Funcom closing Beijing studio, beefing up Raleigh studio, Montreal to focus on tablet and mobile

Funcom has announced it's closing its Beijing studio, while at the same time forming a "joint, centralized live team" at its Raleigh, North Carolina studio. The firm also announced its Montreal Studio's focus will switch to mobile and tablet projects.

The focus of the US studio will be on the MMOs Age of Conan, Anarchy Online, and The Secret World.

Funcom's Montreal studio, which was recently hit with lay offs, will shift its focus to currently unannounced tablet and mobile projects, and on the firm's Dreamworld technology.

“The live team in Raleigh, North Carolina, has up until today only housed our billing/tools, community, customer service, operations and quality assurance teams,” Funcom CEO Ole Schreiner said. “By bringing the developers on our live games to Raleigh it allows us to build a stronger, more unified team that can service and support our online games as they work to expand these worlds and create new experiences for the players who inhabit them.

"This will also allow us to have the team staying in Montreal focus exclusively on their new responsibilities of developing for tablets and mobile devices as well as working on new tech.”

The restructuring process has also lead to the closure of the Beijing studio, which was the "natural result of the completion of the development on The Secret World," said the firm.

Beijing was responsible for the art and animation for The Secret World, and all remaining assets related to the project will be transferred over to the Raleigh studio.