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Blue Omega Employees Laid Off

If a studio already has pre-existing issues, it needs to produce a gem in order to stay alive. But when they fall well short, as was the case with Blue Omega's Damnation , that can close the doors for good (pun intended).

According to Develop and citing a recent Tweet by Blue Omega Entertainment programmer Geoff Rowland, the entire staff has been laid off. This officially happened Friday, and Blue Omega confirmed the unfortunate news with Kotaku, further explaining that the team had had former "issues" with Damnation publisher Codemasters. These issues led to a number of lawsuits between the two feuding companies and when the aforementioned game failed to impress critics and consumers alike, that was the last straw. As one added tidbit of information, Blue Omega was also responsible for producing several B-movie horror flicks including "Danika" and "Dark Ride." In the end, the quality of their work wasn't good enough to combat the outside influences weighing down upon them, and now, Blue Omega is no more. We often hear about studios making a gazillion dollars after hitting the jackpot with titles like Grand Theft Auto IV , but in this ultra-competitive marketplace, and with development costs so high, endeavoring to create a video game can be a very risky proposition. Well, unless you're EA or Activision, who can easily survive poor efforts every now and then.

We never like to see game developers go under, but hey, it's part of the daily news. Hopefully, the ex-Blue Omega guys can find positions elsewhere.

Related Game(s): Damnation

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killzone100
killzone100
14 years ago

Next time make a game that dosent suck. Works wonders.

WorldEndsWithMe
WorldEndsWithMe
14 years ago

Good luck out there guys.

LimitedVertigo
LimitedVertigo
14 years ago

In fast food.

coverton341
coverton341
14 years ago

I have to agree with killzone100 and the rest of the intelligent world on this one. DON'T MAKE SH*T GAMES!

Would save yourself a whole world of headaches that way.

www
www
14 years ago

Wow you think making games is that easy?

migabyte
migabyte
14 years ago

I don't know if it was so much that it was sh*t, but it was marketed quite a bit too. I saw a bunch of adds on websites and stuff, but whose mistake is that…..Anyways, it's like any industry. You do a bad job you get fired.

shadowpal2
shadowpal2
14 years ago

and life goes on…

Orvisman
Orvisman
14 years ago

Do you really think they tried to make a crappy game?

Come on, really?

Seriously?

King James
King James
14 years ago

Have you seen Damnation? At some point, you gotta realize that you work is flawed.

Arvis
Arvis
14 years ago

Yeah, but how long do you hold a game back to try and improve it? How many times can you overhaul the engine? Eventually you're going to end up with a Too Human, or worse, a DNF. And ultimately, that's going to lose you far more money and for more time, the latter being a resource that you will never get back.

-Arvis

Orvisman
Orvisman
14 years ago

ffrulez,

You clearly don't realize how the real world works, especially business.

Who has the money and resources to scrap an almost completed product? EA, Activision, and Ubisoft.

Any other smaller publisher would have to release the game and pray it can make some of its money back.

BikerSaint
BikerSaint
14 years ago

RIP Blue Omega

King James
King James
14 years ago

Cause and Effect: You make a shitty game…U don't get the opportunity to do it again.

I hope that the ppl (that have actual talent) who were let go, find a new home where their talents won't be wasted.

Soultaker
Soultaker
14 years ago

Well lets see someone here make a better game. Until that happends i wouldn't be questioning their game whether it sucks or not at least they tried doing what they were capable of.

www
www
14 years ago

Is very unfortunate, then i guess having a career in gaming is risky, almost everyday you hear, studio A has been shut down, studio B lays off 100 workers etc etc. I don't think i'd like to join game devs anymore.

photo K
photo K
14 years ago

Yeah I bet its not easy making games in this current environment, especially when you are competing with companies who have million dollar budgets.

But then again, its not my career to make games. For the Blue Omega team it was. Hopefully they can join another dev team or maybe they can go make some iphone apps.

cadpig
cadpig
14 years ago

I can forgive some flaws in a game, but c'mon.
Damnation should have never been released. Gameplay was boring. Graphics were bland. Something told me to rent this one first, glad i did.

LimitedVertigo
LimitedVertigo
14 years ago

Glad to hear about this, they clearly picked the wrong job. Give money to people that actually deserve it.

Ricochet
Ricochet
14 years ago

They should've taken the opportunity on the PS2 area. Thanks to the "fanboys", developers are really pushing the games, bringing better visuals, gameplay and innovation. Unless you can top that or you have something really deep planned out (like Heavy Rain, Alan Wake). Best not bring a game to try to compete with other Triple AAA titles.

killzone100
killzone100
14 years ago

Your forgetting that they used to make films. Since when have films and games have anything in common? Should just stick to what your good at.

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