"Today was the official last day of employment for those of us who had not moved on to other positions within Microsoft Game Studios," explained Gitelman in a post on the Shadowrun forums. "While the rumors have been circulating forever, we chose to wait on an official announcement because we didnÂ’t want people's attention distracted from our last product, Shadowrun, a game we love.

"As a testament to the team's commitment to Shadowrun, we released three title updates to improve the product even after the team learned we were losing our studio," continued Gitelman. "We have kept our Community Manager and Technical Support Manager on the job to aid and support you and will continue to do so while people continue to play our game. I am pleased that about half of us have found great positions elsewhere in MGS and Microsoft where they can share their experience and passion with the great people there."

Receiving lukewarm reviews from critics, who docked Shadowrun for a lack of content and an arguably high price of $60 for a multiplayer-only title, the game's troubled release also came during the popular Halo 3 multiplayer beta. Following predictably mild sales, Gitelman defended his studio's game on the Official Xbox Magazine podcast, saying: "I think the reviews of my game suck my ass, and I want to respond."

Attacking the basic concept of review scores, Gitelman claimed that the price of a game should not factor into a score to the degree that it does. "Do you think that the dollar amount of the thing justifies lowering the review score so much that people don't actually see past the number? Because when I look at reviews, I look at the number first, and then I decide if I want to read the review at all. If it gets a 7, I don't even read the review."