Auran shuts up shop

Following an official statement this week regarding staff layoffs at Australian developer and publisher Auran, an insider has now told Gamespot that the whole company is to enter liquidation.

According to Gamespot’s source, the company will meet with creditors in a month to discuss whether restructuring is possible or if full liquidation is the only option. The source reports that they will receive payment for all work to date, annual leave, redundancy payments and long service leave – although one other developer, citing what he’s been told by friends previously in Auran’s employ, is reporting that such payments are unlikely to be paid until next year.

The move marks the end of a turbulent week for Auran. First there were rumours of staff cutbacks, which prompted studio head Tony Hilliam to issue an official response admitting to the layoffs but insisting that development of its recently-released MMO Fury would continue.

Several days later the company announced that Fury would be moving to a free-to-play model, with Hilliam saying to Kotaku Australia: “We will then have some bad news to follow (unless a miracle occurs), but there will be a very positive end to the week.”

The ‘positive end’ may be the re-hiring of a core team of developers by the company, says Gamespot’s source. In the official downsizing announcement earlier this week it was revealed that the future of the company would lie in a small agile core team of developers, and Fury is said to remain online despite the liquidation – possibly corroborating the source’s suggestion.