Auran shuts shop

Brisbane, Australia-based developer Auran has gone into voluntary administration, with the company shutting up shop and laying off all employees earlier this afternoon.

A company insider--who refused to be named for this article--confirmed that administrators have taken over Auran Development, the parent company of all Auran companies (including publishing arm Auran Games). The administrators will meet with company creditors in a month's time to decide whether Auran goes into full liquidation or is restructured. Auran had close to 70 employees working at its Brisbane office. The insider confirmed that all staff will be paid for their work to date, plus all annual leave entitlements, redundancy payments, and long service leave.

The company insider told GameSpot AU that a small number of employees will be rehired to form part of a core Fury team for future developments on the recently released online role-playing game. The game, which received lukewarm review scores globally, was one of Australia's largest game projects to date, reportedly costing close to A$15 million ($13.2 million) to make. The insider said Fury servers would not be shut down.

Just yesterday, Auran announced that Fury would now become free to download and play, thanks to a radical overhaul of its subscription model.