EA’s Visceral Melbourne studio closes

Yet more sad news for the Australian game development community, as EA’s Visceral Melbourne studio closes its doors.

A couple of tweets came through over the weekend from the Independent Game Developer’s Association Melbourne which suggested its fate would be decided on Monday.

EA has officially confirmed the closure of Visceral Melbourne today.

An EA spokesperson told MCV: "With no active project in development at that location, we’ve decided to close the Visceral Melbourne office. They are talented individuals and may find other roles elsewhere in EA, if they choose."

"EA continues to maintain its mobile studios in Melbourne which are both thriving and hiring."

Australian developers have been hit hard during the global financial crisis, with the closing of almost all high profile local teams.

The remaining publisher-owned studios are 2K Marin (Canberra studio), Sega Studios Australia (Brisbane) and fellow EA developers Firemint and Iron Monkey.

Closures in the last few years have included Team Bondi, Blue Tongue, THQ Brisbane, Pandemic, Krome and Auran.

To sign-up for the completely free MCV Pacific News Digest email service, to be launched in October in conjunction with the new MCV Pacific website, please email mcvpacific@intentmedia.co.uk with your name, job title, company name, nature of your company’s business and the country in which you’re based.