Auran shuts shop

Australian developer of Fury goes into administration; all staff laid off.

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.

78 Comments

  • Chief_Kuuni

    Posted Dec 18, 2007 1:07 am PT

    that's too bad

  • LockdownLA

    Posted Dec 17, 2007 7:46 pm PT

    duh, Fury sucked bad, even for free.

  • rockatanski

    Posted Dec 16, 2007 11:30 pm PT

    LOL! Actiblizzard! Sounds like a disabled robot ejaculating!

  • Sallos

    Posted Dec 16, 2007 8:41 pm PT

    Not if actiblizzard has anything to say about it

  • Zoomer30

    Posted Dec 16, 2007 7:41 pm PT

    Pretty soon the world will be divided: Microsoft will supply the OS and EA will supply the games.....is anyone else worried??

  • rockatanski

    Posted Dec 16, 2007 6:34 pm PT

    RIP Auran. What a total loss. Australia's only real game developer and now it goes away. Oh well, no more special unique awesome games as well then. I suppose Fury was a big gamble and thanks to Gamespot and other gamewebs for the lower than average terrible reviews, this was bound to happen.

  • DMWhiteDragon

    Posted Dec 16, 2007 4:16 pm PT

    $15 million dollars for a multiplayer game? (its not a mmo by any strech of the imagination)

    They changed the lobby to a 3D one and you play 'deathmatch' with others in 3 modes on different maps. (yes patched added more but the release of the game vs its costs is what im talking about)

    Thats it, its a MPRPG not a MMORPG so again for $15 million you get 3 modes of multiplayer and a handful of maps with a little 3D lobby.... i would have fired all those guys aswell.

    Rediculous ( and yes i could do better, however i do suck with moddeling and textures... )

  • taurian0205

    Posted Dec 16, 2007 2:01 pm PT

    lol, fury is free now... and im not interested into playing a free MMO, and not gonna download it, dont want to cap my download limits. well...what a waste of money, stupid developers.

  • TheC0m1ssar

    Posted Dec 15, 2007 10:34 pm PT

    Sad to see them go, I really enjoyed playing Dark Reign. Hopefully if they get back onto their feet again, maybe they will make another one.

  • Sallos

    Posted Dec 15, 2007 6:57 pm PT

    Sad to see them go -- Dark Reign was a great game, although I have no interest in their other games

  • Dryker

    Posted Dec 15, 2007 2:23 pm PT

    $13.2 million is one big chunk of change, but I suppose facing the kind of return that Vivendi does with World of Warcraft, it was a viable venture.

  • Snaptrap

    Posted Dec 15, 2007 8:55 am PT

    I admire this developer for doing what no one else would ever consider, and that's taking chances with new things besides repetitive first person shooters like Crysis, Unreal Tournament, and Halo. Games like Trainz is what make PC gaming so apart from console titles. They probably should've stuck to what made them unique instead of making something which already is oversaturating the market.

    Hopefully someone besides EA wil purchase this developer so we can enjoy more unusual games. Too bad about Bioware. In about 5 years that name will be gone.

  • shortyice

    Posted Dec 15, 2007 5:30 am PT

    Hah too bad. Game sucked anyway.

  • simtim

    Posted Dec 15, 2007 4:56 am PT

    That's too bad. I really enjoyed a few of their games, especially the Trainz series.

  • PacoL250

    Posted Dec 14, 2007 11:54 pm PT

    I wish the people of Auran the best, but whoever bought this game just got screwed.

  • jknight5422

    Posted Dec 14, 2007 7:26 am PT

    Well that sucks. Man. I hate seeing things like this happen.

  • skrat_01

    Posted Dec 14, 2007 6:48 am PT

  • Razzi65

    Posted Dec 14, 2007 3:55 am PT

    im not happy....

  • ColdGen

    Posted Dec 14, 2007 2:22 am PT

    I wish the guys and gals at Auran the best for the future - nothing worse than being sacked at Christmas.

    Oh and GripShift is out on marketplace now dude!

  • p00phead

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 10:45 pm PT

    man is there a decent video game made in aussie, nz made gripshift and that was rad and soon its gonna be on 360

  • InSoMnIaK604

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 10:22 pm PT

    Hahahah, I'm not surprised at all. This is what you get for putting out garbage in todays gaming industry. Nothing about this game was appealing.

    This game is still Poo.

  • jacob-goodlich

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 10:09 pm PT

    oh...i didnt know that we still made games here in australia.

  • jacob-goodlich

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 10:07 pm PT

    oh...i didnt know that we still made games here in australia.

  • Merl57

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 8:23 pm PT

    O cool its a free game now but I allready spent over 1k on 360 stuff so i need to get my money's worth on that

  • OgreB

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 6:56 pm PT

    Wow....

    Thats pretty bad...

    I can't believe nobody ever spoke up and said.
    " Hey..!! This game just suks..!
    " Let's spenrd our millions elseware..."

    Man...some game designers ...

    What are they thinking...???

    It's like Your are Empty...*sighs*

  • DiscGuru101

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 6:39 pm PT

    First free, now dead. I feel really bad for this game and this team. -I had my eye on Fury, until the reviews came out.

  • ChinoJamesKeene

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 6:32 pm PT

    @S2333 The Creative Assembly are good.

  • S2333

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 5:32 pm PT

    This is really sad.
    It feels like Australians can't make games.
    Hopefully Fury will get better with content updates but this feels really bad for Australia.

  • thusaha

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 5:23 pm PT

    That's bad.

  • Devvy01

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 5:07 pm PT

    Its a shame for Australian game development

  • lew_0911

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 3:56 pm PT

    Too bad for them. Ah, such is the life in the industry (not that I have been there).

  • jusmurph

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 3:49 pm PT

    Such a shame, for a local you kind of wished it worked out for them.

  • djynen posted Dec 13, 2007 2:54 pm PT (does not meet display criteria. login to show)

    djynen

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 2:54 pm PT (hide)

    Auran are still around? I thought they'd shut up shop after releasing Dark Reign. Commiserations to all the Developers who just lost their jobs - my sympathy lies with them rather than with the company or the games they produced. .

    Living in Australia, I do wonder where this laughable delusion came from that Australia could ever sustain a successful gaming industry? When was the last time a 100% Aussie game appeared in your top 10? No, I can't recall either. Not to mention we're too far away from the US and Europe. Face it - Australians will never produce great computer games. Auran's demise is proof of that.

  • majithise

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 2:51 pm PT

    Fury should have done much better, but it needed another month or two in beta to smooth out some problems that cause a lot of people to leave early on. Sadly they were the ones who pushed it to release too quickly, tried to meet the date for their "Fury Challenge" publicity tournament. At this point I still think it's an awsome game, been playing it since the early beta back in March, but it needs more people. It's a vicious cycle.

    New people try it and get frustrated because they only fight against veterans, so they feel it is unbalanced and leave. Which means there aren't enough new players for the next new guy to play with. I love the speed that the game plays at, and feel it is as well balanced as any new MMO, but it hs simply suffered from a lack of players. And that is what the game has needed to allow newbies to play against newbies, or vets vs vets, and to really feel balanced and fun for everyone.

  • felshs

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 2:49 pm PT

    game developing industry going down the hill. only a few game is successful out of hundred

  • jazziey

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 2:41 pm PT

    Who bought Fury lol?

  • felshs

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 2:40 pm PT

    sad news

  • dn3datomiced

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 2:16 pm PT

    Parker82

    What is fury?

    What the employees of Auran must be feeling! *BA-DUM TSH*

  • kaziechameleon

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 2:13 pm PT

    um, wiat what's up with this game? if it isn't good why keep it?

  • matt_dangelo

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 1:32 pm PT

    ouch that stinks for those peple, i hope the people who are fired can get other jobs

  • smoothn00dle

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 10:09 am PT

    Game development is a risky business. Bioshock, Mass effect if these fail to sales, Bioware and 2k will lost 3 yrs of time and resources. Unlike Hollywood movie which can count on Star power. Games has nothing only graphic and gameplay which is hard to measure.

  • Shtinky

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 9:53 am PT

    I'm sure GameSpot's review helped:

    Fury is what Guild Wars would be like if it got fat and addicted to amphetamines.

  • Parker82

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 9:51 am PT

    What is fury?

  • Diobility

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 9:38 am PT

    Sounds like someone dropped the ball on something... That sucks bad.

  • MajinSean

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 9:34 am PT

    Man, all laid off before Christmas. Sounds like a bad G4 Made-for-TV Holiday movie in the works.

    "Hell Hath No Fury Like Santa....Or Auran for that matter...

  • Bgrngod

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 8:53 am PT

    Wow, so it was internal problems that led this game to suck, not just lazyness or bad design decisions. If they are laying off the staff this soon after release then that is a clear sign that there have been problems for quite awhile before release.

    Bummer. I guess this means there is no hope that the game will get patched into being decent.

  • Jade_Monkey

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 8:34 am PT

    To Sammojo:

    It is a blow to those who bought it. My friend was one of them, I was laughing at him as I told him the news last night.

  • RossRichard

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 8:06 am PT

    Wow Fury was a failure. Going free to play and taking out its parent developer so soon after release.

  • Sammojo

    Posted Dec 13, 2007 7:24 am PT

    isnt that kind of a blow to people who bought fury?

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