British independent developer Argonaut Games has seen its share price fall by almost 25 per cent today in the wake of a profits warning, issued this morning, which downgraded the firm's full year guidance to a UKP 6 million loss.
Argonaut's final results for the year are not expected to be released until October, but today's trading update warned of performance below market expectations as a result of delays in the signing of key development contracts.
Although negotiations on these contracts are believed to be ongoing, the delays have put them past Argonaut's July 31st financial year-end, and hence outside the scope of the FY2004 figures.
The downgrading comes as a blow to Argonaut, which has otherwise had a largely positive year - with good critical and commercial response to titles such as SWAT: Global Strike Team and I-Ninja and the completion of a new contract with Electronic Arts which saw the company doing much of the development work on movie tie-in Catwoman.
News source: gamesindustry.biz
