Red 5 have laid off 10% of their staff to focus development on Firefall. The MMO shooter is going through a rough old time at the moment. Just last week Red 5 announced that they’d be shutting down the game’s PvP because “it’s not working very well.”
The bulk of the layoffs are from Red 5’s spin-off venture, Stage 5 TV. The Youtube channel was aimed at creating gaming inspired content.
Other sites are reporting that CEO Mark Kern said “As Firefall matures, we must transition our priorities and our development strategy to focus on streamlined operations and live product support.” Frustratingly, none are publishing the press release itself.
Firefall sounded very impressive when it was first announced but its long development hasn’t proven the studio are able to deliver on those expectations. The PvP’s been a bit naff (hence it being pulled and redeveloped) and when Paul played the game he said the PvE content was lacking.