Cyberlore Cuts Staff Significantly, Moves Into 'Serious Games'

Author: by David Jenkins, Simon Carless

Jay Adan, marketing director at Cyberlore Studios, has posted information to the company's official website, now followed up by an official press release, revealing that there have been significant, numerically unspecified layoffs at the Playboy: The Mansion developer's Northampton, MA offices. Adan notes that he stopped working at the company on Thursday when Cyberlore was "forced to let a number of people go", in part due to the closure of Canadian publisher Hip Games – the publisher of Cyberlore’s Playboy: The Mansion in North America - earlier in the year, as well as the loss of an unspecified “expected [game] contract". The official Cyberlore press release reveals that "A core of the company remains to pursue opportunities in the Serious Games market, where Cyberlore is already developing ground-breaking corporate training software using game simulation technologies." In addition, Cyberlore is the owner of the Majesty PC strategy game intellectual property rights, and is soliciting offers to sell the rights to the title. Cyberlore is noted for being particularly active in the 'quality of life' debate regarding sensible hours for game employees, and Clarinda Merripen, the company's former Director of Operations and the company's representative in the debate, has recently taken up a new position as VP of Operations at City Of Heroes developer Cryptic Studios in San Jose, CA. As for Cyberlore's history, the company is known for developing a number of strategy related, largely PC based, titles since its formation in 1992, including original and critically acclaimed title Majesty, board game license Risk and expansion packs for both WarCraft II and MechWarrior 4, with Playboy: The Mansion being the firm's first console title.