Whenever a developer loses its publishing support, trouble is usually close behind. After Konami pulled out of its partnership with Atomic Games for Six Days in Fallujah, reports came out recently suggesting that creative director Juan Benito had left the company. While that specific departure has still not been confirmed, Atomic sent out a release today confirming that it had laid off some of its staff.
"Due to a mixture of fears about the edgy subject matter of Six Days in Fallujah, as well as low videogame sales this summer, we have been unable to secure full-scale funding from a major publisher for Six Days in Fallujah. This has caused us to reduce the size of our studio today," said a release by Atomic. "In the words of Marine officer Chesty Puller, 'We're surrounded. That simplifies the problem.' Development at Atomic will continue with a smaller team that will be funded by our sister company, Destineer."
No specific number or percentage of employees were mentioned for the staff reduction. Hopefully they'll find a publishing partner soon, but at this point we'd have to think that the odds aren't in Atomic's favor.
