Creat confirms layoffs, outsourcing to China

Australian developer and publisher Auran Studios has confirmed that it will be cutting jobs in house and outsourcing future work to China.

Following a slow start for MMORPG Fury — distributed by Codemasters Online in Europe — CEO Tony Hilliam has said that the most dedicated of staff will remain with the company as part of a 'core' development team.

"Whilst Fury has started off slower than expected, I still see a bright and long future ahead. However, that future will not include the full 60 man development team who have worked on Fury for the past year," confirmed Hilliam.

"The future will focus on a smaller, more agile core team of Fury developers. These are people who are incredibly passionate about the game and work until four in the morning to ensure they get things done."

Auran is to release an update for Fury this week, and has recently released Battlestar Galactica for Xbox Live Arcade.

While some employees will be losing their jobs to China, fellow Australian developer Tantalus is currently looking to recruit ex-Auran staff for a new Wii and DS studio.

"During the past two year's we successfully used several outsourcing companies and will be looking to China to create much of the new content that we will release in future updates. Further more we're talking with a number of publishers in Asia regarding co-development deals," detailed Hilliam.

"In addition, Auran and Tantalus are working together with a view to selecting a number of Auran staff to be part of new Tantalus studio working on DS and Wii titles," he added.