December 13^th, 2005 (4:27pm) - In the world of multi-billion dollar development houses and games that cost more to make than it does to run small countries, it’s no surprise that the small fish developers are swallowed up in the big budget ocean-- Working Designs is the latest developer to be lost at sea.

Working Designs’ president Victor Ireland announced that the company has shut down for good.

"There’s no easy way to say it, so I just will. Working Designs is gone," said Ireland in the company forums. "All the staff has been laid off and the office is closed and has been for some time."

This news breaks just before the year anniversary of their last game Growlanser Generations for the PS2.

"We just spent too much time fighting the good fight to even get it out," Ireland said of Growlanser, "and other games approved."

Apparantly the company was unable to get other games they were developing approved.

"Though almost finished and substantially improved from the Japanese release, Goemon is dead for the US, and that was really the final straw," Ireland wrote. "If I can’t guarantee that the games I personally choose for us to release in the US can actually get approved and come out, there’s no business to be done."

Ireland seems to harbor some ill feelings towards Sony about the entire situation.

"Sony has made it clear that they do not want the details of their dealings with any publisher made public," Ireland wrote. "Suffice to say that you would buy what we wanted to sell if we could sell it."

Goemon and Growlanser might see release in Europe, Ireland noted, though other details are unknown, such as publishers.

Ireland also mentioned that although the actual Working Designs company has closed, a few members of the house and himself might work with other developers and publishers in the future, and he said they want to help bring some of the japanese Xbox 360 games overseas to the U.S. in the future.

Ireland said goodbye, but also issued a warning that dark days might lie ahead.

"It’s a tough road ahead for games that aren’t of the least-common-denominator variety," Ireland wrote. "The choices you make with your hardware dollars are more important than ever for the generation that is upon us."