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Update - Pandemic Studios Shutdown by EA

According to sources, EA will close down Pandemic Studios today.

Sources close to Kotaku revealed that EA will close Pandemic Studios today with almost all of the 200 staff members in Pandemic's LA studios being laid off as well. The remaining employees will be moved into other EA development teams.

It's expected that EA will make the formal announcement to the Pandemic staff at 11 AM Pacific Time. Pandemic's current game, The Saboteur may also be moved to EA Montreal, the developers of the Army of Two series.

At the beginning of this year, Pandemic Brisbane was closed when their Batman game was not released on time and canceled when EA lost the Batman license in December 2008.

Update: A memo discovered by Gamasutra revealed that the company will be closed today. Pandemic founders Josh Resnick, Andrew Goldman and Greg Borrud in addition to about 200 employees will leave the company. The remaining employees will be consolidated into EA LA.

EA plans to retain the Pandemic brand and franchises and will be announcing new games with those licenses soon.


 

Comments

Jason Ross Senior Editor

11/17/2009 at 12:10 PM

I hate to say it, but I think EA has spent the last few years expanding too rapidly and recruiting too much talent, specifically new talent, for their own good. I don't think they've got enough focus on original IP that sets itself apart from anything else in the market, and I think video gamers and consumers have figured this out, for the most part.

Hence, now, we have EA studios closing and massive lay-offs. Still, from the glancing I did, I thought Pandemic was at least moderately successful, so I'm surprised to see this happen to them. Perhaps they've been less productive in the last year or two than expected?

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