Lair developer Factor 5 may be the latest to face harsh economic realities, according to a blog from one of its employees. Citing insufficient funding, Factor 5 allegedly had to put one unannounced project on hold.
Animator Sam Baker wrote on his personal blog, via 1UP, that after a brief leave of absence at another company, he'd returned to "find out no one at Factor 5 had been paid in a month.... and we weren't going to any time soon." Baker writes that the financial situation became more dire, with health benefits being cut.
And then? "Then things turned bad..." he wrote.
Baker writes that the project he and other Factor 5 employees were working on was put on hold, citing a lack of "proper funding."
He notes that the nixed project was already eight months into development. In March, the doomed Brash Entertainment announced it had signed on Factor 5 to do a licensed game due in 2010. Baker writes in a follow up post (he has since deleted the original post and all other entries from his blog) that "This does not mean that we've stopped production on [the Brash] game, or that it was ever even in trouble."
In his original post, Baker paints a very gloomy financial picture for Factor 5, writing that president Julian Eggebrecht "basically told us that if we didn't receive funding in 1 week, all of us should move on and look elsewhere for another job." His subsequent post reads like an attempt to retract some of that.
Factor 5's last game, Lair, was released in 2007 to a mostly negative response. It was rumored to be working on a Wii title and a game based on DC Comics' Superman.
We're reaching out to Factor 5 to try to learn more about the situation.
More Raining, More Pouring... [Blogspot via 1UP]