EA Games Closes the Black Box

By Jorge Ba-oh 20.12.2008 10

EA Games Closes the Black Box on Nintendo gaming news, videos and discussion

EA has announced the closer of their Black Box studio, responsible for Need for Speed and Skate.

The publisher announced a restructure that amounts to a 10% employee reduction (approx 1000 people) with the demise of one of their best studios. These cuts are supposedly going save $120mil US annually, although $55-65 million will be spent in restructuring costs.

It had previously been rumoured that Need for Speed would be cut, but it seems that it's only the studio who worked on recent entries that's being dumped. Developers from the Vancouver-based office, along with the franchises worked on will be moving to Burnaby, British Columbia.

Best wishes to those who won't remain with EA, especially during the holiday period.

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    JoshSL is offline. JoshSL 20.12.2008#1

    If they cut BioWare, I WILL hunt them down, and I WILL kill them.

    But I think that goes for most people.

    Twitter | C3 Writer/Moderator | Backloggery
     
    Frazzle.d is offline. Frazzle.d 20.12.2008#2

    Meh, again best luck to the people out of a job at this crucial time of year.

    "We're mentalist psychic Scots, which means we can read your mind. If you're lying, your head explodes and we laugh." Fly fast, stay low, hit hard
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    {Guild}Ohmdal: But how did you get the poo inside of the box when the goat was sleeping on top of it?
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    Satoshi is offline. Satoshi 20.12.2008#3

    What!? I never really liked NFS...but didn't each version of that sell loads!?
    I thought that would be one of their most profitable games, re-releasing the same game new name every year..

    Avoid Games Like the Plague, productivity++
     
    Guest 20.12.2008#4

    Only $120 annually? Stingy bastards.

    EA. Truly the scrooge of the industry.Smilie

     
    Faust_D is offline. Faust_D 20.12.2008#5

    Bart.... said:
    Only $120 annually? Stingy bastards.

    EA. Truly the scrooge of the industry.Smilie

    Well, even though they gain only $120, they'll be spending $55-$65 MILLION on restructuring. They're not THAT stingy;-Smilie

    AND! I see this as good news; Recent NFS games sucked immensely in my opinion. It was too much about DA STREETZ and not enough about actual fun driving. I remember the ridiculous tracks in NFSIII on my PSX, they were genuinely fun. That underwater thingy, the outerspace track.. Good ol' days^^

    ~Getting on C3's massive tits since 2K5.~
     
    jb is offline. jb 20.12.2008#6

    We work so damn hard on the news and this is what we get.

    Cubed3 Admin/Founder & Designer
     
    Guest 20.12.2008#7

    Well what people don\'t know is that those millions will be paid for by not paying their employees for TWELVE YEARS! Smilie

    ;-Smilie

    [edit] Hopefully they won\'t fire you from this job for this mistake JB. :p

    ( Edited 20.12.2008 13:24 by Bart.... )

     
    originaljohn is offline. originaljohn 20.12.2008#8

    Need for speed bad
    burnout good

     
    Birdo Is A Tranny is offline. Birdo Is A Tranny 20.12.2008#9

    Actually I'm kinda liking this worldwide economical crisis.

    The worse it's gets the more companies that will go out of business i.e. those with a bad business structure e.g. Majority of them being shovelware companies.

    My conclusion:

    Less shovelware companies = less shovelware! Smilie

     
    Phoenom is offline. Phoenom 21.12.2008#10

    Birdo Is A Tranny said:
    Actually I\'m kinda liking this worldwide economical crisis.

    The worse it\'s gets the more companies that will go out of business i.e. those with a bad business structure e.g. Majority of them being shovelware companies.

    My conclusion:

    Less shovelware companies = less shovelware! Smilie

    Dunno how you figure that one out. One particularly annoying trait of shovelware is that it barely needs to sell anything to turn a profit; if anything this economy will create more of it. Smilie

    Plus, out of every developer that has gone bust so far (Factor 5, Free Radical etc), none of them have been shovelware developers. I\'d be happy if Phoenix Games or Data Design copped it, but that looks unlikely. Smilie

    ( Edited 21.12.2008 07:09 by iPhoen )

     

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