Aug. 10, 2012 • While most of the fallout from the demise of 38 Studios earlier this year was concentrated in Rhode Island, the bankruptcy also cast adrift the Big Huge Games team based in Maryland. As is now coming to light, Epic Games came to the rescue in June and picked up a good number of the Big Huge Games team to launch Impossible Studios in Hunt Valley, Maryland. Heading up Impossible is Sean Dunn, who was studio general manager at Big Huge Games. Although the members of this team are best known for PC strategy and role-playing games, they are immediately being thrown into mobile game development. Impossible’s first project the touch-based action role-playing game Infinity Blade: Dungeons that Epic announced for iOS at the Game Developers Conference. In addition to its Cary, North Carolina headquarters, Epic also fields ChAIR Entertainment in Salt Lake City, Utah; People Can Fly in Warsaw, Poland; Epic Games Korea in Seoul, Korea; and Epic Games Japan in Yokohama, Japan.
Impact: Shuttered development studios have become rather commonplace, and when studios shut down, competing developers like to swoop in to hire experienced talent that has recently been cast adrift. What makes the case of Big Huge Games staff getting another lease on life notable is not that Epic came to the rescue, but that these talented PC strategy developers are immediately being focused on an iOS project. That outcome speaks volumes for the current direction of the games industry, and what bets publishers are making for future revenue generation. Several years ago some Big Huge Game employees, including founder and lead designer Brian Reynolds went to Zynga. Now developers are leaving Facebook games for mobile platforms.
