Monumental Closes Manchester, UK Offices

Nottingham-headquartered developer Monumental Games has lost a grant, and must close its Manchester, UK studio, according to media reports. COO Paul Mayze confirmed the news to UK trade site Develop, indicating that some staffers will likely lose their jobs in a "very difficult business decision." He said, however, that the studio would try to preserve jobs: "We are doing what we can, but there’s a lot of factors in play." According to the report, the Football Superstars developer failed to hire the 22 staffers it was required to add in order to obtain the grant. A separate grant pledged to it by Maven Capital Partners at the beginning of this year is unaffected. Mayze did stress that the Manchester closure "doesn't fundamentally affect" its operations, nor will its Nottingham or Pune, India studios be affected. In January at the time of the grant award, Monumental was believed to employ over 100 developers around the world. Founded in 2005, Monumental develops console titles like MotoGP 09 and 10 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but it mostly works on PC MMOs -- in addition to CyberSports' free-to-play Football Superstars, it has self-published hunting game Hunter's World.