Auran's ex-game designer and producer, David Gillespie, made a post on his personal blog, Wide Open Spaces, about the whole Fury and Auran debacle. Gillespie expressed his sorrow for the studio he dedicated more than two years of his life for:
I remember hearing a long time ago (couldn't possibly remember the source) that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. You can see it play out with major corporations who don't alter their strategies with changing markets, flying in the face of all the evidence presented to them, watching their consumer bases shrink in slow motion before them, unable or unwilling to make the turn before the iceberg collides.
I've just finished watching it play out at a company I used to work at, Auran, a game developer based in Brisbane, Australia. Those who played strategy games in the mid-90's probably came across their biggest hit, Dark Reign, which set the company up and garnered worldwide acclaim. Of course then the publisher Activision bank-rolled a start-up and took pretty much the entire development team away; it's safe to say things never really quite got back on track...
Read the rest at David Gillespie's Wide Open Spaces.
