Visceral Games shut down *article in topic*

[Korten12]

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

-working now---

The Melbourne, Australia branch of Dead Space developer Visceral Games has been closed.

A post on the Melbourne Chapter of the International Game Developers' Association's Twitter feed confirms the closure and sends "best wishes to the 21 devs now out of a job."

We've reached out to EA's Australian office but EA has no comment at this stage.

Two days ago an anonymous source from Visceral in Melbourne told Kotaku Australia that management had informed staff that the studio will be closing on Monday September 19.

According to the source Visceral Games had been working on a AAA game for Xbox 360 and PS3 for the last three years.

Visceral Games, formerly known as EA Redwood Shores, is located in Redwood Shores, California but has branch offices in Montreal, Canada and (until today) Melbourne, Australia. Visceral Melbourne was reportedly involved in producing Dead Space, The Godfather II and Dante's Inferno.

The collapse is the most recent in a spate of console developer closures in Australia, largely due to the strong Australian dollar.

If you're from Visceral and would like to share any further information please contact us at The Outreach.

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Didn't Dead Space 2 get good sales and reviews?

 

[Korten12]

This upsets me. But what else could have been done? Stupid American dollar being all weak.

 

[Tartarga]

Hm, I wonder why the article itself didn't tell us why they're shutting down? Well in any case it wouldn't surprise me if it was more EA bullshittery, though that seems unlikely.

 

[scnj]

It definitely sucks that this has happened, but I did breathe a sigh of relief when I saw that it was only the one branch of Visceral. I want Dead Space 3.

 

[Zhukov]

I never know how to feel when a producer of not-particularly-good games gets the axe.

Although I guess Dead Space 2 was alright. Kinda.

So yeah, sucks for the people out of a job.

 

[emeraldrafael]

EDIT: Im not really sure how to feel. I was never big on Visceral games. But I guess it sucks. maybe. I dont know, sucks for the people that dont have work for sure.

 

[cookyy2k]

This upsets me. But what else could have been done? Stupid American dollar being all weak.

which explains why the branch that shut down was in Australia I suppose?

Yep as a weak american dollar makes imports expensive, meaning work done abroad is more expensive than when the dollar is strong.

 

[StriderShinryu]

This upsets me. But what else could have been done? Stupid American dollar being all weak.

which explains why the branch that shut down was in Australia I suppose?

The strength of many non-US currencies is heavily based upon the US dollar being as weak as it is. The Canadian dollar, for example, used to regularly trade below the US dollar (I think it was about $0.75 when I was growing up) and yet it's been over par for pretty much a year now since the US economy has been in the crapper.

 

[Nieroshai]

For a second I was afraid they wouldn't be making Dead Space 3. Since it's just one branch though, that's fine.

I sounded like such an ass. Oh well.

 

[Collymilad]

Feel bad for the people who are gonna lose their jobs, just glad it's not the whole of Visceral.

You can say what you like about their games but you can't deny they are at very polished (or at least the 2 Dead Spaces were) and there's a lot more potential there.

 

[cookyy2k]

Anyone else think these freshly out of work devs need to contact EC about their indie game thing? Could get some nice results there.