Midway bins The Career Criminal

Midway has dumped The Career Criminal, a "large, ambitious, openworld project" that sounds a bit like Grand Theft Auto.

Matt Booty, interim boss at the company, had to lay off 80 staff from the internal Austin studio as a result, but claims things are far from tumbling down a steep hill.

"The Career Criminal title was a large, ambitious, openworld project. Midway management recognises that ambitious games need extensive resources and can require lengthy development cycles with much iteration," Booty told Kotaku.

"The resource needs, feature set, schedule and financial profile for the Career Criminal project were not converging towards a reasonable chance of success."

Unlike - Booty goes on to suggest - The Wheelman, or This is Vegas, which were both pushed back to 2009 but are apparently benefiting from that decision.

"As a company, we remain committed to developing the core technologies needed for large openworld games," added Booty.

"We are invested in developing front-line, competitive games, and we are committed to supporting our teams and studios. Part of that commitment is a continual and honest process of evaluation and making sure that our resources are going to projects that set us up for success."