Bye-bye Red Ant

The global financial crisis scores another scalp as local games publisher Red Ant goes into receivership.

Sad news for the local games industry – local gaming distributor, Red Ant Enterprises, has gone into receivership as of the 16th of this month. In the cold hard words of the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, the company is "under external administration and/or a controller has been appointed".

A number of employees have already left the company, and it’s unknown how long those remaining have in their roles.

Red Ant’s most recent success story was the hit action RPG Fallout 3. The company had a lot of big name games on its release list for 2009, including Bionic Commando, Resident Evil 5 and Street Fighter 4. Oh, yeah, and the highly anticipated Hotel for Dogs movie tie in.

Yep, we’ll all miss that one.

No one remaining at Red Ant was available for comment when we called, but we’ve been informed that an announcement is in the works. Nor could we get any comment on what Red Ant’s woes mean for the games the company as set to be releasing. Watch this space.