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Game Crazy can't catch a break as parent-company Movie Gallery has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. When the dust settles, only 250 Game Crazy locations will remain. The company already closed over 200 locations late last year. In total, Movie Gallery plans to immediately liquidate and close 760 stores in its financially fallible trinity of brands: Movie Gallery, Hollywood Video and Game Crazy.

The company hopes to emerge from the "restructuring" with a "new and sustainable business model centered on a smaller base of profitable stores." The only division of the business unaffected by the bankruptcy is the company's Canadian operations. At least that's one good thing, eh?

[Via Industry Gamers]

THQ announced a bit of restructuring today, which means, sadly, layoffs. The publisher announced that it's refocusing Juiced developer Juice Games and MX vs. ATV/Deadly Creatures developer Rainbow Studios for content intended for digital distribution. The studios will be renamed THQ Digital Studios Warrington and THQ Digital Studios Phoenix, respectively. About 60 total staff are being laid off as part of this restructuring. Juice Games was already subject to layoffs in late 2008.

The studios will develop games for "all major digital platforms, including Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, iPhone and iPad" -- so much for WiiWare and DSiWare -- and will also work together on a community platform to be used across THQ's lineup of core games.

IGN reported yesterday that Codemasters, after disappointing stateside sales last year, was laying off staff at its U.S. office and was planning on shuttering it. But according to an official statement from the company, the story's only half right: Though six employees were laid off (three from marketing, three from elsewhere), Codemasters told Edge there are no plans to close the U.S. operation, saying "Codemasters' office in Burbank CA remains operational under the management of Bill West and we look forward to a focused relationship with our distribution and marketing partners going forward."

So, not to say it won't happen eventually, but it looks like this is one death certificate that was issued too soon.

Update: We just received this statement from Take-Two: "While it is our policy not to comment on rumors and speculation, we wanted to clarify an erroneous report regarding our company. As part of Take-Two's stated goal to maximize the efficiency of our business, we initiated a targeted restructuring of our corporate departments only in order to better align our resources with our current goals. Some of these changes were associated with the pending sale of our Jack of All Games distribution business. To be clear, there were no reductions made at the studio level."

Update 2: While MCV's report of reductions has been confirmed with Take-Two, the outlet's specific numbers – 20% or approximately 400 people – have been characterized as "inaccurate" by TTWO. The company has "not disclosed any actual reduction numbers."

According to a report from Develop citing inside sources, Sony has terminated half of all employees at Studio Liverpool -- the team behind the WipEout franchise. In January 2009, Sony merged Studio Liverpool (formerly Psygnosis) with Evolution Studios and last week announced plans to restructure the new team. In its report of the restructuring, GamesIndustry.biz noted redundancies "may be necessary;" however, Sony has yet to confirm how many positions were affected by the decision.

Within the comments of GI's original article, a user registered as SCEE programmer Paul Ripley wrote "I would estimate about at least 50% of Studio Liverpool has [just] been culled (myself included). Hard to work out exact numbers at the moment." Develop's inside source relayed similar information, noting Sony's layoff plans for the studio were "looking heavy."

Joystiq has reached out to Sony for comment, but has yet to hear back as of this publishing. If you work/worked for Studio Liverpool and would like to speak to us on or off the record, we're all ears.

Things sound pretty rough for Sony's SCE Studio Liverpool. Following the merging of Wipeout HD developer Studio Liverpool (formerly Psygnosis) with Evolution Studios, Sony Computer Entertainment announced that it is "restructuring" the studio. According to GamesIndustry.biz, it is currently unknown how many jobs will be affected. Evidently, Sony is looking to relocate staff rather than lay them off, though, as GI puts it, "some redundancies may be necessary."

In a statement, SCE said that "production on a number of projects within Studio Liverpool will cease immediately due to project prioritisation," and assured that "this decision will have no impact of the role that the North West Studio Group will play in the future of all PlayStation platforms." Except, of course, for the part of its role that included making those unspecified projects.

Update: We just received a press release from Red 5 Studios announcing the "reorganization," stating the company has "great respect for these departing team members and the contributions they have made." The press release also confirms that Red 5 Studios has taken aid from a new investment partner and is "currently working on an unannounced massively multiplayer online game." So much for that ping-pong idea!

Original post: Kotaku is reporting that Red 5 Studios, a studio comprised of some key ex-Blizzard personnel, is the latest to be handed its walking papers. A source claims that nothing but a "skeleton crew" remains at Red 5 Studios now, which at one point had offices in Irvine, CA and Shanghai. The latter recently shut its doors, though the relevant press release on Red 5 Studios' site has since been pulled. Apparently, the Irvine home base was also in danger of shutting its doors, but was bought out last week, spurring these layoffs.

The Kotaku tipster said Red 5 Studios was currently at work on a MMOFPS, a militaristic title built on an Offset Software-developed engine as part of an $18.5 million deal inked with Korean publisher Webzen. Obviously, that game is now on hold, and it's believed the "skeleton crew" that remains has shifted its focus toward working on a product for the Chinese market. Might we suggest a table tennis game? We hear that's all the rage over there.

Just one month after purchasing GamerDNA, the promising stat-driven video game community site, Crispy Gamer has laid off its entire editorial staff, on the authority of the company's board of directors. We're told Chris Heldman, the CEO, former head of media entertainment at Google and co-founder of Crispy Gamer, has resigned in protest. Last September, Crispy's other co-founder, John Keefer, left to join the editorial staff of the influential GamePolitics blog.

The staff was told that they'll be paid for the month, but their termination is effective immediately, leading us to believe the site is going on a similarly immediate hiatus. Editorial staff affected include former Joystiq writer Kyle Orland, along with Scott Jones, John Teti, Evan Narcisse, James Fudge, Ryan Kuo, Managing Editor Elise Vogel, and Chief Marketing Officer Anne Mischler.

Writing about his sale of the company to Crispy Gamer just last month, GamerDNA CEO Jon Radoff said that the site "has very ambitious plans to build a media company around the gaming market." Today's news would seem to indicate that however ambitious those plans are, they no longer include an editorial component. We've reached out to both Radoff and Heldman and will update this post when we learn more.

Update: Jon Radoff told us, "I just heard it for the first time from you. And just got another call from another journalist a minute ago. I'm afraid I don't know anything about the situation -- if true, it's surprising and unfortunate." Indeed.

Update 2: Mr. Keefer wrote in to clarify some of the editorial positions and to let us know that Mr. James Fudge was also laid off. He also had this personal response to add: "It's hard to see a dream die, especially one you put your heart and soul into. The site was created for the readers and to give them an alternative voice, to dig deeper than many of the sites out there and to make readers think about what they play and why they play. Personally, I had a lot of fun in the process. Thanks to all the people that read the site and became part of the growing community."

Apparently, Warner Bros. didn't get the memo that layoffs are so 2009. The publisher has released an unspecified number of staffers from Seattle developers Monolith Productions, Snowblind Studios and Surreal Software, perhaps best known for the FEAR series, Death Tank and The Suffering, respectively.

The publisher told Gamasutra, "we had a few too many resources in certain functions and some positions were eliminated in this process." Seems logical enough, but that doesn't make it any less of a bitter pill for those affected. Here's hoping everyone lands on their feet.

Rebellion, which is currently working on Aliens vs. Predator and recently blessed us with Rogue Warrior, will likely shut down one of its facilities. GI.biz reports the company plans on closing its Derby, UK studios as it focuses resources on its Runcorn and Oxford locations, the latter of which is handling AvP. The Derby studio was once home to the Core Design team, the originators of the Tomb Raider franchise before Lady Croft left for Crystal Dynamics.

Studio CEO Jason Kingsley said in a statement that "growth is sometimes painful, never more so than in the current climate" and that the company has "decided to review the need for the Derby facilities, and consultation with staff at Derby is ongoing." GI.biz reports "a number of staff have been made redundant," which is the UK's horribly polite way of saying "kicked to the curb." And, with that, we have our first layoff story of 2010 -- please, we can't go through another year of this.

Heavy Iron Studios will allegedly let go of 60-70 of its over 100 employees. Kotaku was informed by sources that the layoffs will occur at the former THQ subsidiary this week. The company previously handled much of THQ's movie tie-in titles.

Attempts to confirm the layoffs with the studio have been met by ominous e-mail bounce-backs -- not to mention, our complete inability to navigate the company's labyrinthine phone system.

Sony Computer Entertainment America has laid off 30 full-time members of the company's Quality Assurance department. SCEA explained to Gamasutra that its San Francisco-based first-party QA group had been consolidated and moved to San Diego. The company would not comment on the 100 or so contract positions reportedly affected by the reorganization, as noted by Kotaku.

Sony is currently on the long road back to profitability -- expect some unfortunate bumps along the way.

Source -- SCEA Consolidating First-Party Quality Assurance [Gamasutra]
Source -- Dozens of Tester Jobs Affected in Sony QA Consolidation [Kotaku]

In what's apparently the latest game industry victim of a down economy, Big Download reports that, according to its sources, Austin, Texas-based publisher Aspyr has laid off more than 50 percent of its employees. Though you likely recognize the Aspyr name from its PC-to-Mac ports, the company recently published the Call of Duty Classic port on XBLA and PSN, as well as Fighting Fantasy and Treasure World on DS.

We've been in contact with Aspyr in attempt to clarify the situation over there. We'll keep you posted.

MTV Games has confirmed to Joystiq that 39 positions at developer Harmonix were eliminated today. The move was part of a restructuring to "better align [the] staffing to best suit [Harmonix's] product development plans and schedules moving forward." The publisher claims that "those affected were primarily in QA. The others affected ranged from administrative to other various roles within the company." At least one staff designer seems to have fallen under the "other" category.

Although Electronic Arts has a partnership with Harmonix, these layoffs are "totally and completely unrelated" to EA's issues.

Update: MTV Games/Harmonix answer some follow-up questions.

With a second year of major layoffs at publisher Electronic Arts, questions about morale and investor perception surround the company. EA CEO John Riccitiello told IndustryGamers that in the case of morale, those who survived "understand the logic, they agree with it and support it and think we're a stronger company for the moves." The exec stresses that those who remain are "all excited about [EA's] move into digital and direct-to-consumer" -- something that may not have been true when he brought up the strategy two years ago.

Riccitiello also feels that there was a lot of bad press relating to EA's Q2 results -- the one with all the layoffs -- and that "a lot of negative articles were written that entirely missed the point that [EA] felt [it] had a great first half ... sometimes people almost believe more what they read in a newspaper than what they hear from their own company." In fairness, that seems rather understandable, given recent events in corporate America.