Factor 5 Officially Shuttered

PostFactor 5 Officially Shuttered by **tomvek** » Thu May 14, 2009 4:09 pm

There were layoffs and rumors of studio closings, but now it's finally confirmed. According to the company website, the San Rafael-based Factor 5 studio has officially closed its doors.

Rumors of the Lair developers closure surfaced in December of last year, following rumors that half of the staff had been let go. The rumors pointed towards the cancellation of their Superman project due to the failure of Brash Entertainment as a major factor in the layoffs and closing, which is backed up by the official statement appearing on the Factor 5 website today.

We are sorry to announce the closure of the San Rafael-based Factor 5 Inc. studio, but the obstacles created by the sudden bankruptcy of Brash Entertainment for the continuation of operations have turned out too great to overcome in the current economic climate.

Note that this development doesn't mean the end to the Factor 5 name. The statement continues:

Factor 5 GmbH, which has been creating games since 1998 with its headquarters in Cologne, Germany, is completely unrelated to Factor 5 Inc. and the circumstances surrounding Factor 5 Inc.'s recent challenges. Although we are saddened by Factor 5 Inc.'s situation, our corporation will remain unaffected by these developments and has partnered with both old and new friends in the industry who will reveal our upcoming projects over the next months.

In other words, that other company had problems, and the German branch of Factor 5 would like to put as much distance between those problems and it as humanly possible.

We extend our sympathy to those left jobless by the studio's closing, even if most of them have hopefully moved on to bigger and better things by now.

http://kotaku.com/5253800/factor-5-officially-shuttered

PostRe: Factor 5 Officially Shuttered by **Floex** » Thu May 14, 2009 4:11 pm

Blimey, make a gooseberry fool game and it's game over it seems. Though, Factor 5 do take a helluva long time to put out a game much like Free Radical

strawberry float, another big name has gone down. I hope they release images of whatever they were working on, like Free Radical and 3D Realms did.

Oh noes! What's going to happen to ol' Julian Eggybread?

PostRe: Factor 5 Officially Shuttered by **SEP** » Thu May 14, 2009 4:36 pm

So they're not working on the Pilotwings license, then?

MCN wrote:So they're not working on the Pilotwings license, then?

Even if they were, they're not now.

PostRe: Factor 5 Officially Shuttered by **SEP** » Thu May 14, 2009 4:53 pm

Alvin Flummux wrote:
MCN wrote:So they're not working on the Pilotwings license, then?

Even if they were, they're not now.

If they were, Nintendo would have helped keep them afloat.

MCN wrote:
Alvin Flummux wrote:
MCN wrote:So they're not working on the Pilotwings license, then?

Even if they were, they're not now.

If they were, Nintendo would have helped keep them afloat.

Would Nintendo really do that for a company that not so long ago jumped ship because of the Wii?

PostRe: Factor 5 Officially Shuttered by **SEP** » Thu May 14, 2009 4:58 pm

Alvin Flummux wrote:
MCN wrote:
Alvin Flummux wrote:
MCN wrote:So they're not working on the Pilotwings license, then?

Even if they were, they're not now.

If they were, Nintendo would have helped keep them afloat.

Would Nintendo really do that for a company that not so long ago jumped ship because of the Wii?

If they were willing to give them the Pilotwings license, yes.

PostRe: Factor 5 Officially Shuttered by **Tineash** » Thu May 14, 2009 5:06 pm

Warning, making shoddy PS3 exclusives may be hazardous to your company's health.

Speaking of, whatever happened to Ninja Theory?

PostRe: Factor 5 Officially Shuttered by **Garth** » Thu May 14, 2009 5:13 pm

Tineash wrote:Speaking of, whatever happened to Ninja Theory?

Still around, but their next game will be multiplatform.

MCN wrote:If they were willing to give them the Pilotwings license, yes.

Lucasarts took the Star Wars Battlefront off Free Radical, what makes you think Nintendo wouldn't just take the license off Factor 5 and give it to someone else?

Nintendo might have thought the cost of keeping them afloat wasn't worth price of a Pilotwings game.

PostRe: Factor 5 Officially Shuttered by **Cal** » Thu May 14, 2009 5:47 pm

Always a shame when another studio goes down, all hands lost. I guess they just never could recover from the whole dreadful Lair experience. That's another game that would make for a truly riveting read as a no-holds-barred 'postmortem' feature in EDGE, etc.

PostRe: Factor 5 Officially Shuttered by **Raide** » Thu May 14, 2009 5:50 pm

As always, this is sad news. I hope those people land on their feet and find new jobs.

PostRe: Factor 5 Officially Shuttered by **Winckle** » Thu May 14, 2009 5:58 pm

Tineash wrote:Warning, making PS3 exclusives may be hazardous to your company's health.

Fixed that for you.

PostRe: Factor 5 Officially Shuttered by **Floex** » Fri May 15, 2009 12:17 pm

So does anyone know what they were working on?

F-Heonix wrote:So does anyone know what they were working on?

If it was Kid Icarus or Pilotwings, it could be a while before we find out given how secretive Nintendo is (and given that all its assets could simply be handed over to another dev to carry on with). If it was something else, I would expect asset leaks to come soon as happened with Free Radical Design and 3D Realms.

Factor 5 Officially Shuttered

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