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James Bond Developer Eurocom Closes its Doors

by William D'Angelo, posted on 07 December 2012 / 6,064 Views

Eurogamer has learned that James Bond developer Eurocom has announced that it will be closing its doors. The studio let go of 150 of its just under 200 employees a month ago, however the remaining 42 employees have been let go.

"...the directors of Eurocom filed a Notice of Intention to Appoint an Administrator at Court in order to allow time for attempts to save the Eurocom business," read  a statement from the developer.

"The Administrator and the company's directors have been negotiating with customers surrounding new contracts to develop console games, however these contracts could not be secured in time and due to insufficient funds to pay outstanding wages, Eurocom today entered Administration."

"As a result, the remaining 42 employees have been made redundant today and the business has ceased to trade after some 25 years, having grown organically to become one of the largest and most prolific independent console games developers worldwide."

"The Directors of Eurocom would like to offer their heartfelt thanks to all their staff that have been made redundant at this difficult time, and show their appreciation of all of their hard work in consistently delivering exceptional games."

"Whilst this is unfortunately the end of the established Eurocom business, efforts are continuing behind the scenes to attract interested parties to Derby in order to help fill the void left by Eurocom," said Administrator Dean Nelson.

"We are still hopeful that there will in the future be a specialist software business operating in Derby in place of Eurocom, but the focus will be completely different and therefore this is sadly the end of the console games development business."

Eurocom has been around since the 1990's, but is known for its James Bond games. It developed GoldenEye 007 for the Wii in 2010 and GoldenEye 007: Reloaded in 2011. Its last title was 007 Legends which was released alongside the latest James Bond movie Skyfall.


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7 Comments

Kresnik
Kresnik (on 07 December 2012)

Is this all because of 007 Legends? Really sad to hear about this. I have some awesome Eurocom games in my collection. Hope all those who lost their jobs aren't going to spend too long out of work.

  • +7
ECM
ECM (on 07 December 2012)

It's probably a victim of nextgen budget syndrome mingled with end of generation blues--they basically got caught in the vise.

  • -1
Mazty
Mazty (on 08 December 2012)

HydroooooooooooThundeeeeer!

  • 0
itsyounghavok
itsyounghavok (on 07 December 2012)

So when they shifted their development from the Wii to the HD realm... it was its undoing? Thats how it seems looking at it. Goldeneye on Wii sells over 2mil than Reloaded and Legends sell next to nothing. And people are screaming for ultra powerful hardware to run near Avatar like visuals, skyrockecting development costs, and closing even more studios down. Shame on what happened to them, but they arent the first and wont be the last.

  • +4
ECM
ECM (on 07 December 2012)

Well that sucks. Eurocom has been a solid, if not spectacular, studio for a very, very long time--TWINE, on N64, in particular, is a very, very good game that never got much love probably because it came in teh wake of the original Goldeneye. (Goldeneye, at least on Wii, was also a blast.)

  • +3
swii26
swii26 (on 08 December 2012)

Kinda sounds similar to what happened to THQ and uDraw. It did well on the Wii but when ported over to PS360, it bombed. Goldeneye sold over a million on the Wii but failed to sell well on PS360. But who is at fault? Activision for being greedy?? Sad story!!

  • +1
Psyberius
Psyberius (on 08 December 2012)

Redundant employees? WTF are they clones? Holy crap...talk about a bunch of douchebags...with that mentality is it surprising they they tanked?

  • +1
NinjaMonkeyLuchadore
NinjaMonkeyLuchadore (on 09 December 2012)

Not sure what you mean. Being "made redundant" is the British term for being "laid off".

  • 0
T.Rexington
T.Rexington (on 07 December 2012)

Wow, that sucks. I really enjoyed their games, didn't get 007:Legends because it wasn't up my alley, but I always enjoyed their stuff none the less. Sad day for gaming.

  • +1
Mazty
Mazty (on 08 December 2012)

A core game dev for the Wii goes bust. Same old story.

  • -1