Eidos To Cut Entire U.S. Sales And Marketing Staff

Embattled video game publisher SCi is to cut the entire sales, marketing and PR staff of its Eidos U.S. operation following on from a deal made with Warner Bros, who will be taking over SCi’s North American distribution operations as part of a $170 million bailout package for the publisher.

SCi has been in hot water for the past year, with its share price plummeting, management changing, and the company undergoing a massive restructuring program to cut 25-percent of its workforce worldwide and many of its development projects.

The company has been focusing on its key properties : Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Hitman, and after announcing its restructuring the company cut 14 other projects that had been in development.

SCi has been attempting to tread water until a major investor can come along and either invest capital in the company, or acquire it and subsume it into a larger organisation.

Warner Bros seems to be taking the capital approach of keeping SCi afloat, taking a bigger and bigger chunk of ownership, and gaining benefits in kind such as a new distribution channel for video games in the U.S.

With Warner taking over the U.S. distribution the Eidos staff involved would now seem to be out of a job, according to industry sources.