. Not post 4 itself! Hope the search goes okay, jobless...
Got to disagree with Fran. Good studios don't tend to get decimated. Each version of conflict sold less than the previous, while the studio tripled in size. That can't be good.
good studios can have bad publishers. not saying pivotal was perfect. im just saying there have been plenty of huge balls ups made that have been out of pivotals hands. alot of talented people there.
I though pivotal was one of the sucess stories for Eidos... would of thought the studio could of been sold as a going concern. Hope the staff find new opportunities swiftly. Mark.
This is from someone who used to work at Pivotal...A few parting words...
Am hoping that all the very talented and great staff members (you know who you are - you're the ones who bust your asses to make the company a buck and are now being shafted) find jobs soon...there are some great people there (Key word being SOME)
As for the rest of the people at Pivotal (and you know who you are), I hope this is a lesson learnt; that arrogance does not work in development, ignorance in creativity can lead to disheartened team members, finally lack of respect for your fellow co-workers, and most importantly, lack of respect for your employees (That one goes out to the Man at the Top, who's probably now at the bottom and deserves to be for the way staff have been treated in the past!) creates a killer team which makes AAA Games. The Conflct Series just didn't cut it for these reasons! LEARN FROM THIS, OTHERWISE YOU WILL ALWAYS BE POOR DEVELOPERS!!!
RIP PIVOTAL!
Thats harsh and cowardly! the management at pivotal have been busting there arses looking out for the staff who the hell are you to judge?
As with all companies, there are bound to be bad feelings that surface when the **** hits the fan, much of it justified.
However, it's not in anyone's interest to stand round a burning house chucking gas on the fire...
Here Here
For all you X-pivotal guys, I hear of a gaming company in Canada that is growing and currently hiring.
Check out there website www.hb-studios.com...
All the best :)
And for those of you not up for that, I hear that YouPron is a rather diverting way to spend your free time...
Does it pay though Realist?
Yeah, but face it, the games were ****e.....
To be fair, they've sold about 6 million units, and had rave reviews - so that's not strictly true. The last few haven't quite had the same passion or direction - especially C:DO - but the company's capable of doing some good work
It doesn't seem to matter any more if you do good games, have a great crew, or brilliant ideas. Some faceless corporate git with a spreadsheet for a soul decides you're gone, and you're gone.
The recent Pivotal Engine x360/PS3/PC couldnt even draw curved lines in the ingame interface.
Borat:
Great technology !
Cheers Wendy!
Hey i don't understand all the bad flap that's going on but i actually loved the Conflict Series games so to whomever looks at this i hope you can find a way to start the series again bc i wanna another game to come out bc i wanna know what happened to FOLEY....................................
You find out what happened to Foley in Conflict Denied Ops. He is actually in one of the levels.
I sympathize with your situation I have 2 titles that won't run on my Vista crap--and although cust service at Eidos is trying-- I pissed away my cash on crap software that won't run and by chance--finding this site--realize that a patch or fix for Denied Ops will probably never be forthcoming
Good luck to those looking for work in the UK--could be worse --you could be looking for work in the US--No Americans or Brits allowed--we outsource all our jobs to China and India...
had a mate who worked there and worked damned hard producing some good games will be a miss
hi
I'm very saddened to hear that this happened, and I'm surprised it took me so long to find out. I was deeply upset when Pumpkin Studios closed it's doors, so to see the survivors of that ordeal have to go through it again is upsetting.
Shame to hear another developer going to the ground. Particularly feel sorry for the guys who are ex Microprose that moved to Pivotal. 2 times in the brink isn't good
THE CONFLICT SERIES WAS AWESOME!...I wish they just would have stuck with the correct format of story telling and improved the controls abit. DENIED Ops was crap. Go with 3rd person people. its always better when you can see things around you in a game.
Conflict series was awesome. Played some Global storm with my mates from uni just the other day (we never got round to finishing it as we got it not long before uni finished many years ago...) and it was still great.
I'm really sad there won't be any more material for us to play - four people in one room talking, laughing, and thinking we're the SAS and on the same team (even if it went totally american by global storm).
Operation flash point had a bit of a 'storm' feel - but there wasn't a split screen option so not sure I can justify buying the sequel to it.
Actually the people who developed conflict series. It is great job because in India there are many fans of it. It is that game I ever most like because of graphics. What can I say I am searching this type of game but still not get, Because of desert storm I started play game, I will wait for next parts of this conflict endless story It is amazing and great.
