WildTangent Closes Studio, Cuts Staff, Promotes St. John to Chairman
WildTangent didn't feel it needed to continue investing in a game development studio, the company told GameDaily BIZ. Alex St. John has also moved up to Chairman, relinquishing his CEO duties.
by James Brightman on Friday, October 31, 2008
WildTangent Closes Studio, Cuts Staff, Promotes St. John to Chairman
Following an initial report from TechFlash, GameDaily BIZ has confirmed with online games company WildTangent that its internal development studio has been shut down. The move has resulted in layoffs for approximately 20 percent of staff (which is about 20 people).
A spokesperson for WildTangent commented to GameDaily BIZ, "We did close our game development studio a few weeks ago. We've grown the other pieces of our business publishing and advertising sales so much that we simply had to focus resources on the areas of the business that have the greatest potential for long-term growth. As you know, we now have more than 600 games in our network so we are providing our customers with the games they want without the need to continue investing in a game development studio."
He added, "Despite the challenging economic times, Wild Tangent continues to grow rapidly. Our software is now distributed on virtually every consumer PC in North America and many others around the world. Just last month, we surpassed both MSN and Disney to become the third largest game network in North America and the largest privately held game network in the world (comScore). Our advertising sales team closed out a record third quarter in September and will significantly exceed that record with an even stronger fourth quarter. So we remain very upbeat about the business in spite of, and maybe because of, the current economic realities facing the world."
Furthermore, WildTangent also confirmed with us that CEO Alex St. John has been promoted to Chairman of the Board. He has turned over his CEO duties to Mike Peronto, who had been serving as President of WildTangent for several years.
St. John, who frequently speaks at game conferences and often discusses the "death of consoles," has been spending "a ton of time on the road this past year meeting with press, analysts, business partners, etc., and generally being the public voice of the company. That will continue, but to do that, he needed to hand off the day-to-day duties," the spokesperson explained.
