Game developer 2K Australia closes Canberra studio

[OrbingStorm]

One of Australia's most successful game developers has closed its Canberra operations with management citing development costs.

A spokesman for 2K Australia, the developer of Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, confirmed the closure on Thursday afternoon. The company was the last big games developer in Australia.

"We can confirm we have taken steps to begin the studio closure process for 2K Australia in order to better manage ongoing development costs while improving the working proximity of our creative teams," the spokesman said.

"We are very grateful for the team's valuable contributions to numerous 2K projects, and are working with affected staff to explore reassignment opportunities where possible."

Employment with the Canberra studio fluctuated between projects but was often staffed by around 40 people.

Matt Stimson, Canberra chair of the International Game Development Association, said the closure was a huge blow to the Australian industry and was odd timing.

"If they are citing operational costs as the reason for closing then it is interesting they have waited until now when the Australian dollar has started to drop, as opposed to two years ago," he said.

"There are not many other studios in Australia capable of getting those sort of figures and the games were well regarded with players across the world."

The Braddon based studio was established in 2000 as Irrational Games Australia before being bought by 2K Games in 2006.

The game developers achieved notoriety in 2006 with the production of BioShock and have since worked on a number of internationally successful games such as The Bureau: XCOM Declassified.

Before the release of their most popular game Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, the studio had already sold more than 18 million copies of two games worldwide.

Mr Stimson said the closure of 2K Australia was bad news for the future of the gaming industry in Canberra.

"There has been a strong pedigree of developers coming out of the ACT and I think this is going to make it more difficult to grow an industry in this town," he said.

"There have been some glimmers of success from other developers in the territory but they are teams of two or three people and really cannot be compared with 2K."

Late last year, the Canberra based management of 2K Australia said they received close to 10 emails a day from people wanting to visit them or work for them.

source..

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/digital-life/games/game-developer-2k-australia-closes-canberra-studio-20150416-1mmg3l.html