California-based developer Stormfront Studios has closed its doors today after over 20 years in the gaming market. According to a studio representative, the reason for the closure was due to failing to secure funding for future game projects.
Echoing similar statements like recently defunct-company Iron Lore Entertainment (yikes), the statement said, "Frankly, we didn’t get pitched, and the project [we were working on] made no revenue. The economy is such that the projects that we weren’t winning, ended."
Along with developing the first graphical MMORPG in 1991 called Neverwinter Nights (the original one folks), the studio expanded its development to other genres, including sports titles (NASCAR Racing, Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf, the Tony La Russa Baseball series), RPGs (Demon Stone, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers), strategy games (Stronghold) and recently movie game tie-ins (The Spiderwick Chronicles, Eragon).
Stormfront Studios employed 33 developers. I found this a bit creepy; Stormfront developed the first Madden NFL title for the PC back in the early 1990s before EA brought everything in-house, while EA announced today that Madden NFL 09 won’t be coming to PC at all. Coincidence or just plain wacky?
[Via Next-Generation]
