No option left for the British firm as publisher walks out on deal
UK developer Monumental is braced for a series of staff cuts at the company, the group has confirmed to Develop.
The firm’s CEO Rik Alexander said the redundancies were regrettable, revealing that the firm has been hit by an “unexpected” cancellation of an unannounced project.
Yesterday directors announced to staff that redundancies were inevitable, with an unknown publisher backing away from a deal thought to have been secure.
The number of staff affected is unknown, though a tip-off which suggested two-thirds of staff will be axed was branded as “nonsense” by an insider.
As well as its base in Nottingham, Monumental has a satellite studio based out in Pune, India.
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“Due to an unexpected project cancellation Monumental has been forced to restructure its business which has resulted in a number of job losses,” read a company statement.
“The company is saddened by the cuts and will provide the necessary support to those affected through the change.”
The news continues Monumental’s rollercoaster year, which in April saw the firm close its Manchester-based offices, while in September was named as the sixth-fastest growing technology company in the UK.
The company made £5.1 million last year, according to data in a Sunday Times survey, though it remained out of profit.
Much of the company’s future is pinned on its new 3D MMO engine, Prime, which Develop understands is gathering strong interest from a number of publishers.
This month the firm will head to Game Connection in Lyon, France, to publicly unveil Prime to a host of potential partners.
Rik Alexander said Monumental was taking the “necessary steps to secure the business and its plans for the future.”
He added: “Monumental will continue to develop and support Prime – it’s World leading 3D MMO Engine and to develop games in the social gaming space as well as other more traditional work for hire projects.”
All the best chaps.
Too bad. Wish you all to find new positions soon!
Feel sorry for the Artists and coders who worked extremely hard every day in an uncertain, stressful environment. Feel less sympathy for the newer layer of "management" who always do very little except keep tabs on something thats easy to keep tabs on.
Should have done what CRausaz did, leave earlier with a little whimper .
Hey Mr Insider! I'm guessing you're an artist, as you capitalised 'Artists' but not 'coders' ;-) But I totally share your feelings about the "management", although at the same time, I do feel very sorry for every person who lost their job (and yep, that includes me!).
Should be obvious to those former and remaining members of staff who i am from the name :D
All i have to say is I'm gutted things ended up this way, i don't think its anyones fault apart from the *ahem* publisher. Who should probably be very ashamed for what they have done, many many people are devastated by what's happened.
But one door closes another opens.
Best of luck to everyone, best of luck to Monumental I hope we all meet again.
Yarrr TechnicalPirate!!! Your nickname is so much better than mine :/
Monumental is the friendliest, most relaxed games company I've ever worked for. It's such a fantastic environment to work in, and showed that you don't need to run a company by grinding workers into the ground underneath heavy crunch and discipline.
It's a terrible shame that these redundancies have happened, but we'll move on to different pastures very quickly. Monumental was unlucky, and massively let down by both publishers and partners (in my opinion!). They still have so much to offer, the technology is all still there aswell as a large number of highly skilled employees. I expect to see lots of good news very soon.
The moral of the story is be careful who you work with as they may stab you in the back.
I think Tiny Tim will die this christmas...
Dont get me wrong, have genuine love for the Coders and all the techies. It does indeed happen. But dont be naive, it looks like its all over for them and soon. Too many people lie to themselves too often. FS was an incredibly poor game, (obviously not monumentals fault), moto gp was rushed and lacked finesse and polish but was ok, little horrors? Who cares? Whats next?
The staff thats left had better be furiously sending out cv's cos its every man for himself out there. And canada is hoovering up all the studios. Sorry chums.
Oh and one last thing, the thing monumental was very very good at was selling old tech to venture capitalists and rich "dragon" types who clearly didnt have a hope in hell of understanding what they were looking at. And for that, i thank them, from the bottom of my heart. I love seeing jaded millionaires get their fingers, wrists and arms burnt!
"snake oil" is what someone from manchester once said. Pretty accurate i think.
Arrrrrrrrrr!
