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TimeGates Studios, who where previously known for their Section 8 games and now for co-developing the controversial Aliens: Colonial Marines has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Texas Southern Bankruptcy court yesterday.
The guys over at Polygon obtained the court papers, which stated that the developer is in debt to more than 50 creditors and owed total liabilities ranging from $10-$50 million dollars. Their top creditors include Epic Games (Unreal Engine), Agora Games (online game service), and DJ2 Entertainment. Funny enough, a local pizza shop was listed in the documents, which TimeGate owes $34.80. Wow, are these developers all in the 7th grade that they can’t pay a $35 dollar bill?
I guess life isn’t good for TimeGates Studios and the recent class action lawsuit isn’t going to help them. Weird seeing them lose all this money and still announce a game last month.
The developer on Reddit basically confirms that Gearbox didn’t have too much to do with Aliens: Colonial Marines due to the fact that the developer was doing Borderlands 2. They basically got TimeGate to do most of the single player campaign due to this. In my opinion, Gearbox and SEGA should never work again. This game was in the works for 6 years and Gearbox couldn’t give less of a shit about it, it seems. Pecan = code name for Aliens: Colonial Marines.
“Additionally, campaign (which was being developed by TimeGate) was extremely far behind, even as Pecan’s Beta deadline got closer and closer. In April or May (can’t remember which), Pecan was supposed to hit beta, but GBX instead came to an agreement with SEGA that they would push the release date back one more time, buying GBX around 9 mos extension.
Considering that SEGA was pretty close to taking legal action against GBX, asking for an extension wasn’t an option, and so Pecan crash-landed through certification and shipping. Features that were planned were oversimplified, or shoved in (a good example of this are challenges, which are in an incredibly illogical order). Issues that didn’t cause 100% blockers were generally ignored, with the exception of absolutely horrible problems. This isn’t because GBX didn’t care, mind you. At a certain point, they couldn’t risk changing ANYTHING that might cause them to fail certification or break some other system. And so, the product you see is what you get.”
You can read more over at Reddit, even ask the guy some of your questions.
Well, seems that Aliens: Colonial Marines isn’t being as well received as we would have hoped and now everyone is pointing fingers. First comes a statement made by a ex-Gearbox employee, stating that Gearbox didn’t really develop most of the title and that the game was outsourced. The anonymous employee who goes by the forum handle “mugwurt” posted:
“Hate to say it, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up too high for Colonial Marines. I used to work at Gearbox, and the development of that game has been a total train wreck, going on what, 6 years now? Gearbox isn’t even making the game, except for the multiplayer. Primary development was outsourced to TimeGate Studios, which has a less than stellar past.” – Link to response
When asked about this, SEGA’s Senior Producer Matthew J. Powers had this to say: