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2K Australia Gone for Good

• Jimmy Tran
• April 18th, 2015

It sucks when you hear news of developers closing their doors.  No longer will they be contributing to the gaming community and no longer will their ideas come to life.  It’s not the first time we had to deal with such strife, and it certainly won’t be our last.  But it’s news like this that really surprise us, because out of the blue, 2K Australia (the developers of Borderlands: The Presequel) have finally close their doors.

What happened here?  It seems that in the fall of the Australian dollar, 2K was going to cut it’s losses and close shop.  It also meant that the employees of that studio (and I mean all of the employees) would lose their jobs.  That’s surprising.  No one expected that a move like this would occur.  It’s understandable that things like this are unavoidable.  However, would it not have been a smart move for 2K to simply relocate the office?  At the same time, 2K Australia, according to IGN, was Australia’s last AAA studio.  Shouldn’t there have been a bigger effort to save the office?

Aside from the financial problems, no one has an answer to why the developer was shut down.  It seems sudden, even with the fall of the Australian dollar.  But according to Australian Business Insider, “The Australian economy still has significant headwinds, but the tentative positive signs in business conditions, profitability and employment, combined with an Aussie dollar below 80 cents and a still strong likelihood that the RBA will ease rates again soon, all add up to an economic outlook for Australia’s second half which might start to brighten considerably.”

A 2k representative said in a statement to Kotaku Australia, “We can confirm we have taken steps to begin the studio closure process for 2K Australia in order to better manage ongoing development costs while improving the working proximity of our creative teams.  We are very grateful for the team’s valuable contributions to numerous 2K projects, and are working with affected staff to explore reassignment opportunities where possible.