So reports have come in that one of EAGames biggest studios is about to be closed. EA Visceral Melbourne, one of the main Visceral Games studios appears to be getting ready to close. The studio has been hard at work on an unknown game for the last three years, the title was supposed to be AAA+ game based on an origional IP. However EA just cancelled that unknown project and with its cancellation it would appear the studio is now being closed.

Apparently the close will occur on Monday according to multiple sources talking to Kotaku and Gamasutra. EAGames has not confirmed the closure officially and didn't give any of the news sites a comment.

EA Visceral Melbourne has worked on several big games for EA from Dead Space, God Father 2 and Dante's Inferno. But it seems the days of creating these AAA+ games are over dashing all hopes for that new IP.

So what do you think about this loss, its the fourth major studio in Australia to be shut in alittle more then a month. Team Bondi shut down and THQ closed its two Australian studios in August! Is this a huge loss for the industry?

Well,what can u say in times like these?I wish the studio members good luck ahead of them.

I don't care as we never knew what they were making.

As long as the main Visceral studio in California is making sequels to Dead Space and Dante's Inferno I am (very) happy. Both amazing games.

Is the Australian government changing something fiscally or are all these Australian studios just incompetent?

Add Team Bondi to the 3 in the OP

Heres the deal, first off i need to mention how all these studios that have closed even opened in Australia. Back in the early 2000s Australia was a Hot spot for Games Developement for 2 reasons: first was the Australian Dollar was weak, it was going for every 1 USD would return 2 australian dollars. The second was the employees, the Publishers in the US saw australia as the perfect Sweat shop for games development, not only would they be able to pump games out at half the cost there were talented people that could pump out high quality work as well as had a strong work ethic compared to say outsoucing to India or south east asia. So publishers like THQ to EA opened Australian arms to capitize on the situation. 

Now come this year and the last few years, the Australian dollar is now stronger than the US dollar, so THQ and many other publishers like EA started closing down there Australian arms because they were no longer able to produce cheap licenced games or just cheap games anymore. There is no government support for games development here in Australia either which doesn't help.

Also this EA studio is a Support studio, set up to capitalize on the Australian dollar, much like Irrational Games Canberra(2K Marin) and Creative Assemby Australia (now Sega Studios Australia) were. So the Main Viseral games studio location in Califonia isn't closing just there now not cheap australian arm. 

Oh man I totally forgot they got shut down in August too. Dude Australia's game industry has been spiraling downwards ever since Krome went down. Their has been steady closures every few months. Fut four big studios in one month thats a huge blow to the Australian industry!

Great post. Very informative.

I agree. Plus this whole article. I didn't no visceral existed outside of redwood, california :(.

But, I don't really know if you can call this visceral melbourne a big studio. If they haven't done more than support. 

Carbon tax? :P

More likely the high Australian dollar at the moment means that the workers were being paid much more than their overseas counterparts.

I only called them a major studio because they had contributed to many big games, also they were working on a major new IP that was supposed to be an AAA+ game. I really wonder why EA didn't stick it out till the title was completed sell the title and then close the studio. It seems like a waste of three years development to me, surely the game must have been nearing completion!

I find the post about why Australia's game industry is collapsing very informative as well. I'm surprised the Government didn't give incentives to keep and grow development like Canada or to a lesser extent other countries. Especially at a time when the economies of the world are struggling the games industry employ's thousands at least at one point they did.

But I guess since the market for software in Australia is much smaller then other countries maybe the Government doesn't understand how important the industry is. The Australian Government should have taken action to preserve its industry a long time ago, even if they implemented changes now I doubt any of the publishers would re-open or open new studios in Australia.

On the other hand what are all these ex-employees doing for work? Why haven't they founded new Australian studios? Every time a major studio closes in North America somebody usually starts a new one. Especially with so many closures you'd think that a ton of the former staffers would be founding new studios.