Buyers keen to bid for failed Realtime's star attraction

Published on Tuesday 17 August 2010 21:55

POTENTIAL buyers from the US and the UK have expressed an interest in buying APB, the game created by Dundee-based Realtime Worlds which went into administration on Tuesday, administrators confirmed last night.

• Realtime founder David Jones launches the APB game which is attracting potential buyers Picture: David Martin/Fotopress Dundee

The firm, which is headquartered in Colorado but has its main development operation in Dundee, collapsed owing trade creditors in the UK in the region of 3 million.

The company failed only a month after it launched its new online action game APB: All Points Bulletin as it was hit by poor sales and lacklustre reviews of its latest product.

Paul Dounis, joint administrator from Begbies Traynor, confirmed the company was continuing to trade and the APB game can still be played as the servers remained up and running.

"The game will continue and that is something we want all customers to be aware of," he said

According to its latest accounts, Realtime Worlds raised $21m (13.5m) from investors as late as January this year. But the accounts, for the year to the end of 2008, showed the company had made an operating loss of 19.2m.

US investment fund Maverick Capital had pumped $50m (at the time, about 25m) into the company in 2008.

Administrators confirmed that 53 of the company's 210 staff were being retained, including 14 of the 42 jobs at its headquarters in Boulder.

The collapse of Realtime Worlds, one of the UK's largest and most promising independent games developers and publishers, gave rise to calls to reinstate proposed tax breaks for the struggling industry.

The coalition government scrapped Labour's tax break proposals for the industry shortly after it was elected.

Labour's shadow Scottish secretary Jim Murphy said: "I cannot understand why the government has scrapped the tax relief scheme Labour announced in March.

"We need Dundee and the whole of Scotland to be a world leader in computer games. The industry sustains thousands of high-skilled jobs that we simply cannot afford to lose.

"I am calling on the UK government to reverse the decision to scrap the tax relief."

Business representatives backed his call.

Liz Cameron, chief executive of Scottish Chambers of Commerce, said Scotland's strong position in the industry has been challenged by "attractive fiscal regimes" in other parts of the world. Canada in particular and France have strong computer gaming industries and offer tax breaks to the sector.

Cameron said: "Scotland must match or better the tax breaks offered by our rivals if we are to compete in the future, and that will require urgent action from the UK government to reconsider its position on tax breaks, denied to the games industry in June's Emergency Budget."

Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray said the collapse was "devastating" for the games industry and Dundee.

"I fear the fate of Realtime could just be the beginning unless both the SNP and coalition government take action, and quick," he said.

Westminster's Scottish affairs committee is to investigate the decision by the coalition government to scrap the proposed tax relief scheme.

Problems at Realtime Worlds emerged in the week as reports revealed the firm had made 60 staff redundant - including some who had worked on the five-year APB project.

Bob Last, chairman of the Cultural Enterprise Office, said: "The news that Realtime Worlds has been put in the hands of administrators is unwelcome not only for the management whose ideas have failed to sustain the business and all those whose jobs are in peril; but also for the digital industries cluster in Dundee and the wider Scottish creative content industry."