The demise of Dundee games firm Realtime World has sparked a scramble by rival companies to recruit their best staff.
Nearly one hundred members of staff from the beleaguered Dundee company which went into administration on Tuesday have already signed up for a recruitment fair being held in the city by one of the world’s largest games firms.
Activision Blizzard which is responsible for the multi-million selling Guitar Hero titles arranged the event just hours after details of Realtime’s collapse emerged.
Staff from Realtime will be able to discuss vacancies in Activision’s UK studios such as Freestyle Games and Bizarre Creations as well as job opportunities outside the UK at the two-day event at the Apex Hotel, which starts on Thursday.
The jobs fair has been organised by Activision Blizzard and recruitment specialists Specialmove.com.
Specialmove chief executive Andy Campbell said, “We’ve had an outstanding response. We went live with the announcement about 8.15 last night and had 20 registrations within an hour.
“The event has been well received by those affects. One thing about the games industry is that whilst it is a huge industry, it is very supportive and when times are difficult and talented staff are affected, the industry has the ability to pull together.
“While Realtime and others have laid off staff recently, there are other companies that can use their skills and resources. We want them to know there are other options for them.”
Over 170 staff were made redundant when Realtime Worlds were forced to call in the administrators after the failure of their latest game APB: All Points Bulletin.
The company spent five years working on APB and management were hopeful it would repeat the success of Realtime’s first title, the million-selling and BAFTA-winning XBox 360 game Crackdown.
However, the ambitious PC title APB, which required users to buy the game and pay a subscription to access it online, was met with mediocre reviews and disappointing sales and is now being blamed for the demise of the company.
Sixty staff working on a new project called MyWorld were made redundant by Realtime Worlds on Friday. The rest of the Scottish workforce and staff in the company’s Colorado office were told of its demise on Tuesday.
Staff have been attending a meeting at Realtime’s Marketgait offices this morning to discuss the terms of their redundancy with representatives from administrators Begbies Traynor but Twitter messages from employees this morning claim the company cannot pay them for completed work.
They also state that the company has changed all staff computer passwords so they can no longer log on.