[UPDATED] Gigantic Developer Motiga Announces Temporary Layoffs

|
, ,

In a blog post on Tuesday, Gigantic developer Motiga announced that they are unfortunately having to temporarily layoff a significant percentage of their studio due to their financial situation. Currently in closed beta, the free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) Gigantic is currently being tested on Xbox One and PC.  

“Though we are in active and promising discussions with a number of potential investors, the timing for those negotiations extends beyond the resources we have to maintain the staffing required to continue development on Gigantic.”  

UPDATE (02/11/2016 5:45pm ET): The CEO of Motiga, Chris Chung, took to reddit to thank fans for their support and provide a quick update.

Hi folks,

MO_Kilzalot here. I just want to say thank you for all your support and love you’ve shown us. While the news was saddening, we are continuing to move forward. We hit highest concurrency in Closed Beta yesterday and it looks like we are on the way to beat it. Also, we are currently working on an update that will include lots of cool shiny things. It will contain at least:

  1. A New map (This is our favorite map internally)
  2. Extensive fixes and improvements based on beta feedback. Especially that B button problem.
  3. Ability to purchase Founder’s Pack – We are working with Microsoft to have them support this.

There is a lot more but we will save that for the patch note. 🙂 We are hoping to release this as soon as possible.

Thank you again! MO_Kilzalot

Later in the thread, in response to a user question, Chung indicated that a Founder’s Pack has been in the works for awhile:

HOW TO: Change system date in OS X ...
HOW TO: Change system date in OS X from Terminal

The Founders’ Pack has been in works for a while. It was our original intent to start selling it at the end of February.

Based on this update, hopefully enough users buy into the Founder’s Pack and give Gigantic the much needed boost it seems to need after this round of temporary layoffs.

ORIGINAL STORY:

As for now this means that Gigantic might not ever make it out of the beta phase and to the market.  Although it is a free to play game they are planning on making money through in game purchases much like how SMITE does currently.  You will be able to unlock characters with in game currency that you can purchase with real money.  I’m also assuming that they will have different skins for the characters that you’ll be able to purchase as well.  Though this business model can be effective it doesn’t seem like something that will solve immediate issues.  It would be nice to see them release a founders pack or starter pack that will be roughly $30 that would unlock all the characters and any future characters.  Again I’m taking that model from SMITE which seems to have worked quite well for them.

We would like to thank everyone for their support over the last few months, and while the situation is far from ideal, the sheer number of people that have enjoyed playing Gigantic has affirmed what we’ve believed all along: while we still have a lot of work to do to polish the experience for the players, the current closed beta version of our game introduces a legitimately fun gameplay experience with great promise for the future.

Our goal at this time is to work aggressively to identify the resources we need to rehire the members of the Motiga family that were laid off today, securing our financial future so that the Gigantic community can continue to work with us to develop this title, and ultimately bring the complete Gigantic experience to the marketplace.

Gigantic brings a unique gameplay style to the MOBA genre; it is a fast paced third person shooter style MOBA.  It is different from the third person MOBA SMITE because there are no lanes like your standard MOBA game has, however, you still have to work together with your team to control certain points of the level.  It is very team oriented and objective based and as you level up you can upgrade your abilities and get different talents that cater to the way you want to play.  I’ve only played briefly but it was a smooth, fun, and quick paced game that seems like it will be very enjoyable with a group of friends.  I hope that they can overcome their financial situation and bring the game to the market so that everyone can enjoy it.

[button link=”https://www.motiga.com/blog/studio/motiga-announces-temporary-layoffs” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Motiga[/button][button link=”https://www.reddit.com/r/gigantic/comments/45b64i/thank_you_and_a_short_update/” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Reddit[/button]
Previous

ARK: Survival Evolved Xbox One First Impressions

Microsoft’s Cortana Doesn’t Like Being Asked About Her Sex Life

Next

Latest Articles

Share via
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap