ChampMan dev faces massive layoffs

By Robert Purchese Published 26 November, 2009

80 per cent of jobs going in "restructuring".

Championship Manager developer Beautiful Game Studios is to undergo massive "restructuring" by Eidos' new owner Square Enix.

Roughly 80 per cent of jobs will be lost or relocated to China to save money, although studio boss Roy Meredith will remain in London and in charge of the ChampMan brand, which Square Enix insists has a future, for now.

"Our current business model does not allow us to compete in a fast-changing industry with any degree of flexibility or commercial confidence," Square Enix told GamesIndustry.biz.

Eidos - creator of Tomb Raider, Thief, Deus Ex and Hitman - was bought by Square Enix for £84 million earlier this year and was officially amalgamated into the Final Fantasy maker's ranks in April.

Championship Manager 2010 was released in September and made enormous strides towards getting the iconic series back on track with Football Manager.

Debatable, however, will be Eidos' and Beautiful Games' decision to allow consumers to pay what they want for CM2010. The minimum one could spend was £2.51. No statements about the success or otherwise of the campaign have been issued.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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