At the start of 2009, our politics tag was fastened to a great many news posts here at Co-Optimus, and the reason was a horrible rash of layoffs and closings.

Factor 5 -- developers of Lair, a rumored Superman game, and the excellent Star Wars: Rogue Squadron series -- was reported to have cut its staff in half...now, the studio has officially announced its full closure, not one week after Screwattack's nostalgic tribute to the original Rogue Squadron for Nintendo 64.

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Bruce Shelley of Ensemble studios has a goodbye post on the company's official blogs.  In it he talks about his early days at the studio back in 1995.  Now some dozen games later, the studio is shutting down.

The Halo Wars developer is in the process of cleaning the office, wiping PCs, and celebrating the soon to be released Microsoft title.  It's not a total loss.  In fact it appears as though two separate companies will rise up from the ashes of Ensemble.  One of them appears to already be working on some Halo Wars DLC.

So be sure to give the eulogy a read - there's some great links and great pictures.  We'll be pouring one out for you this weekend Ensemble, best of luck!

Source: Link

Congratulations Ruffian Games!  You may have just become Co-Optimus.com's new favorite development house!  If the name of the studio sound familar, that's because we talked about them during our Crackdown 2 rumor spree a month back.

Now things are official, and more talent from the studio has been unveiled.  To say things show promise is an understatement.  Members of the studio have games like Fable 2, Grand Theft Auto, Crackdown, Too Human, Moto GP, and Project Gotham Racing on their resume.  Impressive to say the least.

And now for the rumor portion of our post.  According to the official website Ruffian is already signed on with "one of the world's biggest and most successful publishers."  Better yet?  They are already hard at work on the project.  Crackdown 2?  Perhaps.  Whatever it is it sounds like there will be some great co-op - so we'll be keeping a close eye on these ruffians.  OH!  I get it.

Source: Link

Denis Dyack (pictured above) has called out popular internet forum NeoGaf.  Apparently "the Gaf" has plenty of doubters of Too Human, so Dyack threw down the proverbial gauntlet.  His decree?  If you're confident the game will be a letdown, state your belief unequivocally in the thread. If, after finally playing it, you turn out to be right, Dyack has agreed to accept the forum tag "Owned by the GAF." If the haters are wrong they will have to accept the tag "Owned by Too Human."

It's not everyday a game developer lets himself be publically known on a message board, especially one as popular as NeoGaf.  On top of that, it's not every day a developer actually responds or creates challenge like this.    He even signs of the thread pretty dramatically -

"So it's time to be stand and be counted:

"Denis Dyack -- 'For'"