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EA Shuts Down Pandemic Studios, Cuts 200 Jobs
lbalbalba writes "Electronic Arts is shutting down its Westwood-based game developer Pandemic Studios just two years after acquiring it, putting nearly 200 people out of work. 'The struggling video game publisher informed employees Tuesday morning that it was closing the studio as part of a recently announced plan to eliminate 1,500 jobs, or 16% of its global workforce. Pandemic has about 220 employees, but an EA spokesman said that a core team, estimated by two people close to the studio to be about 25, will be integrated into the publisher's other Los Angeles studio, in Playa Vista.' An ex-developer for Pandemic attributed the studio's struggles to poor decisions from the management."
Pandemic studios never made anything worth having, and all their crap seemed to be loaded with what might be called EA problems. I won't miss EA Game Originally Produced by Another Divsion III: the dead horse chronicles.
Hopefully, the 25 will re-consider this idea and grab a number of the others to be laid off and approach another VC to start a new company. Heck, if smart, try to create 2 new companies out of it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
EA destroys and corrupts whatever it touches. A developer being bought by EA is the kiss of death for all their franchises, IMO. The classic example is Westwood Studios and a series that was very dear to me, Command & Conquer.
At least we'll always have new versions of Madden!
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
... are "a core intellectual property team".
... are a "core intellectual property team".
I guess EA found its own way to take care of the current pandemic, without having to wait in line for
perhaps they thought they were doing public service.
This makes sense. EA is strapped for cash. It's not like they just designed, developed, leased, furnished, and staffed a couple of storefronts on prime real estate to advertise one game to a limited audience.
Companies don't know how to manage money anymore. Long term gains (like a productive group with experience working together) are traded for short term gains (advertising gimmicks) so often that nowadays it's just the expected mode of operation.
I don't know too much about Pandemic Studios in particular, but I've been hearing about a LOT of layoffs at EA, and at the same time it's almost like they are throwing money away on brand placement. No company ever thinks to improve their bottom line by steadily generating quality product anymore. The money that goes into solid development is always the dregs of money first given to analysts and marketers.
I'm normally not a foaming-at-the-mouth anti-establishment labor-theory humanist, but things like this (especially with the oft-cited 'global economy') really and truly make me sick.
Sell me the Origin Systems IPs. I'll pay top dollar for them so you can keep your current employees employed.
I'll then bankroll a proper Wing Commander game since you people don't seem interested in doing it.
Anonymous Coward: "This is slashdot. Accuracy is second class citizen here, unlike King Bias."
I've lost count of how many studios EA has chewed up and spit out.
This isn't news, it's just more of the same.
Interesting as EA CEO John Riccitiello made a lot of moneyfrom EA buying them in the first place, while EA shareholders are the losers.
I assume one of the bad management decisions was seemingly spending all their money on Gamasutra job postings? When I was looking around for a new job a couple of years ago it seemed like every other posting was for a position at Pandemic.
Is this model sustainable? With the number of expansions, absorbed companies and conquest, it looks like EA is turning into the GM of gaming. they may be healthy now but what about in a year? 5 years? 10 years? It's like cutting off your pinky to lose weight. It's gone, and never coming back.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Will you make torrents available?
EA's management is the demise of that company. They pull all their developers from games once they are done and leave noone to fix bugs. They very rarely release patches for anything. There are many online games that have had game impacting issues for years that just drive people away. If they were smart they would get on the model of releasing paid items into some of their games to pull in extra revenue. Or releasing more MAP packs for some of their better games that they just mothball. I hope the whole company folds and makes way for some other game companies that actually care about the user experience.
The interesting part of this is that the CEO had EA purchase his old company for a high amount of $$$ and only two years later shut it down while he personally pocketed several million.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/96237-Analyst-Chews-Out-EA-CEO-Over-Pandemic-Closure
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I'm an ex-Pandemite.
For me, the turning point was around 2006, with the new hardware generation. There were lots of really passionate people here, but the development and design methodologies that worked well in the previous gen simply did not scale up with the larger projects, and things got confusing and out of hand. This was compounded by each internal team having their own unique technology and tools. The amount of redundancy, knowledge lost and effort wasted between projects was quite substantial, not to mention a somewhat lack of ownership or accountability. I was hoping that Sab would be the turning point, but it looks like it is not to be (good news is that last I heard, all SKUs are golden). I hope that many will be able to enjoy it.
What really irks me is that this was a really passionate and talented bunch with so much potential. Definitely the best group I've had the honor to be with, and possibly ever will be.
Cheers to the 16, 18, and 19.
as Wi33Open,
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Has anyone noticed that everything get's blamed on the economy ? This seems to be another form of asset stripping where the investors are king, profit is king. Of course these are companies, but they are also services producing for society. I get the feeling some EA management are quite cynical and uncaring about video games and are really corporate employees moving between different manufacturing posts ? It's sad when this kind of corporate lifestyle hurts creativity. Why did Pandemic allow themselves to be bought by EA in the first place ? They shouldn't have done it. They might have made a bit less money, but it would have been more interesting, they would have made more games and this industry would still have an interesting developer.
...the games get considerably worse.
This is what EA does best -- buying intellectual property by purchasing a studio, letting said studio run for a few years, and then gutting it and turning out unimaginative sequels on said intellectual property. See example Origins (Wing Commander & Ultima), Westwood Studio (Command & Conquer), and Kesmai (Air Warrior, MultiPlayer Battletech). The only difference is that the economy has sped up the process, because it usually takes EA 5 years to gut everything.
I do not know about this merger (or acquisition) but I have worked in companies in the past where a stronger competitor wanted two things: 1) our technology and 2) us to not compete with them. So the competitor came in and bought our company and about 90% of us lost our jobs. This could've been the plan all along in this transaction ... to knock our company out of their way and to gain a technology advantage at the same time (all while keeping our brightest and most talented employees). This is a common trick in the business world (to look like it's all sad and everything but they really got what they wanted to begin with 2 years ago).
EA bashing is only really appropriate for recent history. Heck, early on they recognized all their development talent. They had special signed packaging for a lot of games and went out of their way to give developers freedom. I remember several great titles that helped get them to be the HUGE horrible software tyrants they are today:
Bard's Tale
Archon
Mail order monsters
Populus
Battle Chess
Marble Madness
Alternate Reality
Demon Stalkers
Wasteland
Those are some of my favorites anyhow.
You can only be young once, but you can be immature forever.
In one of the G4 TV series code monkeys episodes, one of the game developers, BolecoVision, has its managers using whips and axes to flay and behead its workers who aren't up to par/can't take the stress anymore. This reminds me of EA for some strange reason.
This is not a troll, it is an opinion.
-1 raving lunatic; +6 subGenius... Things even out...
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One warning though, it does have a pretty big learning curve. The queuing system is MUCH better than other RTS's I've played. It's in many ways an unofficial successor to "Total Annihilation"
One thing to be warned of though, gameplay can vary massively, and it does take quite awhile to get a strategy that works online, especially if you switch to the expansion "Forged Alliance." When I did so I went from games that were often 1-2 hours and massive tech/anti-tech competitions to being swamped by level 1 units... but I've more or less figured out how to get past that now.
My only other warning is that SC is very, very addictive.
I still remember the small controversy over Mercenaries 2: World in Flames.
The government of Venezuala was not amused.
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