Auran Is Dead
Just spoke to some ex-colleagues of mine from Auran. Auran Developments (who hires the dev team) has just gone into liquidation and has shut up shop. The guys don’t get paid this week, they don’t get their holidays paid out, and they don’t get redundancy packages.
I’m really sorry to hear this, and my thoughts go out to all the guys, particularly so close to Christmas.
Update:
As some people are reporting, there is a chance that the guys will get paid out, but if so it won’t happen for at least a few months once the liquidation is sorted. The fact is that none of them are getting a dime for the time being (and most likely not before Christmas).
For more info visit GEERS website.
Update 2:
I’ve been given the website of a refugee group for all the ex-employee’s with info on how the liquidation etc is going. Email me directly if you are an ex-employee and want this info.
Update 3:
I’ve been contacted by a number of game companies that are offering positions for anyone affected by the liquidation. If you are looking for work, again please contact me directly and I’ll get you in contact with their reps.
Update 4:
I’ve been asked to reiterate that the only company involved in this liquidation is Auran Developments. MyVirtualHome (who have nothing to do with Auran anymore) are unaffected.
Feed
Subscribe By Email
Twitter
Alistair you of all people should cut the guys a break. People have a right to be angry but you and the readers of this blog are not among them. The government have provisions for this sort of thing to make sure people get looked after, so let it be and give Auran and its staff the dignity they deserve; its bad enough as it is.
“Alistair you of all people should cut the guys a break. People have a right to be angry but you and the readers of this blog are not among them. The government have provisions for this sort of thing to make sure people get looked after, so let it be and give Auran and its staff the dignity they deserve; its bad enough as it is.”
are you serious????? the last official word we heard was that things were going fine, next we know almost the entire company is unemployed. i say good on you doolwind for giving a voice to the people.
@ David Gillespie -> How do you mean a break? I thought he was just posting the news and put forth his condolences? I didn’t see him badger them or anything?
wow… auran ex-employees flaming up together!
hey guys btw ^^
good luck to all of you guys from Auran.
May I point out that although I’ve known auran for the past 7 years, though Trainz, its only one of the “sub companies” if you like, that has gone bankrupt, Auran Games will still be going as far as I know of. Since I haven’t been told about any other developments with Auran, I’ll assume that the 2 programs they developed (Trainz, which for them was a big successs and Fury, a flop at the moment) will continue to be developed for as long as possible.
Yes, companies come and go, some go bankrupt for simple quality control reasons, others are due to consummer pressures (NTL) and governmont pressures (Sea Containers, the owner of GNER)
Hey Alistair, Cliff, David, Franky and the rest of y’all. Text or email me if there is a wake to go to in town anytime today or this weekend. I’m not hiring/poaching and I don’t want to tapdance on anyone’s grave, I just want to support anyone who needs it, or at least give them a drinking buddy. –Matt, first rat off the ship
I should just leave a brief comment saying Al and I had a chat this morning and agreed it is an awful situation any way you look at it. I went into Mother Duck mode as I still have a lot of respect for Auran and its staff and apologised thusly; Al acknowledged the headline was perhaps a touch dramatic.
Looking forward to catching up when I get back to Queensland next week Dools! =]
It’s the end of the world! I’m switching my career to a full time alcoholic…
Hi guys,
I specialise in the placement on gamers across Australia. Contact me and I will try my hardest to find you a job that suits you
bmcgowan@aristotlecorp.com.au
+61 3 8622 4014
[...] the beta has become an abomination, forcing its developers, Auran, into bankrupcy (Source 1 and source 2). In a final effort to stop the game from failing, it has been made F2P, with a restriction on [...]
What the scoop on Auran being sold to American Interest?
http://www.kotaku.com.au/games/2007/12/tony_hilliam_rumours_of_auran.html
Auran are not going bankrupt.
It is part of a normal cull from post-release and development of the game “unleash the fury” (aka FURY). Which is a pity because FURY is only just coming right finally.
I was an early FURY player and I can tell you, the game only flopped because they completely re-wrote the game 2 days before the pre-releases were to be handed out to those who purchased them (thus making it BETA again).
Then after they screwed that up (we ended up with pings of like 500-600 on the main server, and thousands of bugs, which you would expect from a BETA verison) they completely re-wrote the whole game from scratch again.
The screen shots and advertisements are nothing like the actual in-game now.
Although the graphics engine was retained, most of the game play is different.
Also there are many players who forked out for pre-release copies only to find they didn’t get the promised armor code and then after the second re-write found they had limited free accounts and had paid the $90 for absolutely nothing.
Talking to some people involved in the Beta I think bad planning and upper management are mostly to blame for the FURY debacle.
So you are saying Auran is TU and I can’t get to TRS2006 and I can’t get to missing dependcies now? This is just so much bad news. Should have taken TRS2006 and the half of a gig with the dependent things and shoved it off to a dedicated hard drive.
This news presents a problem. Al Barton has always been in favor of Virtual Railroading. It beats the hell out of $800 on a locomotive but there is always the real thing anyway.