According to multiple independent sources,
Medal Of Honor: Pacific Assault PC developer TKO Software Inc. has largely shuttered its Santa Cruz, California development office, leading to the loss of around 60 jobs. In addition to this move, which was completed in early January, it's believed that co-founder, CEO and president Jacob Hawley is no longer with the company.
Despite this setback, the company is continuing to operate, with senior management still in place in the Santa Cruz office and further offices still extant in Texas and Dublin, Ireland.
TKO was founded in 2002 as a venture capital-backed game developer, and closed Series B funding of $4.8 million in October 2003. As well as contributions to the
Medal Of Honor series, the company has created content for EA's
GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, and multiple mobile and handheld titles, including
The Elder Scrolls Travels: Shadowkey for Nokia's N-Gage and mobile versions of
Tenchu and
X-Men 2: Battle.
The company was known to be working on a PC/console version of forthcoming Matthew McConaughey movie
Sahara, but other reports indicate a video game version of classic sci-fi movie
Logan's Run was in early development at the time of the layoff. It's unclear whether development on either of these projects is being continued at other TKO offices.
A comment purporting to be from former CEO Jacob Hawley and posted on an online messageboard indicated that he had parted company with TKO "for a variety of reasons", and he was "still consulting with the board to get the company sold." Calls to TKO's Texas office for an official comment were not returned as of press time.
