Two weeks ago, 100 video game developers at Big Huge Games in Timonium lost their jobs when their parent company, 38 Studios, imploded, leaving a total of 400 laid-off workers with unpaid back wages. (Interestingly enough, 38 Studios’ website still lists several job openings, but none of them is for a time-machine operator with experience going back and fixing bad business decisions.)
Fortunately for the people at Big Huge Games, the North Carolina-based Epic Games has plans to hire many of their team, taking them to North Carolina to work until they can set up a Baltimore-area office. And Epic could really use the extra talent at just this moment. The company behind the sci-fi third-person shooter Gears of War had recently been looking for ways to step up their output.
BHG had made a name for itself with real-time (as opposed to turn-based) strategy games like the Rise of Nations series and Age of Empires III. They also developed a successful adaptation of the absurdly popular (among geeks) German boardgame Settlers of Catan. Unfortunately, God: the Game, which BHG was developing for the Nintendo Wii at the time 38 Studios self-destructed, has been cancelled. And with a name like that, you know it was going to be awesome.
