Following the commercial failure of the game State Of Emergency 2 DC Studios has decided to close down their studio in Edinburgh, Scotland. DC is still exploring their options and may get things running again but for now 29 positions have been made redundant and the UK operation is not currently trading. The studio in Montreal, Quebec in Canada continues to operate.
DC Studios acquired the State of Emergency 2 project from fellow Scottish developer Vis Entertainment when the latter firm went into administration in the middle of last year. The first title in the series was published by Rockstar shortly after
Grand Theft Auto 3, and rode to chart success on the shirt-tails of that title despite critical slamming.
Rockstar passed on the sequel, but small publisher Southpeak released State of Emergency 2 in the USA and Europe earlier this year - with revenues which DC boss Mark Greenshields told the Sunday Herald were "substantially lower than we expected."
"We had to pay a lot of money in order to complete the game," he explained. "A lot of things were discovered after the acquisition. But when you buy something out of receivership, it's buyer beware."