More than 150 staff were made redundant today after a Scottish video game company, started by the creator of the hugely successful Grand Theft Auto franchise, collapsed with debts of £3m, following poor sales of its newest action release.
Administrators have been appointed at Dundee-based Realtime Worlds, which was started by industry guru Dave Jones in 2002.
Begbies Traynor, which is handling the restructuring, said it had been approached by potential investors from both the UK and America. The company's head office and online operations are in Colorado.
Despite the notes of interest, three-quarters of its 210-strong workforce, who all worked at the firm's development centre in Dundee, has been made redundant.
"We are actively pursuing all these expressions of interest which have come from both the UK and US," said Begbies's Paul Dounis. "We very much regret the redundancies that we have had to make."
Less than 12 months ago, the firm was awarded PricewaterhouseCoopers' hottest prospect award at a conference on technology investment.
Begbies, which hopes to sell the business as a going concern, blamed the slide in fortunes on poor demand for Realtime's latest game, APB: All Points Bulletin, which was released six weeks ago.
Jones's previous ventures have been very successful: the Grand Theft Auto series has sold more than 50m copies, becoming a favourite with gamers because of its realistic graphics and tongue-in-cheek humour, and despite the widespread controversy it attracted for its adult storylines. Another title, the puzzle game Lemmings, has sold more than 20m copies in 20 different formats.
Realtime Worlds, which until yesterday also employed 42 people in the US, has raised more than $80m (£50m) in venture-capital funding since it was founded. Begbies has retained just 14 of the employees based in America, adding that the company owed trade creditors about £3m.
The first game under the Realtime Worlds brand was Crackdown, released in 2007 on the Microsoft Xbox 360 format, to strong sales and critical acclaim.
Throughout 2007 and into 2008, Realtime Worlds and Crackdown bagged numerous industry awards, including a record-breaking seven nominations at Develop magazine's industry excellence awards.
But the games manufacturer has suffered since the delayed 2 July UK release of APB – a multiplayer online game, designed for Microsoft Windows, which involves battles between law enforcers and criminals. The game had a poor reception, with a 58% rating on Metacritic, the collated review website.
"Our intention is to continue trading while we attempt to find a going-concern buyer which will safeguard the future of the business," said Dounis, who added that all its servers were still running so gamers could play APB. "The game will continue and that is something we want all consumers to be aware of," he added.