If you've been looking forward to Sin City and Heroes Over Europe , you may not want to hold your breath. It appears that publisher Red Mile is in dire straits, which would mean that both projects would either keel right over, or the developers in question would need to find a new publisher (which of course, would take additional time).
According to this discouraging report , Red Mile is running on fumes. They were in a decent position last year, when they signed a co-publishing deal with Atari to produce Heroes Over Europe , but Atari has now withdrawn the agreement. This means that checks from Atari have stopped arriving at Red Mile HQ, which in turn means they can't pay developer Transmission Games, which has already walked away…Red Mile owes them $281,000. In order to clean up the mess and keep their doors open for business, they may go after Atari for "compensatory damages," but the cash flow may halt entirely before that move comes to fruition. Apparently, Red Mile has about $341,000 left, which will only get them through March; after that, the company says they need about $10 million to keep going through the next 2-3 years. Red Mile's total losses have exceeded $35 million since they first started out in 2004, which means securing additional money via bank loans may not be possible, especially in this difficult economy. Therefore, Red Mile may be facing the end of the road, leaving a couple interesting projects up in the air.
Perhaps Atari will stand up and decide to take on both Sin City and Heroes Over Europe , but as they've already declined partial publishing rights to the latter, it seems unlikely. Well, who else might want 'em? EA, you out there?
II never heard of this game but it ain't right to mess wit ppl money hopefully someone will inherit the rights to this game so it can get released though
"Red Mile's total losses have exceeded $35 million since they first started out in 2004"
That alone doesn't sound good. If a company is unable to turn profit in over 4 years, I think its about time for them to close the doors. Besides, the co-publishing deal they had sounds more like RM was just the middle man between Transmission Games and Atari. Maybe Atari realized they were in on the bad end of the deal. With recent flops like the flagship title "Alone in the Dark", they need to cut needless spending where ever they can.
This sucks! Heroes over Europe look like it was gonna be a solid game! I was looking forward to that one! Guess I'll have to settle for HAWX
Yep, me too, PANICinc, I was looking forward to Heroes. I'm still looking for the ultimate console flying game, so I'm usually willing to try out any new aviation games. I'll move on to HAWX, I suppose, but the flying game I think that will blow people's minds is IL-2 Sturmovik. Arnold is a huge fan of aviation titles, so expect to hear more about this one. He and I have played PC versions of it, and it ROCKED. So stayed tune, PANIC, things may be looking up soon…
HAWX looks like the better warplane, dogfight game anyway. But still WWII planes are always a blast to fly. Hopefully someone will pick this title up and finish it.
L7 345T
Seems doomed.
"herEos"? hahaha
Now I want some oreos 🙂
It is another sad case of "over supply". I think most industries have gotten ahead of themselves… it is all very well for everyone to say…. "oooh… there is money to be made in games, let's make one"; the reality on the ground is very different… two reasons… commercialism… and the very real fact of the depression we are in…
Commercialism governs everything; most games, to impress us gamers require "block busting" finances… without this finance how to create something truly impressive… we can see that out of 20-50 titles each year, you may get about 10 AAA "block busting" games… similar to your 2-5 AAA "block busting" movies you may want to see; like Dark Knight etc… how many secondary and tertiary titles really survive and make enough to warrant more of the same from the same developer/publisher… like movies; you have your Camerons and Spielbergs; in games you have your EA' and Codemasters… only a few in the end get the block busting sales to permit these publishes to bet on a number of titles simultaneously… if one doesn't work, or even two… others will… pulling in enough to make ends meet…
If indy developers flunk a game… they may be lucky to have enough funding to try again… if not it is bye bye… 1st round and you are out… unfortunately we will see more of this as time goes by… us gamers are demanding Killzone 2 and MGS4 quality… even smaller games like Super StarDust, Flower etc are quality… not many but they are there… if we are not prepared to accept rubbish, then a lot of secondary developers will go bust and out… The way the cookie crumbles…
Maybe if game pricing came down… and there was more to go around… mediocre games for a 1/3rd of the price would sell better overall… these secondary and tertiary developers could survive another day… otherwise the pie will devided amongst the big boys predominantly…
Q!
"i aM hOMe"
Last edited by Qubex on 2/17/2009 8:33:45 PM
what happened to the articles that this economic downturn wont affect the gaming industry..with its cocoon effect..I was really optimistic about that too..but it seems every second developer is either being bought out or forced to close. It will be rectified by 2015.