Renowned animation and VFX house Axis Studios is going into administration, affecting 162 employees of the Scottish institution. While involved with work in TV, film, and other media, our readers will be familiar with Axis' work in cinematic cutscenes and trailers, which is of notably high quality.
Responsible for that legendary initial Dead Island reveal trailer (as well as working on the similarly iconic Dead Island 2 trailer), Axis did a lot of unchampioned work in the industry. More recently, it worked on cinematics with Bungie and is credited for the standout work seen in Destiny 2's Lightfall.
As reported by the BBC (thanks, Insider Gaming), Axis suffered from "severe cash flow problems", the result of rising labour costs and a decline in commissioned projects. Four employees out of 166 are being retained to wind down the business, which opened its doors in 2000. Axis received both an Emmy and a Royal Television Society award for its work.
As always, our best to those affected. We're certain this loss will be felt in a decline of in-game cinematics work across the board. Remember how immaculate that first Dead Island trailer was in the comments section below.
[source bbc.com, via insider-gaming.com]
Comments 15
Four employees out of 166 are being retained?What is the business with only 4 employees? An excuse to pay the four of yourselves? What am I missing?
@zhoont well those are the employees “winding down” (I believe the correct term is “winding up” in the U.S. but I’m sure it varies in other countries as it’s a legal term). So those four employees are there to settle all ongoing contractual affairs, sell equipment and real estate etc.
@zhoont That's four people to oversee the closure of the business, then they will ultimately be unemployed as well.
What they will be doing is unknown but these will probably not be people working on any projects.
Well that’s horrible. We have a pretty decent industry up here (especially considering our place in games history) but it’s tough for a whole lot of companies out there. You’d think with their diverse portfolio that there’d be work for talented people somewhere out there.
Deserved better surely. That Dead Island trailer alone should put them in the cinematic hall of fame but it sounds like they’ve always done stellar work. Why were commissions so low?
We are reaching the problem point of capitalism now. If wages keep going up prices have to keep going up . Eventually none of us will be able to afford anything 🤷♂️
@Mikey856 The top 1% could take a paycut once in a million years, a little less to investors going for normal profit and a healthy business instead of pulling all the money out of everything just for unreal growth.
But instead of saying the people struggling to keep afloat getting a little extra pay as the problem. This way of capitalism is going to far and is unsustainable in long run.
But we need to make that 1% even more rich and give them more power and let them destroying everything they touch.
The industry is an absolute mess right now. I honestly think we're in the middle of another video game crash like in '83
@Flaming_Kaiser okay so how many extra years will that stave of the inevitable then. Honestly we have got to come up with a better system and I don’t mean socialism
Once again just goes to show that any awards, being good at your job, talent, skills and whatnot means almost nothing
Capitalism is just wonderful.
@Mikey856 You should mean socialism, though.
@PerpetualBoredom Yup, works so well in Cuba, Russia and China. Peace, happiness and prosperity everywhere you look.
@lindos Finally someone who read up on the subject, thanks comrade! Did you also start with Parenti's "Blackshirts and Reds"? It's for free at Audible!
@Mikey856 Dont you worry I don't believe in socialism but also find capitalism as it is now unfavorable.
The rich act like they are for us to political a Trump or a Elon and probably Biden believe in low taxes and all the nonsense with the trickle down economy garbage AKA crumbles for the lower class.
Less rules more power to them so they can put us against each other. I believe in rewards for the people who work hard but I don't understand the amount of greed how much do you need in the end?
I sometimes believe everything less everything is not enough. A Trump or a Elon are great examples of old money and acting like they come from nothing.
I dislike Trump so much because he acts like he is for the people while he made the rich more rich and made the normal Americans work even harder to get a normal live several jobs to stay alive is not normal.
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