Auran undergoing liquidation

Yep, I've also just heard the same thing from a very reliable source.

Yep.

My hubby just got given the forms to make him a creditor... a week before christmas, nice

good night Auran.

may you respawn as something more awesome.

Very sad and we wish everyone the best. It has been a long road. Qantm has been a good friend of Auran and visa versa so it is doubly sad.

For those staff at a lost as to whats next we do have a number of vacant teaching position going in 2008 so any body from Auran looking for a change in direction get in contact with us.

Our thoughts are with you.

queensland gamers union unite

"Tony downplayed the situation, stating that Auran are not finished, but just aren't requiring a full 60 man team for future projects. From Kotaku...As I explained to the staff yesterday, whilst FURY has started off slower than expected, I still see a bright and long future ahead. However, that future will not include the full 60 man development team who have worked on FURY for the past year. The future will focus on a smaller, more agile core team of Fury developers...

So the rumour mill got a number of things right or close to it, and I am happy to be able to add a little more detail. As they say in the classics, the death of Auran and FURY has been greatly exaggerated."

So essentially they lied?

No wonder they seemed upset about the rumour getting out, because it was actually true.

That really, really sucks. I could be reading it wrong, but nice of them not to pay everyone this week after making them work until Thursday, I'm sure some of them would have liked that time to work on their folios and try to get new jobs. Merry freaking Christmas.

This is terrible news if true!

My condolences to the people (and their families) involved. I hope you guys are able to find some stability going into the holiday season.

My place of work (Halfbrick Studios) is currently looking for programmers and designers, and we may be able to help some of you find new work. I've worked at Auran and a few other local places myself, and I can safely say that lifestyle and stability is something that we truly value here. Come and talk to us.

Hopefully some of the other studios around Brisbane are also hiring at this time of year and can soak the talent up.

Good luck in your search for something better.

Scott.

I've spoken to alot of other Brisbane developers in the last few weeks, and they've all been receiving alot of applications from Auran staff ... I think the vibe there was felt way before this, but no-one expected it to hit quite this hard or this harshly.

Honestly, bad form Auran for making your staff work a full week without pay before letting them know ...

Geezus, is it going to become tradition now to see an Aussie developer close shop and layoff heaps of staff just before Christmas (see: Ratbag)? Let's hope not.

Hopefully Santa can help you through the Christmas season. They say change is as good as a holiday ;)

If you want to work on a great game with great people please apply at fuzzyeyes (wink). Like the previous post, there are other studios hiring, good luck.

Cheers
John

This is terrible news for Auran staff, but there is another group that will suffer also. Recent graduates in Brisbane may find it difficult to get a job with so many experienced staff on the market.

Oh this is terrible so close to christmas to:(.

Just how much did the company invest in this game. As if Auran didn't see this coming. I don't think theirs much hope for this industry in Australia, unless Keven & his team can do something to help. , Auran was like the proud jul in our industry.

Liquidation is fact. Desks are cleared, people have gone home and are now on Sumea looking for jobs. :-(

I wonder how long until a second company springs up (Auran Developments is just a shell within the Auran Group), which will run 'core' Fury and Trainz teams.

Everyone got royally shafted at Auran - but I don't think anyone was surprised by this. The Executive Producer Tony Hilliam was designing the game on the fly with Adam Carpenter, the Creative Director - usually with no consultation with design or other leads or the production schedule. EVERY release of Fury was around 3-6 months before it was ready, as design changes were made a week before release. No focus testing was done, no one listened to staff complaining that the game was unfun, that it was unfriendly for new players and that it needed lots more work before release. Only when Adam/Tony thought of any issue themselves did things get done - which was usually a long time after the first staff member noticed it and made a suggestion. The list of 'on hold' suggestions and feature requests for Fury would make a very good PvP game.

Marketing was completely separate and clueless from Development and the whole project felt amateurish - strange from one of the longest running games companies in Australia (11 years). Upper management is clearly at fault here - project direction changed way too often, morale had been low for months, crunch time lasted 6 months, we had built at least 5 gaems, throwing out large amounts of work every time Tony/Adam decided that they needed a different game made. I have never seen a game made with such a fluid plan - there never seems to have been anything set in concrete, or even remotedly stable.

I'm sick of typing about this now - I'm off to find a job. Was actually just trying to confirm the liquidation.

I have set up a yahoo list for ex Auran employees affected by the closure. It's a *private* low-volume list for information about the administration/receivership/liquidation and the legal process of obtaining the staff entitlements.

look for the auranrefugees group on yahoo or send me a mail

drew at meeze dot com

note that i don't *have* any of that information yet, but as the process goes on I'd hope to.

Kotaku AU has let me know that they've updated their news story with the information that ex-Auran staff will receive their entitlements once the liquidation is sorted out.

My sympathies to all at Auran, and especially to the many from there that I know and count as personal friends. The timing here couldn't be worse. Good luck to all in getting new work and soon. It's regrettable that the failure of one overly-ambitious project can doom so many.

So is that all development staff at Auran, currently gone, or are there other corporate entities under the umbrella that still have dev staff?

Auran Development is under liquidation. They are the parent of all Auran companies including Auran Games which does publishing.

No, this isn't correct. Auran Developments is a separate entity from Auran Games.

My condolences to all at Auran, from everyone at Firemint. It is a terrible thing and particularly this close to Christmas.

I would urge anyone who is in financial distress to express their need to their future employer to see if they can help under these irregular circumstances (eg a loan or advance). You can't lose for asking and the market for games industry jobs is very strong so most studios should be happy to have you.

For anyone who is interested in Melbourne, there are a few positions here at Firemint also, for programmers and artists particularly. We can help with relocation costs.

When liquidation has been sorted, staff will be paid out?

For those who don't know about foreclosure of businesses, there are limited provisions for staff to make claims against the business. They're basically on par with, or even behind secured creditors. Good luck getting your money - let's hope you're one of the first!

As someone who used to work for a company that went into receivership, it's a REALLY long wait before you get any news on what you are owed. They'll spend a few months overseeing the situation before deciding to liquidate or to keep the business going, and if they choose to liquidate, it's many, many more months before they allocate any monies to you (if any). Usually, you're at the bottom of the heap of priorities, so it will take a while. In my case, I didn't even get jack shit after 5-6 months.

That's what will be happening. Administrators will meet with company creditors in January to decide whether the company can be restructured or should be moved into full liquidation. Auran refugees aren't going to see anything for a while yet.

The rumors are true, my job is pwned. despite what people are saying, Tony Hilliam is a good person and hes been behind the project the entire way, he is realy the heart and soul of fury, no one has put as much cash sweat and effort into fury than he has, but Adam Carpenter can suck my dick.

Merry Christmas.

Good Luck over Christmas Farmergnome, I hope you get a job asap.

Auran: the facts

The Directors of Auran Developments, the company that employs all the Auran staff, have today called in a Voluntary Administrator (like Chapter 11 in the US). All the staff were dismissed today. Despite earlier reports, staff will be paid for all their work to date, their annual leave entitlements, redundancy payments and long service leave.

Whilst this is the end of Auran Developments, it is far from the end of FURY and Trainz.

Trainz is the world's leading rail simulator and has a community of more than 250,000 registered users around the world. It is published in dozens of countries and there are many products in the market today. The bulk of the Trainz team will continue to work on current projects and these projects will be released next year.

With Fury, we built up a team to make a world beating game and sadly we have not reached our goals – yet. Our performance to date has meant we could no longer fund the 70 strong dev team. However, FURY: Age of the Chosen will be launched as planned Friday 8pm GMT. We have put together a small but committed team to continue developing FURY on an ongoing basis. This core team, as we announced last week, are a passionate group of people committed to making FURY a success. We will be releasing bug fixes, content and feature updates on a regular basis and in fact they will be more frequent with our new agile team.

I believe that once people hear about F:AotC and the new Free to Play business model, we'll start building up the player numbers and revenues that will make the game successful.

I expect the naysayers will have different thoughts, but they haven't played the new build…yet.

what a bunch of horse-shit

I don't find this surprising at all. It seems that Auran tried to do too much and were not focused enough on producing just one great title. A recording studio, a publishing house and middleware development effort (Auran Jet), coupled with the ongoing trainz franchise would surely have fragmented the studios focus. Maybe I'm wrong, feel free to correct me if I am - but this is just the impression I get from an external viewpoint.

I think you have it backwards. Auran focused almost all their effort on one title to try and make it great. A wider focus is a good thing when you're talking about studio longevity.

A fair few of my ex Fuzzyeyes friends went to Auran, and its a real shame this happened as they had nothing but good things to say about the place. I remember hearing Graham speak at the odd conference here and there and he was a right laugh.

Good luck to all those who have been affected

Hi everyone,

This afternoon Auran Developments, the developer of Fury was placed into voluntary administration (Chapter 11). This involved all the employees being dismissed.

However, the future of Trainz is still looking good. Trainz is owned by Auran Games and the directors are committed to continuing the projects currently under development and ensuring that Trainz remains as the number one rail simulator in the world. This involves a number of the Trainz team being re-employed by Auran Holdings, the parent company.

The current Trainz team are working with management to ensure that customers are not impacted by this transition. We wish to advise the community that Trainz, the Download Station and this community will continue as normal. We would also like to confirm that Trainz Classics 3 and other exciting projects to be announced soon will be delivered in the New Year as planned.

Cheers,

Lance Jago
Community Relations Manager, Trainz

Auran Developments (the company that employed roughly 70 people) had to go down to give the Trainz and FURY games a future. It was that or shut the doors completely.

From tomorrow, we are close to cashflow neutral. That means our revenues are close to our expenses. That means we can survive a long time and at the same time we can make the game better and better. So this is good news for FURY fans.

Good news for Fury fans? That's some consolation!

I'm sure both of them will be ecstatic.

Well the guy that posted that quote is now jobless...good one Hilliam

Good news for those guys maybe, but if if is true that there are employees still owed money who will not be receiving it soon as a result of the liquidation it is disgusting.

If employees from one part of Auran can go unpaid, while employees from another part stay working and releasing product something is seriously messed up with the system. (yes I know that it was apparently sub companies, but that seems like it was more a book keeping thing than anything else)

Saying you have the number 1 train simulator is up there with saying you have the number 1 bowel movement simulator, but i'd actually be interested in taking a look at the latter

as someone who worked at auran games and had previously come from the corporate world i would just like to say auran was the best working environment i've ever been lucky enough to work in.
while it was at times extremely stressful, the people, atmosphere and office were the most laid back, enjoyable colleagues an employee could ever ask for. its nice to wake up most mornings and look forward to going to work and achieving goals with smart friendly people. it was fun while it lasted and a shame it had to end the way it did. we all would of had a great time had it gone in the other direction :-) it certainly sucks were we're at but i know everyone there is smart enough to turn it into an opportunity to move onto bigger and better things, that is, once we get through xmas...no cookies for santa this year ;-)

brissie's a small town though so i'm sure i'll see you guys round! to most of you...it's been a pleasure

probably why it failed

So was there any truth in that rumour about Tantalus picking up a bunch of ex-Auran employees?

That was confirmed to be true

That is untrue. Tantalus have not picked up any employees.
Tantalus were up on a bargain hunting mission, looking to pick up a few desperate games people at below market rates.
No one took them up on it, and they went home.

Whatever happened to Hive? Auran's page on Sumea says:

Hive, planned for 2007, is described as "an online socialization environment that allows users to occupy a 3D avatar and interact with other users online. Participants will be able to host parties in their own self styled virtual apartment, chat, flirt, listen to music and buy the both virtual and real products."

I think PS3 is doing it already, and better, with Home.

Still not released though

That was Matthew Fords baby. I remember one year a large section of the QANTM interns were used to knock up a functional prototype of what the game would be about. I'm guessing since Matthew left Auran quite a while ago though the the game died when he left....

f*ck fury, its broken anyways, sh*t game, sh*t gameplay, all the website stuff will stop working soon anyways

f*ck tony hilliam, you're a thief...bet you got paid this week didn't you?

f*cker

tony hilliam was visably upset when i spoke to him a few days ago..

he put his heart and soul into this one...

i believe he was led astray by poor advice held too closely to him, and is probably guilty of not seeing the dangers of this...

..but all things considered i dont believe he is a thief... at all ... in fact most likely the opposite..

i hope he can recover from this... as no doubt most of us will in a few weeks or months...

as for game design......

when someone needs to tell you something is fun to play... then perhaps it isnt..

What a copout! Hilliam ran things and decided who he wanted to listen to and probably more importantly, those he decided to ignore.

Tony was PERSONALLY told by a number of frustrated and leaving members of his team of the problems that were going on. He was told lucidly, candidly, and repeatedly.

He did nothing when it was within his power to make the changes that needed to be made (Change #1 - force Adam "9-5ers pwn3d my game!" Carpenter to do his fricking job and NAIL DOWN THE DESIGN).

I'm sure Tony was convincingly upset - he's a charismatic guy. But he was the one who didn't adequately budget, or properly fund the game he wanted to make.

As far as I'm concerned, Adam Carpenter, Tony Hilliam and Graham Edelsten were the ones who were ultimately incompetent at their jobs.

Nail down the design. That was the key issue.

The patch notes for the latest build read like the complaint list most of the staff had for the Age of The Chosen content drop, in the limited play testing it received. If Adam or Tony didn't think they thought of it themselves, it never got a look in. But when eventually the players complain, then they can appear as saviours by making the changes. The process was broken.

Decrease the cost of using the item Artificer - erm, derr! The legacy item removal was a terrible idea, and badly implemented. And it was needed in the first place because of poor initial design. Is Fury an item grind or not. One day they will make up their minds.

# Decrease the amount of health bots have in Carnage
# Increased the time between attacks for Carnage bots - Botare too tough we screamed. Learn to Play is Adam's standard answer. And his lead combat designer (faithful puppy that he is) was also resistant to advice or feedback. So now that you are trying to get newbies into Fury (what a crazy idea for a game that needed thousands to survive, not hundreds!) maybe you should make it easier for them in their first few games. Being gang killed repeatedly by bots in Carnage was not the smartest thing to do.

The minimum number of games required to leave the tutorial area has been lowered to five. - Gee was this an easy one to have gotten right in the first place, but once again, because Adam had thought of 10 first, he was never going to listen to the people paid to be the voice of the player (QA). I mean, he doesn't have the sort of relationship with those lowly dogs to listen to them.

Adjusted the floating combat text font size. - and provide some combat feedback that is useful and visbvale to the players? wow - what a revolutionary idea. Next you'll separate outgoing and incoming damage... maybe...

Implemented a Beta version of movable GUIs - oh wow, so this doesn't take half a year of coding to do after all? must just have been waiting for the design spec....

Fury was never ready for release, and this was caused by a lack of solid design, stable design for engineering to implement, and complete lack of interest in feedback from a team that was passionate and cared enough about Fury to try and make it great. If some team members lost that fire by repeatedly being ignored and having their work undermined and their roles made obsolete (my favourite was when the lead gui designer was left out of the decision to set gui defaults - I mean the guy worked on command and conquer, what would he know?!?), then once again, that is Adam and Tony's fault.

Yes, I'm still angry.

Your anger and hate has made you powerful young apprentice. Strike the lead designer down and make your journey to the dark side of the force complete!

Yeah ideal time to be funny when so many good people lost jobs just before Christmas.

Its very sad to see a company go under, especially one which was created with a lot of heart. As an ex-owner of a business which very nearly went under, but I managed to turn around and then sell, I am sure that every effort was made to keep the business going. Its heart-breaking for the creator to see the downfall of something so visionary which was created from scratch. I would suspect that there was no deliberate intention to let the staff down by keeping them on an extra week. I am sure that Tony Hilliam had Christmas strongly in mind when all this was going down and was hoping to keep things going as long as possible. Possibly there was hope of a float or sale or other means of recovery, which fell through. You'd have to be pretty tough to resist advice given by people you trust when you are in a difficult situation.
Anyway, good luck to everyone there! There are lots of jobs available in the games industry right now, and if you can't find something in Qld, then there is plenty available all over the country for those who are able to move.

Definately, good luck to all the guys and girls from Auran landing yourself new positions.

You did that all by yourself did you ?

Even though employees will receive their entitlements. It will most likely come from taxpayers, once they've filled out their GEERS forms. And it will take up to 16 weeks for the money to come through.

.... and they will only get some if it.
GEERS is capped so if you worked through the six month crunch period without taking any holidays and had a lot of holidays owing, then you will loose most of them.

I have worked out that I have lost more than $33000 through this (holidays, unpaid notice, unpaid work, unpaid bonus, and more), and will probably get about $12000 back. That is a big hit for my family to take right now.

... i think that sounds optimistic $12000??

I would like to know how a company (auran development?) can go into recievership and not pay its employees...which is understandable when there is no funds to pay...it is what you can expect..

...........but then Auran Holdings?? (i think that is what it is called) the big brother company can still run the game and try to make some money from it....

when....

...........(they are using the building that was leased to Auran development?? and are still using equipment that is being audited under Auran Development??

phone lines,chairs,servers,computers,monitors, etc ... surely there is a grey area somewhere.....

.....for f@#ks sake i hear they are using the same building doing exactly what they were doing before... just with a limited staff capacity

...........with heaps of shit that if sold would help you get some off your expected $12000 .....

........which i wouldnt hold my breath for

...dont quote me on the company names... im not sure that part is correct?

but that is the scenario though..