2K Australia in Canberra close down

[DrMike2000]

The studio that gave us Freedom Force has just closed it doors.

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2015/04/2k-australia-in-canberra-closes-its-doors/

Irrational Games Canberra went on to become part of 2K, and thus survived the recent shutdown of Irrational Games. Its kind of sad for the local industry, since they were the last big Aussie Games studio to work on AAA titles. On the bright side, there's a healthy indie and phone dev scene in the rest of the country still, although very little of that is located in Canberra. My best wishes to all the staff affected by this - some of whom may have worked on the world's first custom superhero game that we all know and love.

[Epimethee]

Sad indeed. Best wishes on them.

[BentonGrey]

Sad indeed.  I hope they all go on to good things.

[schick]

Does anyone know who owns the code to the games?

[DrMike2000]

I have no idea, Schick.
It probably belongs to Irrational Games and Ken Levine. I think Irrational shut down voluntarily rather than via bankruptcy, so there are fewer legal issues there. As to whether anyone archived the Freedom force code and assets pipeline, and could get it up and running again today, that's a whole other question.
I've had experience of resuscitating games that are a few years old within the same company, and that never runs smoothly, even with most of the staff there who worked on the original.

[SickAlice]

That always scares me about going pro. I mean you dedicate yourself to a career and helping build something then one day poof. Best of luck to all those people.