Big Huge Games is Now ‘Epic Baltimore’

<p>In some refreshingly positive&comma; feel-good news&comma; the folks at Epic Games will be hiring many of the staff of Big Huge Games who were <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;38-studios-lays-entire-staff&sol;">recently laid off<&sol;a>&period; BHG has been tentatively renamed to Epic Baltimore and the studio is now said looking to start working an all new title similar to <em>Kingdoms of Amalur<&sol;em>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Michael Capps&comma; president of Epic Games stated that they had been contacted by BHG regarding the situation but coincidentally&comma; Epic had been speaking of hiring new talent earlier that day&period; Whilst it&&num;8217&semi;s not confirmed yet just how many staff members will be hired back&comma; it is reported to be a large number of them at the very least&period; In a letter by Capps&comma; it was mentioned that other laid off members of BHG will be picked up by Zynga East and ZeniMax Online&comma; amongst others&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>38 Studios started off on a positive note but ran into financial difficulties and were eventually unable to pay back a hefty loan it received from the state of <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;38-studios-unable-repay-state-employees&sol;">Rhode Island and many of its staff went unpaid<&sol;a> at a point&period; Curt Shilling is apparently trying to secure investors for 38 Studios but has so far not been successful&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Below is the entire letter by Capps&comma; regarding the situation in hiring BHG staff&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<blockquote><p><em>Our heart goes out to the people affected by the unfortunate events surrounding 38 Studios and its subsidiary in Baltimore&comma; Big Huge Games&period; Through it all&comma; the team stayed together in a way that&&num;8217&semi;s been really heartwarming to see&period; The team kept working&comma; hoping that there&&num;8217&semi;d be a way to secure last-minute funding and save the company&period; People brought extra food into the office to help those unable to pay their bills&period; And last week&comma; in bittersweet irony&comma; Big Huge Games was named to Game Developer&&num;8217&semi;s Top 30 studios in the world list&period; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>You may be wondering why I&&num;8217&semi;m writing all this &&num;8211&semi; and it&&num;8217&semi;s because Epic is going to do something to help them&comma; and we want people to understand why we think it&&num;8217&semi;s the right thing to do&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>On Wednesday&comma; the ex-BHG leadership team contacted us&period; They wanted to start a new company and keep together some of the key talent displaced by the layoff&comma; and hoped that they could use an Epic IP as a starting point for a new game&period; We loved that they all wanted to keep working together&comma; but it was pretty clear they&&num;8217&semi;d have trouble building a demo and securing funding before their personal savings ran out&period; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>In one of life&&num;8217&semi;s coincidences&comma; Epic&&num;8217&semi;s directors had spent the morning discussing how we&&num;8217&semi;d love to build even more successful projects with our growing team&comma; but that we&&num;8217&semi;d need a dramatic infusion of top talent to do so&period; Which&comma; we all knew&comma; was impossible&period; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>So now we&&num;8217&semi;re planning to start an impossible studio in Baltimore&period; &colon;&rpar; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>It&&num;8217&semi;ll take a while to find space&comma; set up desks and PCs&comma; purchase sufficient Nerf weaponry and Dr&period; Pepper&comma; etc&period; But some of these folks have been going too long without a paycheck to wait for that&period; So&comma; as soon as we can&comma; we&&num;8217&semi;re going to try to get people working down here at Epic headquarters in Cary&comma; NC as contractors&period; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>There&&num;8217&semi;s a million things to work out&period; How many of the team can we hire&quest; What will it be called&quest; What will they be working on&quest; We don&&num;8217&semi;t know all the answers yet&period; Please give us some time to figure it out&semi; we hope to have more to share soon&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>The way we see it&comma; there&&num;8217&semi;s been a big storm in <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;plaxenadler&period;com&sol;baltimore&sol;auto-accidents&sol;">Baltimore<&sol;a>&comma; and we&&num;8217&semi;re taking in a few of the refugees &&num;8212&semi; as are the awesome folks at Zynga East&comma; ZeniMax Online&comma; and other southeastern studios&period; Epic&&num;8217&semi;s in a situation where we can do this&comma; and it very clearly fits with our company values&comma; so we&&num;8217&semi;re going to give it a whirl&period; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Dr&period; Michael Capps<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>President&comma; Epic Games<&sol;em><&sol;p><&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&lpar;Via <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;theverge&period;com&sol;gaming&sol;2012&sol;6&sol;3&sol;3058278&sol;epic-baltimore-rises-out-of-the-ashes-of-big-huge-games">The Verge<&sol;a>&rpar;<&sol;p>&NewLine;