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Midway Games has announced the cancellation of an unannounced project in production at its Austin, Texas studio. Interim CEO and president Matt Booty revealed the game to be Career Criminal, an “ambitions, open-world project”.
Midway says the Austin workforce will reduce from 130 to approximately 40 employees.
“While this was a very difficult decision, we feel it was the right thing to do for the future of Midway,” stated Booty.
Further info regarding the downsizing of Midway Austin has been unearthed by Kotaku who got hold of correspondence between Booty and Midway’s employees.
“The Career Criminal title was a large, ambitious, open-world project. Midway management recognizes that ambitious games need extensive resources and can require lengthy development cycles with much iteration. We are willing to invest in the long run and we need to continue developing new intellectual properties. But all of our projects have to demonstrate a likelihood of success and profitability,” explained Booty. “The resource needs, feature set, schedule and financial profile for the Career Criminal project were not converging towards a reasonable chance of success.”
Despite this setback, Booty remains confident that open-world titles This is Vegas and Wheelman – both now scheduled for early 2009 – will deliver solid gaming experiences.
