Canberra's premier game development studio has undergone another name change which has been causing some confusion around the recent X-COM press releases. Initially, they were known as Irrational Games Australia for the longest while, ever since the studio was set up back in 1997. They were renamed as 2K Australia in 2007, a year after Take-Two Interactive acquired Irrational Games (Boston and Australia).
But now things are starting to get a little bit muddled up. While 2K Boston have reverted back to the original Irrational Games moniker, it was thought that 2K Australia would continue working without any name changes. However, a representative from 2K Games, while speaking to 1UP, has thrown this gem into the mix...
Speaking to 1UP this morning, a representative from 2K Games confirmed that 2K Marin and the studio formerly known as 2K Australia are now "sister studios" acting under the 2K Marin banner, meaning that last night's announcement that the game is being developed by 2K Marin is, while technically true, a bit misleading.
While the Australian team (which 2K is officially calling "the Canberra, Australia arm of 2K Marin") contributed a significant amount of development to BioShock 2, its core creative team as one might traditionally define it was housed in Marin itself.
So, they're now called "2K Marin, the Canberra / Australia arm"? That's quite a mouthful.
The most peculiar thing about this is that their website, www.irrational.com.au, promotes the company as 2K Australia, but they've been given this title of "2K Marin, the Canberra / Australia arm", which is bound to confuse anyone who visits. (edit: just noticed that they do have a www.2kaustralia.com). Of course, that's not to mention that Canberra, Australia is as far as you can get from California, so it's puzzling to simply lump the two studios under one location-referring name.
Oh, and the other important news is that "2K Marin, the Canberra / Australia arm" is in fact, leading the charge on the X-COM reboot. The studio did an amicable job on Tribes: Vengeance (unfortunately, the game didn't do quite so well sales wise), but we're very much looking forward to seeing how they handle this property.
Oooh?
"Oh, and the other important news is that "2K Marin, the Canberra / Australia arm" is in fact, leading the charge on the X-COM reboot."
Is there a public source on that? That's a great piece of positive news (rare these days) for the local industry if true.
1up
Click on the link in the news item for the original 1up story which says "2K Marin's Australian division will handle the tactile earth defense game's reimagining". The whole gist of that story is that the press release saying 2K Marin (in Novato, California) handling X-COM isn't quite correct since it's 2K Marin Canberra, Australia doing it.
The 2K Australia name is no longer used
"The 2K Australia name is no longer used" - 2K Games representative Charlie Sinhaseni...