Hope for Stormfront Studios?

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http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9844&Itemid=59

By Kris Graft

 Stormfront Studios is down, but perhaps not out, according to a new interview with CEO Don Daglow. On Tuesday, a distraught representative of industry mainstay Stormfront Studios confirmed multiple reports that said the studio was closing, as the development house was unable to secure key publishing deals for new projects.

But there may yet be a glimmer of hope for the highly-regarded, 20-year-old studio.

CEO and founder Daglow told GameCyte, "We did have some ongoing discussions about our original IPs [with publishers] ... Those discussions have continued and, ironically, new discussions have actually started, so we are exploring the possibility that maybe [employees] will be able to be called back, but there’s no certainty of that at this point."

Although Daglow said that Stormfront hasn't "shut down," but rather "suspended operations," the current situation is unfortunately still dire. He confirmed that management has sent "virtually everybody" home with no severance.

"You get to a point where you’re in a position where you’re not going to be able to pay people, and you do not want to have them working under that situation," he said.

Daglow said Stormfront's current situation is the result of a "perfect storm" that worked against the company's fortunes. He said Stormfront had made significant investments in new original IPs that were in development for an "extended" period of time, and while both received "strong reactions from publishers," the games were not yet signed.

One of those projects had been cancelled, falling victim to merger activity in the industry, according to Daglow. On top of that, Stormfront was also between projects, and the ailing US economy and stock market rapidly worsened the situation.

"We were in a situation where it was not at all unreasonable to believe that either the signings would happen in time and everything would be just fine, or else we’d have the bridge financing and that should be all right," Daglow said.

A hopeful Daglow said that there are "mature" discussions continuing with publishers, and that news of the studio's closure actually ignited some "additional discussions."

But the fact that there is no development currently going on at Stormfront could lessen the chances of striking a deal, he admitted. And as staff are forced to find other work, restaffing becomes more of an issue as time goes on.

"We just have to follow through on this strand and see where it leads," Daglow said.