MicroProse Owner Hasbro Fires 2200, Kills Off Flight Sims

In a worrying report for sim racing, but especially for those intimately involved, Hasbro has laid off a whopping 2,200 employees. Both the Chapel Hill and Alameda studios are closed and X-COM Genesis, Masters of Magic II and add-ons for Falcon 4.0 cancelled.

Where does this leave sim racing, Geoff Crammond and the F1GP series? Will we ever see a Grand Prix 3? The cutbacks today mark the end of the line for those responsible for high-end simulations like F-15 Strike Eagle, F-19 Stealth Fighter and Falcon.

These quotes from X-COM team members really spell out the brutality of this move, and the industry:

“People uprooted their lives and moved 2,000 miles in the last month just to get a pink slip two weeks before Christmas.”

“The worst thing for me is that we don’t know why. We had a killer game that looked great and was right on schedule. If we sucked, I’d understand it. But we did everything right. I just don’t get it.”

“One thing we heard repeatedly over the last year was that Hasbro was about “making the world smile”. “We’re not smiling much around here.”

Hasbro’s moves follow similar cutbacks by Sierra who fired several hundred developers recently, blaming softer games sales.