"Significant percentage" of Gigantic developer temporarily laid off

Gigantic developer Motiga has had to stop paying a bunch of staff.

The team behind shooter MOBA Gigantic has been slashed, at least temporarily.

"It is with deep heartache that Motiga announces the temporary layoff of a significant percentage of our studio today," Motiga said in a statement published right on the Gigantic website.

"Our financial situation is such that we are unable to continue supporting the entirety of the studio at this time. Though we are in active and promising discussions with a number of potential investors, the timing for those negotiations extends beyond the resources we have to maintain the staffing required to continue development on Gigantic."

That's a tricksy sentence to parse, but what it's saying is: Motiga can't afford to pay people to keep working on Gigantic, although it hopes to have investor backing soon.

If negotiations fall through, there's a distinct possibility the project may have to be cut completely, and Motiga isn't even sure it can continue to support Gigantic's closed beta in the meantime.

Motiga said staff were informed before it made the announcement, and hopes to update both affected staff and Gigantic players as soon as it has solid information regarding the project's future.

"It is of course our goal, and our deep hope, that we are able to secure the necessary funding in the near future in order to bring Gigantic to market," the developer said.

"We would like to thank everyone for their support over the last few months, and while the situation is far from ideal, the sheer number of people that have enjoyed playing Gigantic has affirmed what we’ve believed all along: while we still have a lot of work to do to polish the experience for the players, the current closed beta version of our game introduces a legitimately fun gameplay experience with great promise for the future."

The news follows a couple of minor pieces of Gigantic trivia: Motiga recently dropped the NDA on the closed beta, and began distributing keys for giveaways. A strong surge of player interest would probably be quite helpful at this stage.

Gigantic was announced at GDC 2015 as a Windows 10 and Xbox One cross-play title. I wonder why Redmond hasn't ponied up?