German free-to-play specialist Bigpoint is to close down its mobile development business, with a total of 29 employees set to lose their jobs.

In a statement delivered to GamesIndustry.biz, the company revealed the majority of its mobile projects already in development are set to be cancelled.

 

The closure comes after MDs Philip and Tobias Reisberger also announced that they are to leave the firm.

Right market, wrong time

"I'm a big believer in mobile, it's going to change many things in the games industry," said CEO Heiko Hubertz of the news.

"But I also think it's not the right time at the moment to be in this market because to generate revenues in this market is very tough.

"For that reason we decided also to close our internal mobile games development. We will not continue to create mobile games internally."

Hubertz said Bigpoint has a total of 10 mobile games currently in development.

Some of them are ready to go and will launch within the next few weeks, while the rest will be "completely closed and shut down."

Mobile move

Moving on from mobile, Bigpoint will now focus its business on opening new offices to support bases already established in Paris, London, Rome, San Francisco and Sao Paulo.

The Reisberger brothers, however, are to stay within the mobile space.

 

The former Bigpoint men have reportedly told LinkedIn contacts that they are to form a new development outfit called AppFlag, as well as a business focusing on analytics for the free-to-play market.

Indeed, back in December, Philip Reisberger told PocketGamer.biz that success in the mobile market was "very important" to him.

"We're currently in the process of understanding the market," he said, adding that the tablet would be the "next big competitor to the console."

[source: GamesIndustry.biz]