Motiga employees have confirmed the shutdown, indicating that all employees are impacted by the shutdown. In a statement to Destructoid, Motiga founder and CEO Chris Chung confirmed that the shutdown was a monetary decision by Gigantic publisher and studio owner Perfect World. From Chung:
Yes, [the closure] was the corporate decision. It was a budgetary decision at the highest level. Perfect World as a public company has a profitability goal and they decided to cut parts of the company that were not profitable. In short, Gigantic was not making enough revenue. Unfortunately, Motiga is not the only Perfect World studio being impacted by the decision.
As for what the studio's shutdown means for Gigantic, Chung says that the game will "be left at the hands of a maintenance team composed of a few dedicated folks at Motiga." So, at least in the near term, the game will remain available to play, but it likely won't see any new content. Chung says that the maintenance team will continue to work on the game until "it doesn't make sense anymore."
The shutdown follows a rough course of development for Gigantic as Motiga dealt with publishing and funding issues. The game was originally due to be published by Microsoft, but that deal seemingly fell through after a spate of layoffs at Motiga in the preceding months. That's when Perfect World assumed publishing duties of the game, acquiring Motiga in the process. Gigantic finally released in July, 2017, on PC, Xbox One and Windows 10.
Gigantic remains available to play, but its future is very much uncertain.
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