Microsoft closes down Victoria studio

Despite the fact that it only announced an expansion of the Canadian based Victoria development studio last year, Microsoft has announced that it'll be shuttering it. While a large expansion was announced and planned in 2012, ultimately growth wasn't quite as high as expected, though this will still leave around 30 people out of work.

In a statement to TimesColomist, Microsoft said: “This was not an easy decision, but one guided by our desire to centralize development in our Vancouver studios,” the company said. “We are working closely with all employees affected by this change to identify open positions in other studios, and we remain committed to doing business in British Columbia.”

That next level is a warpzone right back to level one

Previously the closed studio was said to be working on “next-level,” interactive games and services, though no projects were officially announced and no games were ever released. Perhaps with 30 odd people out of work, one of them will come forward with a hint at what they were working on.

The reason nothing was finished though, is presumably because they didn't get much of a chance. The Victoria based studio hasn't even been around very long, only two years or so at this point, so this shutdown seems very reminiscent of EA's closure of Victory Games, the developer of Command and Conquer (Generals 2) which itself had only been in operation for three years.

KitGuru Says: Good luck to those that are out of work this close to Christmas. Nasty timing. [Cheers AGB]

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