Australian developer Auran has announced it has entered into voluntary administration and let all staff members go, just a day after announcing that massively multiplayer online game Fury would change to a free-to-play rather than subscription based business model.

A statement from company CEO Tony Hilliam said that "The Directors of Auran Developments, the company that employs all the Auran staff, have today called in a Voluntary Administrator (like Chapter 11 in the US). All the staff were dismissed today."

"Despite earlier reports," he continued, "staff will be paid for all their work to date, their annual leave entitlements, redundancy payments and long service leave."

The news follows last week's reports that the company was forced to downsize its 60 man team following the slow start for Fury and new outsourcing to Asia.

At the time, Hilliam said that after a ramp up from 30 to 70 staff members to complete Fury and its Battlestar Galactica XBLA game it had made some cutbacks to "focus on a smaller, more agile core team of Fury developers."

This was reiterated in the most recent report as well, saying that with the launch of its latest content

Auran Games today announced that the prize pool for “Fury Challenge” has now officially topped $2 million dollars. The Open Beta event has been extended to run over 4 weekends from September 14 to October 7, and will provide players from all over the world the chance to test their skills playing “FURY”, the 100% Player versus Player MMO which will be released in October.

“We want to put players on notice that FURY is serious fun and we have set our goal at nothing less than being the Number one PvP game in the world,” said Tony Hilliam, Auran CEO and Executive Producer on FURY. “By putting together over $2M in prizes for our Open Beta event, I think we’ve started to show that we’re already a contender for the title.”

“In a market where the big names and big publishers get most of the attention, we figured we had to do something a bit different to be noticed,” said Brian Cooke, Auran Director of Marketing. “Fury is a competitive game, and so putting together this amazing prize pool for our players should start to turn a few heads in our direction. From there, we’re confident our game will keep them excited.”

“During Fury Challenge we’re capping player Ranks at an easily obtainable leve

Akella Online has signed an agreement with leading Australian game developer, Auran to distribute the highly anticipated MMOPvP game Fury across Russia (and CIS).

Built on the Unreal Engine 3, Fury is being acclaimed as the ultimate PvP experience, combining the best elements of the MMORPG and FPS genres. A unique matchmaking system ensures that battles are fair and evenly contested. Each game type has different goals as well as a time limit to ensure that players can achieve meaningful results with just a small investment of time. Fury’s unique incarnation system also allows players to bypass the rigid class system of traditional MMORPGs. Players can mix and match any combination of over 400 abilities available in the game to create multiple and diverse versions of their Avatars; switching them around at will between Warzone battles.

Announced for release in October 2007, Fury is shaping up to be a leading competitive PvP title with its bold blend of Avatar progression, combat, pacing and game types. Set in a mythical alternate universe with a distinct Eurasian style where players fight not only for themselves, but for the survival and success of their realm (server).

Fury is free-to

Fury is Australian developer Auran's free-to-play persistent online action RPG that hopes to turn the world of MMO PvP on its ear while at the same time fostering renewed interest in the pizza delivery profession. Being distributed in the states by the always fun to say Gamecock, no news has been forthcoming about the possibility of a European release of the game until now. Codemasters Online has entered into a distributorship partnership with Auran to bring Fury to all of the good little European girls and boys this October. Codemasters Online VP and GM David Solari gushes.

"We believe this unique and groundbreaking product will appeal to MMO and action shooter gamers alike. It's going to drive forward the online persistent market with Fury's new style of free to play, instant online action."


We'll see how that works out for them once Fury is unleashed this fall. For now enjoy the furious press release, after the jump.


Codemasters Online and Auran set to Unleash the Fury throughout Europe!

Codemasters Online and Auran announce European wide distribution deal for Fury.

Tuesday, 7th August (2pm GMT) - Codemasters Online have today announced an exciting distribution partnership with Austr