Philippines studio closure follows months of intermittent expansion and contraction
Kuju Entertainment’s Asia arm has been cut from the developer’s fleet of studios, the UK-headquartered company has confirmed.
Kuju Manila will be shut down within the first three months of 2010. The move will reduce the group’s overall number of overseas offices to two; with the Czech Republic based Vatra and Zoe Mode San Francisco remaining operational.
“Kuju has conducted a strategic review of its Asian-Pacific operations and concluded that it will no longer maintain a full service studio in the Philippines,” the company revealed in a statement.
“Despite its success in supporting Kuju's European studios and the success of Circus Games for the Wii gaming console, Kuju has concluded that, given the weakness of demand in this part of the video games market, the prospects for further titles of this type are limited.”
The announcement continues months of intermittent expansion and contraction for the independent development group. Back in October 2008 Develop revealed that Kuju opened the Manila office, just a few months before the group announced staff cut backs.
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And, as Zoe Mode grew with a new San Francisco studio back in May, it was discovered that Kuju’s Chemistry studio had closed.
It is unclear how many existing studios Kuju has today. The firm’s website suggests that Headstrong, Zoe Mode, DoubleSix and Vatra are the firm’s existing brands.
Kuju recently launched a new Nik Nak studio, though that outfit is thought to have been integrated into another Kuju studio, or has possibly closed down completely.
Develop is talking to Kuju for clarification on matters surrounding Nik Nak.
I don't see why anybody would expect to be able to open a studio in a place with little or no history of game development and expect overnight to be able to craft a viable studio.
Is the premise of saving a few dollars on salaries that attractive that all other risk factors are given an impossibly low weighting?
What about all the wasted money spent on the logistics of such a debacle?
@Chris K, actually it's "little history", not no history. The studio that kuju bough in Manila was an established studio that had been making games for the arcade for quite some time called matahari studios. And there are at least 10 studios in Manila that do outsourcing and wholesale game development, so it wasn't as if Kuju had decided to set up shop there for no reason.
I understand that the basis of your comment is just a lack of information on the subject, and the only reason I know about it is because I'm very close to it (I'm the local coordinator of our IGDA chapter), so I hope I was able to inform you even a little bit.
Here's a website linking to an organization of game dev studios in Manila that has banded together to represent the industry to our government:
Aside from these studios, there are a lot more that choose to remain independent.
Dear Chris,
Just so you know, other game dev studios such as Gameloft and Sega have already set-up studios here as well and I do agree with Ryan above regarding the lack of information as knowledge of the Philippines actually having small independent game studios already for the past 10 years or so.
Just to inform you, Chris. A major part of Uncharted 2's assets, albeit they had a hard time keeping up, were done here in Manila by Ladyluck Digital Media Incorporated. Just to support Mr. Ryan Sumo's statement regarding outsourcing.
Depends what you mean by a "viable studio". Would someone be able to set up or take over in the Philippines a studio that delivers the same outputs, as, say, Headstrong? Or Rebellion, Eutechnyx, Sumo...? No, of course not. So, if to be a "viable studio" you have to be able to deliver full AAA developments, then obviously the Philippines is many years behind. But I doubt that that's what Kuju were looking to the Philippines for.
There are perfectly good studios delivering casual or mobile developments, high quality art assets, DS games, etc., as far afield as Argentina, the Ukraine and Malaysia - I've even been talking to a Bosnian team recently - and, yes, the Philippines.
