Real Shuts Down Mr. Goodliving - Fires 44
Real Networks, who bought Mr. Goodliving back in 2005, has decided to shut down the company. In doing so, it will have to fire the 44 people currently employed there. The news come to us through Dome.fi. The news came pretty suddenly as the chief of the gaming division at Real had flown to Finland two days ago to announce the shut down of the company at 6pm on Tuesday.
Mr. Goodliving has focused in the recent years on iOS development and with the current high demand for applications for the platform, I personally believe the employees will easily find new jobs.
The company was founded in 1999 and currently employed 44 people in total. As of this morning they still were looking for new talent to join their company, on their website - further proving of the shock the shut down of the company must have been.
According to public records, the company made about 300 000 euros in profit with a revenue of about 3.9 million euros during the fiscal year ending 2009. Revenue has steadily grown from 2.5 million euros in 2005. It's unclear how 2010 went for Mr. Goodliving, but it's clear that their financial situation had most probably nothing to do with this decision.
According to Dome.fi, Real Networks has stated they will further focus their efforts and in doing so will streamline the organisation. This time Mr. Goodliving was a bit too far from the core competencies.
However, there are numerous opportunities for those without jobs at Mr. Goodliving. Grey Area, for one, is looking for iPhone developers to join in developing their Shadow Cities game (full disclosure: Ville Vesterinen, co-founder of ArcticStartup is the CEO of Grey Area).
Now's the time to promote those open iOS developer positions - lot's of talent on the move!
Update 7.30 GMT, February 14th 2011: We've received a message from Tiffany Dunning, RealNetworks Corporate Communications on the issue. She wanted to comment regarding the following text:
“According to public records, the company made about 300 000 euros in profit with a revenue of about 3.9 million euros during the fiscal year ending 2009. Revenue has steadily grown from 2.5 million euros in 2005. It's unclear how 2010 went for Mr. Goodliving, but it's clear that their financial situation had most probably nothing to do with this decision.”
Tiffany Dunning's comment:
Please note that our mobile business was a global operation supported by the studio in Helsinki, so the Finnish filings do not necessarily reflect the overall performance of our integrated mobile games operations. RealNetworks has invested significantly in its mobile games business globally and it has continued to operate at a loss. As we have restructured the company in an effort to return to growth, management had to look at all businesses and decide where to continue investing. We believe that our investments in social gaming have better long-term growth propects, and as such, made the difficult decision to stop our continued investment in mobile games development.
I understand perfectly well why Real wanted to shake Mr. G off of their portfolio, but find it quite unbelievable that Real didn't (can not be sure, don't know anybody inside) offer management buy-out or something similar arrangement. Distributing content is their business, but this could have been great opportunity to sort of outsource the risk of content creation and pick the cherries of from the basket, slap a fee on them and distribute them for profit.
There has to be something below the surface because considering the current climate in portable devices, their OS' and Mr. G's reported finances, just killing off a company like this, even if it's not in your core business strategy area, is plain fucking stupidity.
My best to all sacked, you're hot stuff!
Typical reactionary management from afar. Easier to lop off an arm than to figure out what to use it for.
I'm surprised Real is even in business anymore. I guess they have great OEM deals.
Funny to see Tiffany's comment:
"We believe that our investments in social gaming have better long-term growth propects, and as such, made the difficult decision to stop our continued investment in mobile games development.".
We at wooga have discovered that casual and mobile games developers turn into great social games developers. Having said that everyone form MrG who is interested to join Europe's leading social games studio wooga in Berlin is very welcome to contact me - we have dozens of positions open.
http://www.wooga.com/jobs/
Henric, you might want to check out our post on the current status of their website:
http://www.arcticstartup.com/2011/02/14/mr-goodliving-plays-it-until-the-very-end
Mr. Goodliving has revealed all the positions they have to let go, so others can pick the talent more easily.
Thanks Antti, saw it and mailed the guys!
US Management from a distance, Real did not realise fully the talent it had in house. I would like to think that the unit could be kept together via buyout and the guys take the brands to the next level.
Tiffany (whom I am sure is a nice person)is relaying the typical corporate PR rhetoric.
Social Gaming...every element of a title has that ability. If the quality is goood and additive enough people will talk and generate communities around it..thus creating a brand in reversal rather that then marketing agency route.
Go back to Rovio, firing birds at pigs..brilliant...Turbo Camels Circus..Playman series rest my case.
Go on guys..time to kick it big time!!