Report: Monumental lays off staff, goes into administration

Despite drastic efforts to trim operations and turn its business around, ailing UK-based developer Monumental Games has reportedly laid off its remaining employees and entered administration. The company has struggled in the past two years, seeing unannounced projects cancelled, cutting staff as it restructured, and closing its Manchester branch after a grant fell through. The developer hoped to regain momentum by bringing in former Codemasters CEO Nick Wheelright as its new boss in January 2011. Monumental was unable to overcome its difficulties, though, and it's now laid off the rest of its 20 workers, according to a report from local trade site Develop. In its prime, the firm employed more than 100 people across its Nottingham headquarters and offices in Manchester and Pune, India. Open for six years before it filed for bankruptcy administration last week, the developer has worked on the Capcom-published MotoGP games, CyberSports's free-to-play soccer-themed MMO Football Superstars, self-published MMO hunting game Hunter's World, and Facebook 3D MMO Little Horrors. It also developed and licensed Prime, a toolkit for building browser-based/Facebook 3D games. Monumental increased efforts to establish itself in the browser market in the last year under the direction of Wheelright, who felt the company was in "an extremely good position with its browser-based technology."