John Romero's Slipgate Ironworks, whose parent company is Gazillion Entertainment (the folks behind the revived Marvel MMO project), has seen massive layoffs in recent days, with an estimated 50 employees laid off. Romero has had a secretive MMOG project in the works over at Slipgate Ironworks, and from the sounds of it whatever the planned MMOG was to be has been shifted to a smaller project. But hey, at least it's alive!

Below is Gazillion Entertainment's official statement on this development:

Gazillion has enjoyed remarkable growth over the past year and is proud to be partners with revered, world-class brands. We have expanded our number of studios from one to four and our MMO portfolio from two games to a slate of titles. As part of our focus on reaching the widest possible audiences with breakthrough MMO entertainment, we decided to change the format of our project at Slipgate Ironworks to better achieve this aim.

The game we’ll launch will build on the efforts to date with a smaller core team and the other Slipgate staff are already in discussions around the many open positions across our slate of projects. 2010 will be an exciting year for Gazillion as we bring several groundbreaking MMOs to markets worldwide. We’re tremendously appreciative for the dedication and creativity of our employees who make this all possible.

Via Kotaku.

Can't say I'm disappointed, I don't even know what they're making XD.

And are they (Gazillion) publishing more than one MMO? If so, what are they?

never heard of them..any mmmos i have heard of they have done?

I think they're involved in Jumpgate: Evolution.

I know its not related but I bet with the tie to Marvel MMO, it won't be long before we see the "House of the Mouse" involved in Gazillion's affairs.

Didn't they axe the Marvel MMO? And Marvel is now owned by Disney which will probably develop its on MMO if DC's takes off.

Originally posted by eludajae

Didn't they axe the Marvel MMO? And Marvel is now owned by Disney which will probably develop its on MMO if DC's takes off.

 

 

Nope, they just picked up the contract on the Marvel MMO just before the Disney deal was made.  Marvel held to see what Super-hero offerings were in the market before diving in.  Cryptics CO was going to be Marvel before they pulled out.  They quickly picked up Champions in its place.

Well thats actually good, because I just canceled my Champions Online account the game is so repetitious I actually feel a sleep playing....its that boring.

never heard of it

Originally posted by upupeng

never heard of it

Not missing anything .

Nice sig :) 

that sig is awfully distracting....

Oh right Romero...who cares hes a has been (if you consider 1 decent game as an achievement)

I  actually never heard of Romero Slipgate.

Best that it dies now before it get to market then has cutbacks and dies, thus leaving the playes out in the cold.

 I'm just waiting for the press release that Romero's gone to ask for his job back at Id Software. 

Except for a few highlights in-between, the guy's had a stretch of mostly bad luck since he left ID. The whole Ion Storm trainwreck should have been a huge omen.

I admire the guy's tenacity... but geeze.

Originally posted by erictlewis 

Best that it dies now before it get to market then has cutbacks and dies, thus leaving the playes out in the cold.

I agree with this. Better that a lot of these shoddy games never get released.

yet another company Romero touches that turns to crap:

let's take a look at teh wiki for this hillarity:

ID software-bethSoft bought them

ION STORM-----need I say more!    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Storm_Inc.

Midway games--Bankrupt

and now this company--slipgate   looks like they have been givin "the slip"

Don't let him touch your game company!!