Realtime Worlds "fully committed" to APB, confirms redundancies

Following rumours this morning that Realtime Worlds had laid of the MyWorld team and had warned of cuts to APB, the Scottish developer has issued a statement confirming lay-offs but saying the MMO will remain fully operational.

“Further to the press release issued on the 7th July announcing the post-launch restructure for APB and expected redundancies, the 30-day consultation period with the affected staff has ended. The supporting infrastructure for a game inevitably changes once released, and those staff that couldn’t be redeployed to new projects in the Art, Audio, Coding, Design, Production, and QA departments have regrettably been made redundant," said RTW in a just-issued statement.

"APB continues to be our primary development focus, and we remain fully committed to the game and its players.”

The exact number of redundancies was not confirmed.

Drastic cuts

The lay-off story broke this morning when a source told VG247: "The MyWorld team has been completely laid off.

"As many as 60 may have gone, but there's a rumour they may be trying to sell the team as a smaller entity. I don't know the exact figure."

An email was apparently sent to staff yesterday saying there could be drastic cuts made to newly-launched crime MMO APB.

Rumours are circulating that the Scottish developer is seeking to sell on APB entirely. VG247 has been told today that the company has spent more than $100 million in total.

MyWorld, a project that looked like a cross between social networks and LittleBigPlanet, was only announced on July 28, while APB launched in late June in the US and early July in Europe.

"Skeleton staff"

VG247 poster Massiveslag appeared to confirm the news this morning, warning that APB's staff count was to shrink.

"As of 11:30 GMT Realtime Worlds have put a large proportion on their workforce on gardening leave ranging from 4-8 weeks," he said.

"APB’s staff will be reduced to admin and a skeleton staff of devs and artists to keep it running and do general updates, but this looks like the end of RTW."

Rumours have circled all week that RTW had gone bust, following hints from sources that the studio had reached a critical point in terms of funding.