Bits Announces Loss, Focus Away From Games

According to a report from AFX News, officials from British video games developer Bits Studios have announced that the company expects to make a loss of £2 million ($3.7m) in the year ending March 31st, 2006. The loss is being attributed to a realigning of the company’s business, which will see it changing its name to Playwize and moving away from video games to focus more on online gambling. Specifically the costs were blamed on the write-off of historical video game development costs, the costs of refocusing the company's activities, brand development costs and substantially lower turnover than the previous year. Led by well-known industry figure Foo Katan, Bits was founded in 1985 and has specialized in contract and licensed development work, most recently on titles such as Constantine, Rogue Ops, Die Hard: Vendetta and Sega Arcade Gallery. The developer has apparently not begun next generation game development, with the high costs involved possibly an additional factor in the decision to refocus on online gambling.