Not quite a Fatality: Midway losses exaggerated, next MK game in discussion
Midway Chicago’s staff had lost around 20-30 people as of last week. It sounded pretty bad and considering they’re team responsible for the Mortal Kombat (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) franchise. Have the cuts compromised the next MK game? Mortal Kombat creator Ed Boon had some words about this.
Midway’s dismal performance over the last quarter led to some rather brutal cuts across the board for their Chicago staff. The damage was reported at being around 20-30 people as of last week.
It sounded pretty bad and considering Midway Chicago is the team behind Mortal Kombat (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) franchise. Have the cuts compromised the next MK game? Rumors are certainly flying.
No, said Mortal Kombat creator Ed Boon:
Our team is intact and we’re already discussing the next game and what we want to do. Mortal Kombat is on pretty solid footing. Right now we’re looking at how this game performs and I think it will have a good amount to do with what features we put in the next game.
So, despite their company suffering a US$ 75.9 million loss, Mortal Kombat is still fighting fit.
Admittedly, this could simply be Midway spin control hard at work but apparently trimming the staff after a big project is standard procedure. According to Midway, “As large projects are completed, it is expected for any multi-team studio to evaluate the appropriate staffing levels and team composition needed going forward.”
I imagine they had a lot of disposable temps floating around during the last two big projects to do the a lot of the grunt work for the core team. They’d probably have been shown the door even if Midway weren’t in such dire financial straits.
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