Auran confirms layoff of Fury dev team, ex-staff moves to Tantalus

After a rather lukewarm reception for Auran‘s MMORPG Fury, CEO Tony Hilliam confirmed the sixty-man retrenchment of the original development team in favor of outsourcing any future work to China. The decision was linked to the rather slow start the MMORPG received upon its release last October.

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After a rather lukewarm reception for Auran‘s MMORPG Fury, CEO Tony Hilliam confirmed the sixty-man retrenchment of the original development team in favor of outsourcing any future work to China. The decision was linked to the rather slow start the MMORPG received upon its release last October.

Hilliam explained this decision by saying:

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. The future will focus on a smaller, more agile core team of Fury developers.

Fortunately for the laid off employees, fellow Australian developer Tantalus is looking to recruit the ex-Auran staff for new projects for the Nintendo Wii and DS. Hilliam mentioned that both Auran and Tantalus will be working together on future projects with the new Tantalus studio focusing on the Nintendo platforms.

Regardless of this development, Auran will still be releasing content for Fury starting with the Age of the Chosen free update by next week. Auran is already moving forward with its other projects such as the release of Battlestar Galactica for the Xbox Live Arcade.