Rumor: Midnight Club Series in Limbo, as “Rockstar Spouse” Decries Working Conditions
In an anonymous and yet-to-be-confirmed report sweeping the web, an individual calling themselves the “Rockstar Spouse” posted an open letter Thursday that denounced the working conditions at Rockstar San Diego.
Calling out management for pushing employees to the brink of depression with overtime while withholding overtime pay, the “Spouse” threatened legal action on behalf of many “determined and devoted wives of Rockstar San Diego employees.”
Today, it appears that employees’ well-being may not be the only casualty at the troubled studio. Joystiq is reporting that the Midnight Club franchise, traditionally developed there, may be in jeopardy as well:
“Jay Panek and Mark Garone, people who were at the company for over 10 years, were fired in 2009 after the completion of Midnight Club: LA … other major people quit, as they lost hope in the company after the handling of MC:LA and didn’t want to work on Red Dead Redemption,” one source told us.
“The management slowly dismantled the MC team for reasons unknown to most,” added another. When we asked if there are any more Midnight Club games planned for development at Rockstar San Diego, we were told, “At first, the team was told there was going to be another. That lasted a few months until the team was told, ‘Well, we’re going to do another, but it will be all outsourced … but there will be a core team of 5 – 15 people at RSSD working on it.’ Then, after a while longer, it was just not going to happen at all. Rumors abound about what will happen to Midnight Club, but Take-Two want something soon because it was the second highest money maker for Rockstar.”
Though no outlet has yet reached Rockstar Games for comment, it should be noted that Rockstar believes that the Midnight Club series has great value — in a December 2009 financial report, they attributed a $66.7 million increase in net revenue to the release of Midnight Club: Los Angeles alone.
