Sad news, today, as another Australian studio gets shut-down. Visceral Studios' Melbourne studio is no more.
It started with tweets and rumours over the weekend, and has today become confirmed fact. Visceral Studios' Melbourne office has joined a swathe of local studios to be shut down recently.
Owned by Electronic Arts (who recently bought out local mobile developer, FireMint), the local office was part of the overall Visceral Studios, who have offices in the US, Canada and China. EA told MCV Pacific that " With no active project in development at that location, we’ve decided to close the Visceral Melbourne office. They are talented individuals and may find other roles elsewhere in EA, if they choose."
Once again, though, the official site is slow to be updated. The Melbourne office is still included on the Visceral Studios site, and the latest Visceral blog entry even features local developer Gerry Sakkas. He signs off the blog with "Working at EA Visceral Melbourne Studio is one of the best experiences I have ever had and there is never a day where I dread coming in to what some people call ‘work'."
Ouch.
Visceral Melbourne joins the ranks of recently defunct local studios such as Team Bondi, THQ studios Blue Tongue and THQ Australia.
As always, our best wishes go out to all those affected by the shutdown.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012