tiagosilva29 Posted February 20, 2010 Share Posted February 20, 2010 A US owned gaming company has fled Australia, leaving unpaid employees and a massive tax bill. Apparently many staff have been working unpaid for months to allow their game to ship and hopefully the company to recover. Interzone's Perth (Western Australia) office was created with the assistance of a state government grant. Last week Interzone's (American) CEO entered the building at night and removed all the servers and intellectual property so that Interzone could continue production at a new company they have opened in Ireland. The staff caught him on camera. Interzone owns the Australia Tax Office (ATO) approximately $1m AUD and $500k in unpaid wages and superannuation. The owner changed the locks on the firm at 4am in the morning, locking all employees out from their work. Not even given a chance to collect their personal belongings. A new 'Interzone' called Big Collision is being setup in Dublin Ireland to complete development of their game Futebol in time for the World Cup, and without the debt they have accumulated in Australia. Originally Interzone was given a grant by the Western Australian goverment of $500k, so this has blown up very big on the news there, causing quite some political issues and questions of the chief Treasurer. They did not even lay off the staff, as that would of caused paper work, and the paying out of their due wages and redundancy money. They were simple locked out from their building. The firm that provides the middleware (BigWorld) based in Sydney, provided a server engineer (contracted by Mike to clear out the IP assets from the server.) The Interzone employees have been fantastic, in collecting evidence, and staying together to fight for what they are due. This is not the first time this has occured in Australia, similar **** has happened in the last year with firms Transmission, and Fuzzyeyes. Video games, one of the last places for cow-boy businessmen. Read more on Slashdot ****ing douchebags. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soniqstylz Posted February 20, 2010 Share Posted February 20, 2010 I see Bobby Kotick doing the same thing to FreeStyle one day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IceBreakerG Posted February 20, 2010 Share Posted February 20, 2010 That is seriously f'd up. I'm surprised the employees didn't just jump him in the parking lot before the police got there (no video cameras of course). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iconboy Posted February 20, 2010 Share Posted February 20, 2010 That is seriously f'd up. I'm surprised the employees didn't just jump him in the parking lot before the police got there (no video cameras of course). It happened at 4am genius when noone was around Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yusuf M. Veteran Posted February 20, 2010 Veteran Share Posted February 20, 2010 Pathetic... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cupcakes Posted February 21, 2010 Share Posted February 21, 2010 I really hope that this circulates enough within the gaming community that the sales can be almost non-existent for this game when it's released. Haven't googled or anything yet but is this a multi-platform game they are developing with or just PC or something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Anarkii Subscriber² Posted February 21, 2010 Subscriber² Share Posted February 21, 2010 Like Cupcakes said im pretty sure they're unreleased game will be named and shamed, serverly hurting sales unless it is given back to the employees. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xilo Posted February 22, 2010 Share Posted February 22, 2010 I'm surprised the employees were stupid enough to stick around for so long without a paycheck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dead.cell Posted February 22, 2010 Share Posted February 22, 2010 Douche bag indeed... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts