More bad news for the Capcom-affiliated studio in Vancouver this week, as it looks as though the studio could be closed for good soon. A press release on the subject detailed that the studio would be shut down by mid-2019.
This isn’t the first time in 2018 that Capcom Game Studio Vancouver has suffered some issues. A report from Kotaku, when combined with various Tweets from employees, revealed a downsizing at the developer in February of this year. During this round of layoffs two projects were reportedly scrapped. A new Dead Rising title was scaled back, and an unannounced project was cancelled outright.
The studio was founded as Blue Castle Games, and produced a number of licensed baseball games for Take-Two Interactive before landing the assignment to make Dead Rising 2 for Capcom. And at its peak, employed more than 200 people. The loss of 30% of its workforce was apparently the writing on the wall for the future, as even more projects at the studio have been cancelled this week.
Capcom has released a revised financial outlook after a new round of scaling back at Capcom Game Studio Vancouver. The revised report covers financial outlook for the six months of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2019. The reports expects losses on these cancelled projects to be to the tune of 4.5 billion Yen (~$40 million USD). The only thing that seems to have staunched the flow of lost cash is the stellar performance of Monster Hunter World on PC and consoles.
Here’ are the details from Capcom’s press release:
1. Details of losses from the termination of development projects
Capcom Game Studio Vancouver, Inc., a consolidated subsidiary of Capcom, primarily carries out development of home video game software for markets outside of Japan; however, Capcom is currently reviewing the allocation of its development resources that support the production of world-class content.
In consideration of this process, as a result of reviewing titles in development at Capcom Game Studio Vancouver, Inc., Capcom now expects to record losses from the termination of development projects of approximately 4.5 billion yen under cost of sales in its consolidated financial results for the six months of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2019.
2. Outlook
Regarding Capcom’s full-year business forecast, due to factors including the continued robust performance of the PC version of Monster Hunter: World exceeding the company’s expectations since its release on the Steam platform in August, following the blockbuster performance of the title after its initial release in January of this year, the forecast for Capcom’s consolidated business results remains the same as what was projected at the financial results announcement on May 8, 2018.
Further, there are no changes to the amounts of the interim dividend or year-end dividend that were announced on the same day.
