01.27.10 VIDEO GAME STUDIO RED 5 CRASHES AND BURNS ITS MMO?

If you haven’t heard of Red 5 Studios, don’t feel bad…they haven’t really done anything and who knows if they ever will. Kotaku, citing unnamed sources, is reporting a rumor that the Irvine-based video game studio has laid off the majority of it’s staff, is down to 30 employees, and has abandoned the online MMO it had been working on. (No official info on the MMO was released, but it’s rumored to be a futuristic military shooter.) The company was reportedly close to closure, but was purchased last week by an unnamed buyer, who has the company now focused on a project “aimed at the Chinese market.”

The studio was formed back in 2005 by a bunch of ex-Blizzard employees who’d helped to develop World of Warcraft. They also managed to raise $18.5 million in capital for the company back in 2006, for all the good it did them.

So, basically a studio you never heard of won’t be releasing a game they never told anyone about. I’ll tell you, I’m just trying to hold back my tears on this one.

[Kotaku]