Lionhead cuts 50 staff

By Games Industry.biz Published 7 March, 2006

Scales back projects.

British developer Lionhead has confirmed industry rumours of layoffs at its studios in Surrey, with the company's headcount being cut from 250 to 200 in the wake of poor performance of recent PC titles.

The cutbacks are also believed to spell the end of some of the company's current projects, with studio founder Peter Molyneux telling staff on Friday that only two projects, both for next-generation platforms, will be staying on the roster.

One of those titles, believed to be a sequel to much-delayed but well-received Xbox title Fable, is described as having been in development for around twelve months, while the other unknown title has been underway for significantly less time.

It would seem from this that the console ports of The Movies, Lionhead's last PC title, have now been canned by the developer - having already been dropped by publisher Activision last month following weak sales of the PC version of the title.

The future of the Black and White franchise also seems uncertain after Black and White 2 also failed to impress at retail, with publisher EA giving no indication either way regarding any intention to sign another title in the series.

The situation at Lionhead has been the subject of much speculation in recent weeks, with development industry insiders suggesting that Molyneux had renewed attempts to sell the studio to a publisher in the wake of the poor performance of the two PC titles.

Microsoft, which published Fable, was cited as one interested party - but the firm is unlikely to want to pay much for the studio, since the company's games division is still fighting to claw back its investment in another British firm, Rare, which was acquired in a $375 million deal back in 2002.

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Comments (33) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • MrAtheist #1 6 years ago

    Dont panic Lionhead fans, Molyneux is sweeping in to save the day and is currently designing the bestest gamer ever where you start as a baby and grow up and do everything you could possibly dream super universe simulator good evil bollox..etc etc. ;)

  • Rambaldi #2 6 years ago

    Will somebody please tell him that god games are dull? Kind of like having a hard day at work and then going home to watch some shitty soap about people having a hard day at work. Yay.

  • Daikon #3 6 years ago

    Less is more. How many people did it take to make Populous?

  • Jokerr #4 6 years ago

    Peter Molyneux coded the whole game on his own iirc.

  • morriss #5 6 years ago

    /breathes heavy sigh of relief that Fable 2 hasn't been culled

  • smoison #6 6 years ago

    I guess this was to be expected after the calamity which was B&W2.

    Lionhead was supposed to be a small copmany,but after B&W1, its grew like hell. They should have realised most people who fell for B&W1 were pissed off it sucked after one hour. Why owuld they buy the 2nd which didn't even fix the problèmes of the first....

  • Fozzie_bear #7 6 years ago

    The Movies was good fun (if short lived) but they did themselves no favours with the £45 price i saw it at on release.

    Suppose Lionehad are paying the price for all their bullshit in the past. In a way it's encouraging that people didn't fall for the hype again. Maybe it'll help PM see that concnetrating on the games more and spending less time talking crap is a good idea.

  • gaijin #8 6 years ago

    "Peter Molyneux coded the whole game on his own iirc. "

    well, that's the story they released publicly. In fact what Molyneux wrote was the most amazing game writing simulator in the world ever, which allowed you absolute control over every stage of the development process from what colour trousers your designers wore through to which implementation of Direct X it required and what the box-art looked like! Unfortunately, despite all the apparent customization options, there was only one game you could produce using it that was actually playable, and Populous was it.
    Ever since then they've been trying to find another happy concatenation of variables... but the designers are getting tired of changing their trousers all the time.

  • Talha #9 6 years ago

    @Rambaldi : Er - you mean you are a god? Because that's where your analogy leads to!!! ;-)

  • darkmistx #10 6 years ago

    I think it would be a good idea for LH to make Fable 2 a multi-platform title. I'd bet that a lot of ps3 owners would buy the game if it was out on their system.
    Edited by 1 at 07/03/06 @ 12:09

  • gaijin #11 6 years ago

    "it would be a good idea for LH to make Fable 2 a multi-platform title. "

    but would MS publish it then?

  • brokenkey #12 6 years ago

    "The staff were not even required to sign in or out, there was that much trust."

    Do many people have to sign-in or out at work?

  • MrChuckles #13 6 years ago

    Just due to concentrating on the PC market when the console market is the place to be. Fable worked pretty perfectly for what they wanted, Movies was good but under marketed, and B&W2, hmm, well, people learnt from B&W.

    With global poor PC sales last year (excluding Sims & WoW of course) and 66% of LH titles only on the PC, you could see this happening. I expect they will learn from their mistakes and come back fighting next year.
    Edited by 1 at 07/03/06 @ 12:50

  • Teeth #14 6 years ago

    I'm pretty sure Glenn Corpes did some code on the first Populous game, but don't hold me to that. May have been Populous 2.

  • Eldritch #15 6 years ago

    "The staff were not even required to sign in or out, there was that much trust."

    More like: "The staff were not required to sign in or out to avoid tracking actual working hours and paying for extra work."

  • dudefella #16 6 years ago

    "Suppose Lionehad are paying the price for all their bullshit in the past. In a way it's encouraging that people didn't fall for the hype again. Maybe it'll help PM see that concnetrating on the games more and spending less time talking crap is a good idea."

    Exactly. I bought the B&W hype. It was fun for a bit but then I realised it was kind of shit. Then Peter promised the World with Fable, and like 2% of all his promised features ended up in the game. I'm sorry to say this but he's brought it on himself. I've boycotted Lionhead studios since that Fable bullshit. I refused to play that game at my friend's house. The guy should concentrate on making a decent game and not talking bullshit. It's too bad for the people that got laid off, Peter Molyneux is the one who should lose his job over all this bullshit, but hey what can you do.

  • Teeth #17 6 years ago

    Taken as it is, Fable is a good game, though. It's certainly no stinker.

  • tobs #18 6 years ago

    Populous was great at the time, so original. Then Flood which was pretty cool for a 2d platformer, and then Powermonger, which was excellent fun for one level, but there was no continuity, so you felt like the game had rebooted after every level cause you were back at the frickin start! I never got excited by B&W and when I tried it at a mates house I knew I was right - they forgot to put a game in there...

  • karstux #19 6 years ago

    I think that Lionhead's poor sales performance is a bit tragic. At least they try to innovate and produce something entirely new when they make a game, instead of just rehashing a tried-and-tested formula.

    They should deserve fame and recognition for that, as the gaming world can use some innovation, imho. But... I haven't bought a single one of their games either. :-(

  • Gl3n #20 6 years ago

    Lionhead do themselves no favours with the bullshit slinging, it's not just PM either.
    I don't really bother reading their official stuff anymore, you can pretty much predict what it will contain regardless of the quality of the final product.


    Next!

  • Markusdragon #21 6 years ago

    ONLY 2? WHAT THE HELL?

    DIMITRI! WHAT ABOUT DIMITRI?!?!?!?!!


    Ahem, anyways. Pity.

  • kangarootoo #22 6 years ago

    "Some companies do require staff to clock in and clock out for safety reasons. That is the excuse they give."

    Its actually required by law in the UK for fire regulation reasons.

    And as someone else pointed out, clocking in and out is hardly an issue of trust when everyone is doing loads of overtime anyway.

  • MrChuckles #23 6 years ago

    'And as someone else pointed out, clocking in and out is hardly an issue of trust when everyone is doing loads of overtime anyway.' - Depends if they are working on the company's game or their own mouse driven kung fu game :-).

  • chrome_tooth #24 6 years ago

    kangarootoo "Its actually required by law in the UK for fire regulation reasons"

    Fairs fair and rules are rules. What is unfair is when some people get away with breaking the rules repeatedly, while others are made examples of for beaking the rules only once. Such companies are no good.
    Edited by 1 at 07/03/06 @ 15:28

  • Xerx3s #25 6 years ago

    As long as Fable 2 is secure, im a happy man. It would be in MS's interest to keep it a PC/xbx exclusive. Perhaps just buy that division? :\

    Anyway, ppl losing jobs is always a bad thing :(

  • Teeth #26 6 years ago

    Hey, it's Raoul. Hello!

  • Stormflood_UK #27 6 years ago

    Movies was ok for a bit, but when I was having to repair portaloos when I really wanted to make movies.... zzzzzzz

  • Retroid #28 6 years ago

    I suppose the same people who 'boycott' Lionhead and 'refuse to be taken in by bullshit hype' will also boycott every console, graphics chipset, movie or book which is also hyped to the moon and back as the best/most powerful EVAH!111!1!11

    Perhaps I'm alone in taking everything with a pinch of salt and waiting to see what I personally think of something...

  • Drakron #29 6 years ago

    Fable is nothing but a Zelda clone ... except Zelda is better.

    Fable 2 is now "what Fable was going to be" ... Project Ego is impractible and Fable shown just that with expected features being cut and cut and cut, Fable 2 is going to be more of the same.


  • morriss #30 6 years ago

    "Fable is nothing but a Zelda clone ... except Zelda is better. "

    Yeah because in Zelda, your actions affect your appearance and how people react to you. You can have sex in Zelda, be gay or bi and get drunk. Zelda is also set in quaint British countryside.

    Think before you troll.

  • Drakron #31 6 years ago

    And on itself its pointless.

    Good or evil change nothing, also the temples can change whatever you do ... nobody really cares in effect.

    Marriage is another pointless feature ... come on, NPCs spewing the same lines is nothing we have not yet seen, there is not even the change to have a child or "something bad happening" ... heck that is not a relationship and I sugest you play KotOR to see one (I am not keen on JE because it shown up after Fable but there you get your gay relationship, as well a lesbian one)

    Getting drunk ... come on, you see some screen effects and that is it ... done again and again, if you find that funny ... well I get you like "black screen sex" too.

    Zelda is a good game at the core of gameplay, its so good Nintendo continues to ride on it since the core of it was never lost.

    Perhaps less "dressing up" and more content would make Fable 2 better but I hold no hopes for it if B&W is any indication of Lionhead sequels.

  • Roamer #32 6 years ago

    Fable was great, not a Zelda clone, and it's obviously sad to see a company lose so many employees.

  • morriss #33 6 years ago

    I didn't bring up those examples as a way of showing how good Fable was, I mentioned them to show you that it is nothing like Zelda. Fable is good on so many other levels I won't bother to go into it. One of my fav games ever.