Bigpoint No Longer So Big. Shuts Down US Office, Lays Off 120 Workers

Michael Dunaway
By Michael Dunaway, News Editor Posted:
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Well not every Free to Play company can be successful. This was made abundantly clear this week when Bigpoint the developer/publisher of a variety of well known Free to Play titles announced that they would be cutting 120 jobs and completely closing down their US Operations. Ouch...

As reported by GamesIndustry, Bigpoint will be cutting a total of 120 jobs, more than 40 of which are located in their San Francisco office which will be completely shut down. The current CEO, Heiko Hubertz, also announced that he will be departing from the CEO role and Bigpoint. When asked about the closure of the US office, Hubertz had this to say:

"We have seen that developing games in the US is not really the most efficient way for us at the moment," Hubertz told GamesIndustry International.

"The games that we have developed in the last two years haven't been that successful, and the San Francisco area and Bay Area is quite a competitive market. San Francisco is, after New York, one of the most expensive cities you can live in in the US, so the people are quite expensive."

Bigpoint had only recently opened the San Francisco office in 2010 with Hubertz personally overseeing operations. The studio was created to produce as well as act as business development, marketing and PR for the company.

The company's employees were notified yesterday of the decision.

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About the Author

Michael Dunaway
Michael Dunaway, News Editor

Michael Dunaway has been part of the MMOBomb team for years and has covered practically every major Free-to-Play MMO title since 2009.

More Stories by Michael Dunaway

Discussion (9)

ROAD RUNNER ( England) 11 years ago
I wish someone could get the rights to the game and set it up in england.. or put it in a game disc on PC I would buy it!! Its a shame tolet it die! if Bigpoint is re- releasing it on net or on disc. I will bethe first to get it, Uri wars is a great game!
Uridium Fan 11 years ago
when open the game?
ROAD RUNNER 11 years ago
URI WARS in England is hugh dont take if off its to good to loose!!
GioBera 12 years ago
I think that browser based games need to be VERY good to do great success, if its isn't that good, it won't call the attention off more hardcore and more commitment gamers (basicaly Download Based Games gamers). Yes, there are some good browsed based games, but never will get to the scale of the download based games.
Okoice 12 years ago
Browser games are bad ( My opinion)
But i had played on bigpoint one browser game i dont remember how it was named but it was great game but they shutted it down :/ I just remember there was gang and cars and some girl what work on street for getting money to you and drugs now is all gone so BigPoint should disappear.
View 1 reply
Kataklyz83 12 years ago
well not all of us use a computer from the 80's so that's what they get for thinking that browser games will work forever.... Now there Littlepoint games..
View 1 reply
cacalips 12 years ago
That is what you get when you sign the dotted line that forms your project into a corporated greed fest that has aboard member group that wants profit or they have the right to shut you down and never see your project online again, because if you relaunch, and gain even a penny from contributions, they will hawk it out of you. You gotta go fully indi, Kickstart, or get a better contract. SAdly, its all sharks, and even more sadly, you help keep this shit system alive.

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