The post states that Auran “reached [its] time limit” to keep Fury up and running. Out of options, the company has been forced to take the very sudden action of shutting down the game’s servers and website within the next 48 hours. As such, I’ve included the contents of the post after the jump.

Not really a shock, or even a blip on the radar, but it signals the end of an unhappy page in the history of Australian game developers.

Fury Closing Down [Fury forums, thanks Alistair]

We have reached our time limit to find a solution that would help us keep the Fury servers open. Sadly, no solution has been found and so we have no alternative than to shut the servers down in 48 hours.

To all those players who have enjoyed Fury and played countless battles, I am sorry that we could not find a viable business model that would allow you to continue playing. To all those naysayers and doomsdayers, we know that deep down you wanted Fury to succeed. Have fun with your parting wishes

To the Auran team, who put their heart and soul into making Fury, thanks for your efforts. As I said many times before, we need to be much better than the competition to have a chance of succeeding. We gave it everything we had and history now judges that it still wasn’t good enough.

Whilst this marks the end of the Fury chapter, who knows what the future may bring. There were many gems hidden within Fury and many lessons learned. Hopefully one day the full potential can be realised in some other form.

So for now, so long and thanks for all the fish.

P.S. We informed all stores more than a month ago to remove stock from their shelves. If you have purchased a copy of Fury in the past month, we suggest you return it to the store.
P.P.S. This website will also close down in 48 hours.

If you were wondering how the $25,000 is to be divided, don’t worry, I was curious too. According to lead designer Cameron McNeil, players in the top bracket can earn $250 a week, while those at the arse-end can collect $8 per week. There are ten brackets all up.

Auran CEO Tony Hilliam says the Fury League is to be “more like a sport than a traditional computer game.” To me, it sounds like the developer is, in an indirect way, bribing people to play. Cash for victory is a good incentive, but shouldn’t gamers want to play because it’s fun? If it’s an extreme measure to bolster the player base, fair enough, but is the model sustainable? Where’s the cash coming from?

Not that any of this will matter if the ladders can’t get off the ground. I noticed this clause in the release:

A minimum of 2,000 players completing at least 10 games each prior to the commencement of the first Ladder period is required to justify the prize pool. Insufficient entries will result in either postponement or cancellation of the Ladders.

Is Fury currently running with less than 2,000 players? Not the most encouraging numbers.

All the info after the jump.

Fury League Prize List Breakdown
2,000 individual cash prizes to be won.

Brisbane, Australia, May 12 2008.
Auran Games, creators of the new free to play skill-based online competition “Fury League” (www.FuryLeague.com), today announced the breakdown of the $25,000 in cash prizes that will be won over the next few weeks.

“We have established Fury League to be more like a sport than a traditional computer game,” said Tony Hilliam, Auran CEO. “We want to encourage friendly rivalry and competition between players on a weekly basis rather than opting for larger more infrequent prizes that reward only the top few players. Fury League will offer Ladders with prizes every single week and to kick things off we are starting with two Cash Ladders with 1,000 individual prizes per Ladder.”

“We have created 10 prize brackets ensuring players at every skill level have a great chance of winning a prize,” said Cameron McNeil, Fury Lead Designer. “It is also a great incentive to play a little more to get into a higher prize bracket. The prizes range from $250 for the 8 winners in the top bracket, down to $5 for the 288 winners in the 10th bracket. I don’t know of any other totally free to enter competition that has offered this many prizes, and we are looking forward to seeing thousands of players in game in the coming weeks.”

“Even a player in 70th place will earn $25 cash,” said Hilliam, “Chances are if he came 70th in the first week, he could repeat that performance and win another $25 the next week. Of course just like my weekly Saturday golf game, it’s not really the money that counts, but rather the bragging rights amongst your mates that is more important.”

Entry into the special Fury League “Cash Ladders” is totally free and conditions of entry can be found at www.FuryLeague.com. The first Cash Ladder will kick off May 20 with players competing in 8 v 8 team Vortex. The second will begin on May 27 with players competing in the 4 v 4 Elimination game type.

A minimum of 2,000 players completing at least 10 games each prior to the commencement of the first Ladder period is required to justify the prize pool. Insufficient entries will result in either postponement or cancellation of the Ladders. Players can create their free account or log on to their old Fury account before May 20 to ensure a good level of competition for the cash prizes.

All players begin with all abilities and 10,000 Fury Gold to spend on the armour of their choice, so it is a level playing field from the very start.

The full breakdown of prizes and more information about Fury League can be found at www.FuryLeague.com

About Fury League
Fury League is a free to play (F2P) fast-paced arena combat game where players can turn their skill into cash. All players have equal access the same equipment and abilities and so individual skill is required to win. Players compete in 6 different game types and can win Fury Gold prizes. Fury Gold can be converted into cash, with a small processing fee applying to each withdrawal. Players can pay Fury Gold to enter certain game types and Gold Ladders to win larger prizes.

About Fury League Cash Ladders
As a special promotion to kick start the new Fury League, two special Cash Ladders with $25,000 in prize money will operate from May 20 and May 27. Once the Cash Ladders are completed, future prizes will be awarded as Fury Gold.

Okay, there’s more to it than the cash-for-gaming aspect. Instead of earning abilities, new players will receive all 400+ on offer and 10,000 worth of Fury gold to deck themselves out. Sounds a bit like the tournament servers Blizzard recently introduced to World of Warcraft, but I could be mistaken.

According to the press release, Auran believes it’s finally found the right balance of elements for its game, with CEO Tony Hilliam stating that “there are two things [our core community] really want – a game where skill is rewarded not time played and the chance to win cool prizes”. $25,000 in prizes is a hunky number, but it’s a far cry from the arse-kicking $1 million worth Auran offered during the game’s beta.

You can’t blame Auran for putting continued effort into making the game respectable. It’s just hard to see how those efforts will be rewarded after the game’s bumpy reception and the subsequent downsizing of the studio.

Full release after the jump.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Fury League – Where Gamers turn their Skill into Cash.
2,000 individual cash prizes to be won this month.

Brisbane, Australia, May 8 2008.
Auran Games, creators of Fury, the fast-paced arena combat game, today announced the launch of a new skill-based online competitive format called Fury League (www.FuryLeague.com). Players can not only test their skills against other players but also win Fury Gold which can be converted into real cash.

To introduce players to the new “turn skill into cash” concept, the Fury League Qualifying Season will run throughout the month of May. This is a totally free to play Qualifying Season aimed at building a large social and competitive online community based around fast paced arena combat.

To get the competitive juices flowing, and to ensure plenty of hard fought competition, the Qualifying Season will culminate in two special “Cash Ladders”. The top 1,000 players on each Ladder will win cash prizes with a total of $25,000 to be won. The first Cash Ladder will kick off May 20 with players competing in 8 v 8 team Vortex. The second will begin on May 27 with players competing in the 4 v 4 Elimination game type.

In addition to the Cash Ladders, for every game played during the Qualifying Season players earn one Free game entry in Fury League which will kick off in June. Players can earn up to a maximum of 1,000 free game entries, so players of every skill level will be rewarded for participating in Qualifying Season matches.

“We have listened to our core community and there are two things they really want – a game where skill is rewarded not time played and the chance to win cool prizes,” said Tony Hilliam, Auran CEO. “We are very excited to deliver the ultimate skill-based competitive online game that will satisfy both these wishes – tangible cash prizes and a game where skill is your only advantage.”

“We have been working very hard behind the scenes and in consultation with our players identifying what worked well in Fury and what didn’t,” Hilliam continued. “We have created a safer environment for new players to learn the fast-paced action, and we have totally removed any “grind” for gear or abilities. This is the perfect opportunity for players to step up and test their skill for free and earn cash for playing games.”

“Our statistics show that once people win three to five games, chances are they are hooked,” said Cameron McNeil, Fury Lead Designer. “So ensuring a fair fight is the key to growing our player population. By putting up $25,000 in cash prizes for the Qualifying Season, we are confident we’ll see a huge increase in player numbers. This will lead to closer matches and ultimately more fun for everyone. Rising up the Ladders to win bigger cash prizes is also a great incentive for players to push through the learning curve and discover the depth Fury combat has to offer.”

“To ensure a level playing field, we have given all 400+ abilities to almost 200,000 existing player accounts and every new player receives these abilities for free as well,” said Cameron. “In addition, everyone who logs on this month receives 10,000 Fury Gold to spend on new armor for use in the Qualifying Season, prior to an inventory reset in June. There are also new starter and advanced Archetypes designed by top players in the Fury community, and of course a host of other game and performance improvements. We are really looking forward to building the Fury League community to the point of offering hundreds of thousands of Fury Gold prizes every month.”

Fury League is the result of three years of previous Fury development and experience plus six further months of re-engineering, re-design and improvements. No other game has ever created a level playing field where players can turn their gaming skills into cash every month. Every player has access to the same items and abilities from the start and so the winners will be those players that develop the best combination of character customization, map knowledge, combat awareness, individual skill and teamwork.

Fury League will operate much more like an online sport than a traditional computer game. Rather than character progression or an unfolding story, players work on improving their performance as an individual and as a team member. Players can simply have fun with friends and see who has the best score on a given day, or they can get more serious and compete for prize money.

Fury League will continue to evolve and expand over the coming months with the ability to challenge other players for Gold and to spectate on other matches. Existing Fury players will also be compensated for prior purchases as part of the transition to Fury League.

More information about Fury League can be found at www.FuryLeague.com
About Fury League:
Fury League is a free to play (F2P) fast-paced arena combat game where players can turn their skill into cash. All players have equal access the same equipment and abilities from the start and so individual skill is the difference between winning and losing. Players compete in 6 different game types and can win Fury Gold prizes. Importantly, Fury Gold can also be converted into cash, with a small processing fee applying to each withdrawal. Withdrawals are limited to one per account per month.

Two game types are free to play forever, and the other 4 game types (Premium Games) will require a Fury Gold entry fee (from a few cents per game). Every player also starts each month with 10 free Premium Game entries. Fury Gold can be purchased from the online Fury store using credit card or Paypal with additional payment methods to come. Players can also choose a $10 monthly subscription and receive unlimited free Premium Games plus special sanctuary (non-combat) items and emotes.

Players can also use Fury Gold to enter additional “Gold Ladders” for a chance to win major Fury Gold prizes. The Gold Ladder prizes will be awarded to the top 50% of entries so even if you aren’t competing for 1st place, you will win Fury Gold by finishing ahead of half the field.

In the next major update, players will have the ability to enter Fury Gold Challenge matches where players wager Fury Gold, with a winner take all prize pool. Future updates will offer spectating options plus a Live Tournament mode where players vie for supremacy in a live knock-out competition.

Existing Fury players can log on and patch directly to the latest Fury League build and all players who purchased Fury or items from the Fury store will be compensated for their prior support. Players who purchase Fury from a retail store or online will receive Fury Gold and a month free subscription.
Earn Free Games during Qualifying Season
The game types that earn free Premium Games are:

Vortex – two 8 man teams compete to return 4 crystals to their base before their opponents. Stealing crystals and mounting a good defence to protect your own crystals is the difference between winning and losing. Controlling both the Team Offense and Defense nodes can also make this task much easier.

Elimination 4 v 4 – a team-based best of 5 round elimination match on mid-sized
arenas. Knowledge of power-up placement and map layout, combined with teamwork are the keys to success.

Elimination 1 v 1 – played on smaller arenas, 1 v 1 is best of 3 round elimination match requiring a mix of DPS and survivability. Winning is often about having the right abilities on your quickbar to counter your opponent in any situation.

Bloodbath – a free for all slug fest where players must decide whether to fight or flee. Collect points by killing other players and target the Top 5 Leaders to earn maximum points.

Carnage – two teams compete for a high score by killing computer opponents and picking up the Blood Tokens they leave behind. Take 10 tokens back to your base and the winners are the team with the highest tally after 8 minutes. The other team can be slowed down by taking down their players before they return the tokens to their base.

In addition, Bloodbath Training Grounds is the ideal place for new players to test their skills against some fairly friendly computer opponents in a free for all Bloodbath contest. Until you can consistently win at Training Grounds, we suggest you stay away from the more competitive game types.

Recently, Australian Gamer decided to take a trip to the company’s headquarters in Queensland for a walk-through and catch-up. Yes, Auran is still plugging away at Fury.

The interview with Tony Hilliam on the second page has everything you could possibly want to know about the state of Fury right now. Boiled down, Hilliam admits Auran made mistakes with the launch and design of the game, such as the difficulty for new players to get into it, and that numbers remain “disappointing”. To counter these points, he says that the new business model, bug fixes and additional features have turned Fury into a “new game”.

If only confidence and positive words were enough.

A Visit to Auran Games [Australian Gamer]

Shortly after the release of Age of the Chosen, Auran was able to confirm that it had even more updates in the pipeline, but surely, three months on, what developers are left have to be operating on two cornflakes and half a can of Red Bull?

Apparently not. MMORPG.COM managed to get a hold of Auran’s CEO Tony Hilliam at GDC 2008, and Hilliam was able to reassure the site that the 13-year old company is committed to Fury. Yet, my eyebrows couldn’t help but elevate at a few of Hilliam’s comments:

Tony informed me that the game has done pretty well in Australia, and wasn’t far behind their expectations for that region.

According to previous comments by Hilliam, Australian sales surpassed that of the States, which the man himself conceded was far from a good thing. It also seems that Oz sales have been upgraded from “okay” to “[have done] pretty well”.

Obviously the game isn’t going to go much farther without additional funding or a sale, and Hilliam says that Auran has a few options:

Tony said that there were several interested parties, but he couldn’t say much as nothing had been finalised at the time of the interview.

I’m surprised there’s any activity at all after the sledging Hilliam gave the Oz development scene not long ago. Still, you have to give the guy credit for not giving up on his baby.

Catching Up With Fury [MMORPG.COM, via Blue's News]

The first part of the interview sees Hilliam deconstruct the failure of Fury, citing poor sales in the US and Europe and the sheer size of World of Warcraft as contributing factors:

“Ultimately, sales of Fury were worse than our low case projections. We did OK in Australia, we were top 10 in Australia, but Europe was a complete write-off. In the US – again the Australian sales have nearly outstripped the US market altogether. When Australia is almost your biggest market, you have a problem.”

It’s not all rotten, though. Tom Crago paints a more alluring picture of the local development scene:

“I think the game development industry in Australia is in a great place in terms of the growth we’ve enjoyed,” said Crago. “Revenue-wise we’re in excess of $130 million.”

Understandably Hilliam doesn’t completely agree with Crago’s outlook. In fact, he’s quick to direct developers away from our sunny shores:

“I’ve spent a lot of time in China and once they … they’re very good at copying things at the moment and I think once they get a bit more creative, they’re really going to be a force to reckon with.

“Asia and Eastern Europe are going to replace Australia as an outsourcing post. I don’t see a lot of confidence in seeing the thing grow and grow as it has done in the last 10 years.”

Ah man, Tony, why do you have to go and be so down on Oz?

Don’t worry, there’s more to the chat than Hilliam’s negativity, so be sure to check out the InvestorTV link for the entire article.

Boom or gloom for battle-hardened video game studios [InvestorTV, via Sumea]

It was only a few months ago that Auran Developments, which managed the company, went into administration, resulting in a downsizing of Auran’s healthy 85 employees to a skeletal 15.

According to the article, Auran hasn’t thrown it’s multi-million dollar MMO Fury to the sharks just yet (as evidenced by the release of the Age of the Chosen expansion late last year), and is looking to sell the underlying tech it used to create the game.

Graham Edelsten also had this to say about the Oz industry:

Mr Edelsten says Auran will stick to less ambitious projects, saying until the investment dollars match those of their overseas counterparts it is too risky to take on the giants.

The comment sings very true. Until Australian developers receive more financial support from the government, it’s going to be hard to convince investors to spend big bucks locally.

Game still on for Auran [Courier Mail, via Sumea]

Yesterday, journalist Malcolm King posted a rather scathing opinion piece on the state of the Australian games industry over at the Courier Mail. Many of the statements made in the piece went against what I know to be true.

If the Internet were an online forum, King’s editorial would be considered an excellent attempt at trolling. So it pains me to write a reply, but to have a piece such as this in the open, without rebuttal, would be a disservice.Let’s start from the beginning:

One Melbourne programmer said “you put in the long hours, in part out of enthusiasm, but also because you’d look like a ‘quitter’ if you left work at 5pm. Fifty to sixty hour weeks are the norm and overtime is a rarity”.

This is true for many industries, not just games development. According to responses to the article on the Courier Mail’s website and Oz games development portal Sumea, it’s not even the norm.

“If you’re normally putting in fifty to sixty hour weeks and you’re not one of the very senior staff or company directors then something is wrong with the way your projects are managed,” said a commenter at Sumea.

“Comments from one CEO who is madly spinning to try to keep his company [Auran] afloat plus one programmer do not make an industry-wide trend. At the company I work for, most people are out the door 7.6 hours after they started, the vast majority of the time. There is no pressure to stay longer,” stated another on the Courier Mail’s website.

The article then appears to focus on the online gaming, which is obviously only a part of the industry as a whole. King provides 200,000 as the amount of people playing games online in Australia (sourced from The Fin and “toy and hobby trade magazines”), but does this figure include people playing games that aren’t MMOs, such as Counter-Strike, Warcraft III, Battlefield 2 and countless others? Does it include people playing games offline? Surely they’re just as important? Australia also isn’t economically isolated – games developed here are sold overseas. The PC version of Bioshock was made in Canberra by 2K Australia, and that’s done extremely well.

In my opinion, King has latched onto the downfall of Auran, and used it as an example of the Australian games industry at its finest. It’s like saying Enron was the pinnacle of business management.

King also states that “as a taxpayer, I object to spending money on projects that should be funded by the private sector”. Does King realise that the film and television industry currently enjoys the tax rebates the Oz game industry is lobbying for? King doesn’t state whether he draws issue with this fact, but it seems somewhat hypocritical that he has yet to pen an article about it during the time the rebate has been in effect.

It’s after this comment that we see the most surprising part of the article:

Government funding of online games with their adolescent fascination with slaying monsters or the combat genre, come very low on the agenda after infrastructure development, renewable power generation, massive water conservation projects, building more hospitals and educating school children.

Again the focus is on online games, but it also zeros in on a single genre as well. The tax rebate for games development in Quebec has seen a monumental boost in the province’s economy. If anything, a booming local games industry would bring more money and jobs into Australia to help pay for the social projects King mentions. And games certainly don’t have to be hack’n’slash titles like Fury, which King is clearly isolating with his statement. Super Mario Galaxy doesn’t involve stabbing anyone with a sharp implement, and neither does Guitar Hero, Buzz or Singstar – all extremely social and friendly games.

King ends his article with the following:

“There’s never been a better time as a student to get into this industry – hopefully the graduate talent pool will be big enough to meet the demand because I anticipate seeing even more hiring from Australian studios in the next 12 months,” said Tom Crago, CEO of Tantalus at the Melbourne Games Development Conference last December.

But strangely neither he nor any one else mentioned the less than shining example the scaled-back Fury had set in the same week.

Fury has hurt the local games industry, that’s true. But if you’re going to mention the bad, you should also highlight the good – Bioshock (2K Australia), Destroy All Humans! (Pandemic), The Legend of Spyro series (Krome Studios), Medieval 2: Total War (Creative Assembly Australia), Heroes of the Pacific (Transmission Games) and more. These companies have done well, and nothing suggests they won’t continue to do so. And Auran made a huge impact with Dark Reign, which despite Fury’s failure, should not be neglected.

Malcolm King does present us with a reality of games development – a distorted one. I suggest if he wishes to take shots at the industry in the future, he should, at the very least, consult with more of those working in it.

I’ve contacted both Tantalus’ CEO Tom Crago and Infinite Interactive’s main man Steve Fawkner for their thoughts. According to Crago, the Courier Mail will be posting his reply in the near future.

Reality behind the passion [Courier Mail, via Sumea]

There are some intriguing insights into the lead up to Auran’s end of days, as well as the company itself. For example, Alistair mentions that Auran had quite a few extremely talented people working for the company that Auran failed to retain:

For me, the first sign that something wasn’t quite right was when one of the star graphics programmers informed Auran he was going to leave if he wasn’t put on something interesting. This guy (while never admitting it himself) was basically Carmack 2.0. He is the kind of person that good companies would give almost anything to have on their team. However, at Auran, they just let him slip away even after giving them a direct option to resolve the problem. The other problem was when the three leads (programming, art and QA) all resigned within a couple of weeks of each other.

Along with an inability to hold on to talented staff, Doulin cites the extreme focus on just one project, Fury, and a lack of communication as other undermining factors.

Obviously, the blog is based off Doulin’s personal observations. If they are to be believed – and I see no reason not to at this stage – they paint a rather damning picture of Auran Developments’ upper management. It’d be good to see another insider’s perspective on the events that transpired, and we’ll do our best here at Kotaku AU to chase it up. Understandably, the topic is still a sensitive one for many.

What Auran Did Wrong [Doolwind's Game Coding Journal]

According to Sumea, the studio is welcoming ex-Auran folk to apply for positions at the company – specifically designers, coders and quality assurance people with plenty of experience. 2K Australia’s even happy to help out with relocation costs if you’re particularly pro. From the story:

We offer relocation assistance for mid-senior candidates and we spoil out staff members with movie nights, daily fruit and subsidised health and gym.

Sounds like a sweet deal to me.

Technically, anyone is free to apply for a position at 2K Australia, but I’m sure the ex-Auran guys appreciate the personalised invite.

2K Australia is Hiring [Sumea]