Interzone Games Liquidated by Tax Office, Parent Company Dodgy As Hell

Some more news on the closure front, but this time from a vastly smaller and unfortunately less well-known studio located in Perth, Western Australia. Interzone Games is about to be liquidated by the Australian Tax Office due to unpaid tax debts, money which should have been paid by their US-based parent company, Interzone Entertainment. According to a series of pleas from employees past and present, Interzone Entertainment has not paid its employees for the past month and a half of work, and have not paid their employee’s superannuation for the last two years. Similarly, Interzone been trading in an insolvent state for over a year, and without a director in charge since the last one stepped down because he wasn’t actually being paid. Both are completely illegal.

And here’s where it gets dodgy. Well, dodgier.

Interzone Games workers found themselves locked out of their offices early this week as Interzone Entertainment moved to shut down the Perth offices, their only warning being a notice placed on the front door by the Vice President on Interzone Entertainment’s business operations, Mike Turner. It stated, in effect, that anybody besides Mark Turner and his guests who entered onto the property would be treated as trespassers - and hard luck to any employees who wanted to go in and retrieve any personal belongings. They’d previously been working on Interzone Futebol, a soccer MMO.

The West Australian and other sources are reporting that Mr Turner intended to retrieve all hardware and intellectual property from the site, including the latest game data and servers, and return with them to the US before the ATO closes in on the 15th of Febuary to seize all company assets. Interzone Entertainment is setting up a development studio in Ireland called Big Collision Games, reportedly using the unpaid labour of their Perth employees - i.e., the existing work on Interzone Futebol - to secure the neccessary funding. Interzone Futebol is likely to be completed either in the USA or in Ireland, either by a team of contracted individuals or ‘key staff’ of the Perth offices who have been offered the condition that the rest of the Perth staff will actually get paid. Yes, that’s right: part of the offer is that if they do extra work, Interzone Entertainment will pay everybody the money they already owe them.

Interzone Games was founded in 2007 after Interzone Entertainment was offered a $500,000 State Government offer as part of a bid to create a local games industry. The company was expected to create over 300 local jobs. However, the company’s remaining staff of 15 members have been ’suspended indefinitely without pay’ (legally speaking, impossible; you can only suspend staff who have been fully paid up to date, and you can only suspend staff on pay; none of this was stated in writing, so it cannot be forwarded to the the relevant agencies) and are currently picketing outside the studios demanding over $500,000 in back pay and superannuation.

This isn’t the only branch of Interzone Entertainment that has been, to put it in Australia terms, completed screwed over. The comments section of the WA Business News contains testimonials from a member of the Interzone Guangzhou branch offices in China who claim similar treatment. Interzone’s Brazillian branch was also unexpectedly shut down in October 2008.

To put it in writing, here are the big names to avoid. Interzone Entertainment USA, current CEO Marty Brickey, and former Directors Greg Chadwell and Mike Turner. An email obtained by the WA Business News from Mr. Brickey addressed to “Current or Former Members of Interzone Perth that have outstanding pay, termination or Super owed to them” suggested that the studio was only to be closed temporarily, but warned against “sabotage” and “scuttlebuts”, stating “Eight of our major investigators are already independantly retaining council (sic) in Perth and are reading (sic) to strike hard and fast at anyone committing tortuous (sic) interference, slander, or liable (sic) against the company”.

The Ombudsman and the ATO are currently reviewing the issue, but between the alleged perpetrator’s habit of constantly jumping to and from the US (outside Australian jurisdication) and the sadly common bureaucratic tendancy to work in timeframes of months instead of weeks, there’s little chance of much being done before the company is officially liquidated on the 15th of Febuary.