So I have a friend who used to work at HVS up until the layoffs. I chatted with him a bit on IM. Here were some key things he said:

1. Due to layoffs, the majority of everyone remaining are now crunching on Conduit 2.

2. Its possible that Grinder may not happen. There is no publisher currently that wants to pick it up.

3. The layoffs occurred because their were no more new projects coming in. Meaning no publishers wanting to invest in HVS.

While I am not a fan of HVS games, I feel for people that get laid off. I was laid off a few years back so it sucks. I think its great that HVS has been vigorously supporting the Wii. Unfortunately I have little faith that they are able to produce a quality product that will sell. Maybe Conduit 2 will be vastly better than the first. Maybe not.

Bottom line is that if you are a video game developing studio you need to produce top quality products that exceed the competition. Blaming how poorly a game sells because of reason A or reason B is a crutch. Hope HVS proves all us doubters wrong with Conduit 2.

And those that lost their job, good luck. Maybe this is another opportunity for you to work on that game you have always wanted.

HVS came up to quickly for their own good, The Grinder sounded terrible(espcailly the HD one) that horrendous bad fighting game they made, the original conduit didnt live up to its expectations and they didnt meet the expectations on the graphics front either.

basically this  company doesnt make good games 

AHHHHH!!! I've been wanting The Grinder far more than the 3 FPS shooters coming this year. I'm going to be a bit sad if the Grinder is dead.

HVS isnt a good dev, plain and simple. I forsaw them shutting down shortly after the Legends of whatever shit game.

Yep... and even if Conduit 2 is far better then the first one I doubt it will do good numbers... hell look at RS2... HVS will probably go under after Conduit 2 will be released.

Pretty much...They put so much hype on The Conduit that not to deliver was a bad mistake. It's pretty much all or nothing on Conduit 2. But, man...if they just scaled things down, and controlled expectations, it could have been helped.

HVS needs to focus more on one title instead of making several non-polished games.

Tournament of Legends was nothing but a waste of resources. I don't know what they were thinking at all with that title, nor why SEGA decided to publish it.

The concept of the Grinder is interesting but it needs lots of work. They should put all resources into making Conduit 2 a good game, then they can continue working on the Grinder.

I thought they had had a publisher on Grinder. Why else would they completely twist it around like that if not for publisher intervention?

Amazing, just last year they were getting so much praise from the Wii fans.

It also goes to show developing Wii games ain't cheap. They should stick to shovelware.

this layoff made me sad.... but also they screwed up badly with tournament of legends