Gigantic Developer Motiga Closes Its Doors

Motiga, the developers behind the free-to-play MOBA-like hero RPG Gigantic, is closing its doors very soon. The game made a big splash last July, but apparently struggled to generate enough profit to satisfy publisher Perfect World. 

Employees have confirmed that the entire studio is shuttering and that nearly everyone will be out of a job. Based on estimates from Destructoid and PC Gamer, that's around 50 to 100 people, with a remaining handful kept around to maintain Gigantic.

That's at least, ""until some time in the future when it doesn't make sense anymore", according to Motiga founder and CEO Chris Chung. He said that Perfect World's decision was a budgetary one, intended "to cut parts of the company that were not profitable."

This wouldn't be the first sign of trouble in Motiga's history. The studio nearly shut down last year when Chung broke the news to employees that they had run out of money. The team bravely showed up to work regardless, and persevered until Perfect World showed up.

"All of Motiga was acquired by Perfect World last year," wrote Chung in a statement to Destructoid. "Perfect World decided to announce the arrangement as partnership by the directions from corporate for the reason we were not privy to."

Towards the end of his statement, Chung says, "As someone that created Motiga from scratch, it's a sad day for me but I am proud of the team we built and the culture we established at Motiga. I was hugged by everyone today and you don't see that kind of reaction in most companies through an ordeal like this."

It's worth noting that as a public company, Perfect World may continue to engage in more fat cutting measures. Chung hinted that other studios may soon be affected. Perfect World also has a majority stake in Runic Games, developers of Torchlight and also owns Cryptic Studios, developer of Star Trek Online.