spellforce posts

After filing for bankruptcy last January, time may have run out for European game publisher JoWood. According to a report on the German language web site Boerse-Express.com, (translated by Babel Fish) JoWood has apparently not been able to bring in new investors to save the company and it looks like the publisher is going to close down.

JoWood owns a lot of major game franchises including the Gothic RPG series and the Painkiller first person shooter series. It's likely that some other publisher could buy the rights to these and other Jowood game titles. JoWood also owns Canada-based Dreamcatcher Games which it acquired in 2007. It's currently unknown if the Dreamcatcher business will also shut down alongside JoWood.

[Via Game Informer]

The Austria-based game publisher JoWood is in a bit of a financial pickle. Today the company announced that it has filed for material insolvency after "all efforts towards restructuring of capitalization concerning outside capital as well as equity capital had to be considered as failed."

The press release is optimistic, saying that it hopes JoWood can continue with business and hopes that "negotiations with creditors and possible investors can be positively conducted and finalized within 90 days." JoWood and its North American subsidiary Dreamcatcher Interactive, released the fantasy RPG sequel Arcadia Gothic 4 last fall with plans to release an expansion pack for that game later in 2011. Another game, the RTS-RPG expansion pack Spellforce 2: Faith In Destiny, is due out later in January.

A game that's been in developer for some time is getting delayed the week it was supposed to be released. Publisher JoWood announced today that Spellforce 2: Faith In Destiny, the stand alone expansion to the fantasy RTS-RPG game, will now be coming out in January 2011. The expansion was supposed to ship on Tuesday to stores in the US and Europe. No reason for the delay was announced.

This is just the latest delay for the game. The expansion pack was first announced way back in May 2009 for a winter 2009 release. In February of 2010, the expansion was "re-announced" for a second quarter 2010 release and finally got what appeared to be a firm November 30 release before today's announcement.

GoG.com has just announced that two more classic DRM-free PC games have been added to their ever-growing lineup of titles. One is Spellforce Platinum which has both the original JoWood published fantasy RPG-RTS game and its two expansion packs The Breath of Winter and Shadow of the Phoenix. The other is Capitalism 2, the 2001 sequel to Enlight's business simulation game. Both titles can be purchased for $9.99 each.

And remember, GoG.com is planning a big announcement on Thursday. If you want to guess what that announcement is and maybe win some free GoG.com games in the process, check out our previous story for all the details.