Quote:Lionhead Studios and Jeff Minter have come to a mutual decision to cancel their collaborative project Unity with immediate effect. Unity was always an ambitious and experimental project and as is the case with such endeavours they do not always come to fruition.

Both Lionhead and Jeff are disappointed that it has been necessary to take this step despite significant publisher interest. However, a shared commitment to excellence and originality meant both sides agree that the cancellation of the project was in everyone’s best interests.

Relations between Jeff and Lionhead remain strong and both sides have enjoyed working together over the past two years.

Commenting on the decision to halt work on Unity, Peter Molyneux said, “Everyone at Lionhead has the utmost respect and admiration for Jeff’s unique talents. However, we’ve both been in the industry a long time and it was becoming increasingly apparent to us that we would not be able to finish Unity in an acceptable time frame. On a personal level, I have very much enjoyed working with Jeff.”

Jeff Minter responded, “Everyone at Lionhead has been incredibly supportive and the decision to stop working on Unity has been a difficult one for us. But being realistic, I felt it was better for everyone concerned that we cease work on Unity. I’d like to thank Lionhead for all their help and support over the past two years.”

Quote:It’s been a horrible decision for us to have to make, but in the end we’ve had to make it. Basically, although I’ve built a shedload of stuff for Unity in the past couple of years it’s become clear that getting it all together into something that I’d be happy to call Unity and put my name to was going to take a lot of time and effort both from myself and the guys at Lionhead, and realistically it was becoming unlikely that it’d be finished in time for anyone to want to publish it on Gamecube. The alternative would be a rush job and we simply didn’t want to do that. Best to call it a day.

Obviously I’m disappointed – I’ve put two years of my life into this and I was as desperate to play Unity as much as you were, and I understand fully just how disappointed you all are. All I can say is that I was doing this for you guys more than anyone and I’m sorry if you feel I’ve let you down. You’ve all been a wonderful source of support along the way, and even though Unity’s come to nothing I hope we can all be happy that we’ve all created something pretty much unique in this place. YakYak is something for us all to be proud of, I think.

I don’t know what happens next. Sorting all this out over the past couple of weeks has been tough and I doubt I could have got through it without the love and support of my friends. You all know who you are. But please understand if I’m a bit quiet over the next few weeks.

Thanks and love,

\
(:-) - Yak
/

Quote:He should fire himself, then? Kind of hard to do...