The final details of the sale of Realtime’s Project: MyWorld have been confirmed as papers related to the sale revealed Kimble Operations, established by former Realtime chairman Ian Hetherington, paid £1.137 million for the venture on September 2.
Previous speculation had put the sale at a value somewhere “under £3 million,” but documents seen by The Courier confirm the sale to Kimble Operations brought in just over a third of that upper limit.
A report by the administrator estimates that it could be at least a year before Kimble can bring what was “essentially still a research and development project” to market. It adds that the sale included an “anti-embarrassment provision” because the project still requires “significant investment,” and there is no guarantee of future revenue.
However, games commentators have already predicted the concept could be a money-spinner, one saying it “could easily be the biggest single development to come out of Europe in the past decade.”
Before August’s shocking news, around 60 staff worked on MyWorld, with 23 being recalled from redundancy to work on the project for the buyers. Mr Hetherington set up Kimble less than a fortnight before Realtime’s collapse.Although it has been rumoured a buyer for Realtime’s other project, multi-player online game APB, has been found, Begbies Traynor have yet to confirm that a deal has been struck.