Pandemic Studios is being officially consolidated into Electronic Arts' EALA facility and suffering substantial layoffs according to a recent announcement from Electronic Arts. The move is part of EA's recently revealed plan to save $100 million USD a year through cost-cutting and layoffs. The move has also seen the cancellation of 12 unannounced games, as well as 1500 redundancies.
Pandemic's main successes have been the Mercenaries series, as well as Star Wars: Battlefront and the upcoming WWII game The Saboteur.
Rumours about Pandemic's closure began circulating yesterday afternoon and were shortly confirmed by a twitter post from Pandemic's Drew Marlowe.
"It's official, pandemic is shut down as of today, thankfully it looks like we are getting decent severance," said Marlowe's post.
News of a complete closure was then quashed by EA, who said that the team was not being fully closed - merely consolidated and downsized in order to fit in with EA's existing EALA facility.
"This move has resulted in a reduction in the work force at Pandemic," read an EA statement. "The Pandemic brand and franchises will continue to live on. A core team of Pandemic developers will move to EALA and continue development on Pandemic games with a focus on quality, cost management and schedule integrity."
Speculation has arisen that Pandemic has been specifically targeted for downsizing after the poor performance of Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, as well as a costly Batman game which was never released. Pandemic's Brisbane studio was also closed earlier this year.
Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
Pandemic's main successes have been the Mercenaries series, as well as Star Wars: Battlefront and the upcoming WWII game The Saboteur.
Rumours about Pandemic's closure began circulating yesterday afternoon and were shortly confirmed by a twitter post from Pandemic's Drew Marlowe.
"It's official, pandemic is shut down as of today, thankfully it looks like we are getting decent severance," said Marlowe's post.
News of a complete closure was then quashed by EA, who said that the team was not being fully closed - merely consolidated and downsized in order to fit in with EA's existing EALA facility.
"This move has resulted in a reduction in the work force at Pandemic," read an EA statement. "The Pandemic brand and franchises will continue to live on. A core team of Pandemic developers will move to EALA and continue development on Pandemic games with a focus on quality, cost management and schedule integrity."
Speculation has arisen that Pandemic has been specifically targeted for downsizing after the poor performance of Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, as well as a costly Batman game which was never released. Pandemic's Brisbane studio was also closed earlier this year.
Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
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