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Funcom to close Beijing studio and lay off staff in Montreal and North Carolina

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Funcom’s Beijing wing was responsible for much of The Secret World’s art and animation. Nevertheless, the studio will be shut down later this year as part of the company’s sweeping restructuring plans.

You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to suggest that The Secret World didn’t sell so well upon release, prompting Funcom to scale back their operations from Age of Conan-sized MMOnsters to smaller, less costly online games.
That process is still ongoing, and will see the developer’s live teams for Anarchy Online, Conan and, of course, The Secret World moved from Montreal and bundled into one studio in Raleigh, North Carolina. That will leave their Montreal team free to work on unannounced projects that, sadly, definitely aren’t PC games.
The tragedy among all this international trudging about is that jobs will be lost in both Montreal and North Carolina. I think we’re going to miss new PC MMOs from Funcom, aren’t we?
Thanks, Eurogamer.