Australian Dead Space Developer Shuts its Doors

[Marshall Honorof]

Australian Dead Space Developer Shuts its Doors

EA casts the Australian arm of the Dead Space developer into the wild.

Times are tough for Australian game studios. The indie scene [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/112636-Australian-Gaming-Industry-Thriving-Not-Dying-Says-Developer] may be booming, but a lagging global economy has taken its toll on bigger developers. Visceral Games Melbourne, which collaborated on games like Dead Space and Dante's Inferno, is the recession's latest casualty, taking 21 employees with it.

The news comes by way of the Melbourne Chapter of the International Game Developers' Association, which confirmed the studio's closure via Twitter. So far, EA has not discussed the matter with the press. At the time of its closure, Visceral Games Melbourne was developing a AAA title for the 360 and PS3, although details as to the project's nature and ultimate fate are currently unavailable.

Dead Space, Dante's Inferno, and The Godfather II (another Visceral Games production) had mixed critical reception, but strong sales. If a successful studio branch located in a major city can go under, other studios may follow in its wake. Hopefully, EA will shed some more light on the subject soon.

Source: IGN [http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/119/1195160p1.html]

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[Irridium]

Rumor has it it was closed because the new Vice President of EA's Game Label didn't think the project was sound, financially. So the studio was shut down.

Suppose we'll have to wait for EA's word on the matter.

 

[Saucycarpdog]

I would like to know what they were working on. Sometimes the shutdown projects can be quite interesting.

 

[Worgen]

This is kind of strange studio closing, I mean, didn't all of Visceral's games make a pretty good return?

 

[Terminate421]

Will this mean no Dead Space 3?

If that happens then.....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

 

[Arkynomicon]

Dead Space 2 was so boring I think I can live without Dead Space 3.

 

[Ross Limmage]

yahtzee would be proud XD

 

[Michael Hirst]

Game sells lots of copies and the studio falls through, there's got to be a hidden issue here, either they paid their staff too much and didn't invest their profits back into developing or EA were taking up too much of the profits that games like Dead Space made.

I'm not going to say by any means that Dead Space 1&2 are perfect but they were bloody good fun and definitely an improvment of Capcoms recent Resident Evil titles.

 

[Ulquiorra4sama]

If this means an end to the god-awful Dead Space franchise then i will dance on a table in only my underwear from dawn 'til dusk while singing St. Elmo's fire. (Ok i probably won't, but i'll still be very happy)
Though i can't imagine that happening 'cause for some reason some people seem to like Dead Space and you don't stop producing what sells, i guess.

So long as no Montreal branches of anyhting start shutting down i'll be fine. And, yes, i was thinking specifically of Ubisoft in caseyou were wondering.

 

[Doclector]

This is kind of strange studio closing, I mean, didn't all of Visceral's games make a pretty good return?

Yeah, i mean, the closure of blackrock studios by disney was evil, but understandable, brilliant as split/second and pure were, they didn't do to well. That, And disney is pure unfiltered evil wearing mouse ears.

But I coulda swore that even dante's inferno, one of the weaker games to emerge out of the studio, was pretty successful. What the hell, EA?

Also, does anyone know how many other studios visceral have besides the australian one? Call me a dribbling moron, but the dead space trilogy demands completion.

 

[UnravThreads]

This is kind of strange studio closing, I mean, didn't all of Visceral's games make a pretty good return?

If this means an end to the god-awful Dead Space franchise then i will dance on a table in only my underwear from dawn 'til dusk while singing St. Elmo's fire. (Ok i probably won't, but i'll still be very happy)
Though i can't imagine that happening 'cause for some reason some people seem to like Dead Space and you don't stop producing what sells, i guess.

Will this mean no Dead Space 3?

If that happens then.....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Sigh. Does anyone read the article anymore? This is one arm, a rather minor one at that, of Visceral that is closing. The rest of the company is still intact. If the project Melbourne was looking like a flop, and they weren't going to be doing anything guaranteed to work, then it would be the removal of dead weight. It's entirely possible that they will form their own studio and create a block buster (As has often happened in the past), or they might merge with another - we don't know. It says in the article they collaborated with other parts of Visceral on those games, not that they were responsible for wholly developing them. For all we know, they might have done what some Rockstar studios do and just ported them or worked on one aspect of the games.

But Dead Space isn't going anywhere, Visceral as a brand isn't going anywhere, nothing is happening bar the closure of a small part of a larger company.

 

[Th37thTrump3t]

Also, does anyone know how many other studios visceral have besides the australian one? Call me a dribbling moron, but the dead space trilogy demands completion.

Dead Space is a Trilogy? I thought the second one offered enough closure to be the end.

 

[Ghengis John]

Ummmm wait a minute. Weren't they pretty successful in producing profitable triple A titles quickly and under budget? Why do you close the doors on that? It feels like the FOX methodology where moderate hits are unacceptable and get canned in the hopes of attaining mega hits.

Sigh. Does anyone read the article anymore?

Well to be fair the article is a little misleading. For that matter I didn't know there was anything to visceral games beyond melbourne, because frankly I don't know that much about visceral games. It's the articles job to properly inform people and since confusion doesn't seem to be an isolated incident I think it's fair to say it's not the reader's fault for misunderstanding.

Though I will second your sentiments on Dead Space. An IP that large wouldn't go anywhere even after the death of it's original studio.

 

[Ulquiorra4sama]

This is kind of strange studio closing, I mean, didn't all of Visceral's games make a pretty good return?

If this means an end to the god-awful Dead Space franchise then i will dance on a table in only my underwear from dawn 'til dusk while singing St. Elmo's fire. (Ok i probably won't, but i'll still be very happy)
Though i can't imagine that happening 'cause for some reason some people seem to like Dead Space and you don't stop producing what sells, i guess.

Will this mean no Dead Space 3?

If that happens then.....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Sigh. Does anyone read the article anymore? This is one arm, a rather minor one at that, of Visceral that is closing. The rest of the company is still intact. If the project Melbourne was looking like a flop, and they weren't going to be doing anything guaranteed to work, then it would be the removal of dead weight. It's entirely possible that they will form their own studio and create a block buster (As has often happened in the past), or they might merge with another - we don't know. It says in the article they collaborated with other parts of Visceral on those games, not that they were responsible for wholly developing them. For all we know, they might have done what some Rockstar studios do and just ported them or worked on one aspect of the games.

But Dead Space isn't going anywhere, Visceral as a brand isn't going anywhere, nothing is happening bar the closure of a small part of a larger company.

I read the article, and i know it's not a very major branch. But a guy can hope it'll have some major effect, can't he?

 

[DanielBrown]

Will this mean no Dead Space 3?

If that happens then.....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

My reaction as well, but on the other hand... No Dante's Inferno II. <3

 

[UnravThreads]

I read the article, and i know it's not a very major branch. But a guy can hope it'll have some major effect, can't he?

No, because that's selfish?

Do what I do, as it's very simple - Just ignore it.

 

[Albino Boo]

I suspect half of these shutdowns are to reopen them in other places to take advantage of tax breaks. Fire most of the staff, move the team principles to news studio. DADA new studio whith nice shiny tax breaks

 

[the spud]

I would hardly say that Dead Space had a mixed critical reaction. Most of the reviews were pretty positive.

 

[scar_47]

So a small arm of a successful developer closed odds are their current project either went bust or was looking rather dismal and they cut their losses fairly common in any business to restructure or dissolve an underperformind division that all that happened here. The whole of Visceral is probably going to end up stronger not trying to carry the extra weght.