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Zoo captures Empire's catalogue

By Mark Walton, GameSpot UKPosted May 8, 2009 10:02 am PT

Publishing rights to past, present, and future games from the beleaguered publisher snapped up.

Although not all of the games industry is feeling the pinch of the credit crunch, others have lost substantial sums of money, or worse, have even gone bankrupt. Another casualty of the current economic climate is Empire Interactive, which recently filed for administration, blaming "trading losses, development spend, and a delay in recent new product" for the action. A total of 49 staff were made redundant, though several have been kept on to aid KMPG, which will be handling the administration, in its restructuring efforts.

Though operations at Empire are winding down, the company's intellectual property and publishing rights have found a home at New World IP and Zoo Publishing. Zoo has recently released several games including Jelly Belly: Ballistic Beans, Smiley World Island Challenge, and the upcoming Garfield Gets Real.

Empire was one of the UK's longest-running games companies, having been operating for 22 years, and released a range of games, including Pipe Mania, International Cricket Captain 2009, and most notably the Flat-Out series of over-the-top racing games. They were also working on the upcoming Animal Paradise Wild for the Nintendo DS and Martian Panic for the Wii.

7 Comments

  • sanjbanwait

    Posted May 11, 2009 5:17 am PT

    this isnt good. it isnt good at all.

    they were a good company. notably flatout being their most well known game. but when it came out (especially the first one) there was alot of buzz/hype around it and it didnt disappoint. and the number of spin-offs alone declares the success of the franchise. its a deep shame. another stem of creativity has been lost.

  • Mr_Versipellis

    Posted May 10, 2009 11:11 am PT

    Who?

  • secondomen

    Posted May 9, 2009 5:52 pm PT

    Loved the Flatout series, I have all of em.

  • Peabody99224

    Posted May 9, 2009 5:33 pm PT

    Another one...

  • Pete5506

    Posted May 8, 2009 10:10 pm PT

    Is this good or not?

  • HeadrockBeats

    Posted May 8, 2009 11:54 am PT

    The rift deepens. Massive publisher/developers flourish while smaller companies are shutting down left and right. There is only one resolution for this dilemma - a collapse of the Games Industry. Fortunately, that may be the most favourable solution. Back to the good old days of cheap but high-quality games.

  • ColdfireTrilogy

    Posted May 8, 2009 11:15 am PT

    so what is happening with flatout ... i loved the online for the PC for that game

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