Electronic Arts has closed the door on its game developer unit Pandemic Studios.
EA shut down Pandemic as a separate unit on Tuesday, laying off 200 employees, according to published reports, but moving a small core team to EA's Los Angeles headquarters. Those exiting include Pandemic's two founders, Andrew Goldman and Josh Resnick.
An Electronic Arts spokesperson confirmed the news to CNET, but called it a consolidation rather than a closing, saying that the company merged Pandemic with EA's nearby LA campus. The core team of developers integrated into EA will continue to work on Pandemic properties.
An internal memo by EA Games Label Senior Vice President Nick Earl also confirmed the closing, as reported by the Web site Kotaku.
"I want to make it clear that the Pandemic brand and franchises will live on," wrote Earl in the memo. "In the months ahead, we will announce plans for new games based on Pandemic franchises. This type of change can be difficult. But the situation calls for us to act decisively, to take control of our destiny and to run a stronger, more focused development operation. That's how we will continue to make great games in our LA studios."
The EA spokesperson also confirmed that the Pandemic brand and franchise are still alive and well, and that EA is still very committed to it.
Started in 1998, Pandemic Studios was later bought by Electronic Arts in 2007 as part of a deal for which EA paid $860 million for both Pandemic and Bioware. Pandemic is behind the design of many popular titles, including Star Wars: Battlefront, Mercenaries, and Full Spectrum Warrior. The studio's most recent game for EA, The Saboteur, will hit stores next month.
On the plus side, Bioware seems in little danger of closing. With its slew of blockbuster games, such as Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins (which triggered more than a million downloads of premium content in its initial week), Bioware has proved to be one of EA's more successful studio purchases.
Hit by weak game sales, EA has been hurting since last year when it warned that 2009 would be a tough one. The company said at the time that it would need to cut staff, trim product lines, and close studios. EA initially announced job cuts of 10 percent of its workforce, then later revised that to 11 percent. In January, EA also jettisoned Pandemic's studio in Brisbane, Australia.
Electronic Arts has indeed struggled this fiscal year, announcing higher losses and lower sales for its first quarter and again for the second quarter, ended September 30.
The continued downturn forced the company earlier this month to announce additional job cuts of 1,500 employees beyond the initial 11 percent. With the layoffs scheduled to occur by March of next year, the game maker hopes its actions will trim annual expenses by at least $100 million.
"Laying off employees and closing facilities is never pleasant--we have a lot of compassion for those impacted--but these cuts are essential for transforming our company," said EA CEO John Riccitiello in an earnings call following the announcement of the cuts.
U.S. video game industry sales plunged in October, dropping 19 percent from a year earlier, and 16.4 percent from September, according to data released Thursday by the NPD Group.
But with the tremendous, record-breaking, out-of-the-gate performance of Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and the coming holiday season, NPD is bullish on the industry's fortunes for November.
Still, the $1.07 billion in total sales turned in by the industry in October were paltry, compared with $1.32 billion in October 2008 and $1.28 billion in September 2009. NPD analyst Anita Frazier tried to soften the blow a little bit in her monthly report, noting that while sales were down precipitously in October, it was still the third-best October sales report turned in by the video game industry.
"The continued economic turmoil, and in particular the troubling unemployment rate, is undoubtedly impacting industry sales," Frazier wrote in a statement. "Our latest Economy Tracker indicated that although consumers' general opinion about the economy is improving, their outlook on their own personal situation is worsening. If consumers' personal outlook continues to erode, they could very well be much more conservative with their holiday shopping this year."
That last sentence is no doubt one of the most chilling group of words imaginable to the honchos at companies like Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Electronic Arts, Activision, and many others involved in putting video game hardware and software in consumers' hands, especially as their most important sales months of the year are now at hand.
As always, regardless of the monthly results, the big console makers each had some things to celebrate in the NPD numbers.
For Nintendo, which has seen sales of its once-high-flying Wii dip and perceptions that the console's days of seeming infallible may be over, the numbers had some hope: in October, the Wii took back first place among the consoles--respectively the Wii, Microsoft's Xbox 360, and Sony's PlayStation 3. In October, Nintendo moved 506,900 Wiis, beating out the PS3 (320,600) and the Xbox (249,700).
Sony was coming off the first month the PS3 won since being launched in the fall of 2006, but while the console was beaten out by the Wii, there must certainly be some measure of gratification in having the PS3 come out ahead of Microsoft's console offering.
"In October, we saw continued momentum [for the] PS3, with nearly 70 percent growth, when compared to last October," Peter Dille, Sony Computer Entertainment of America's senior vice president of marketing, said in a statement. It was "the only console to see any growth year over year."
NPD itself touted Microsoft's chief bragging point for October: "Across all categories, the Xbox 360 platform contributed the greatest portion of total industry sales, representing 27 percent of total industry sales for the month," Frazier wrote.
Yet despite the record-smashing first-day sales posted this week by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the video game industry as a whole is facing a very painful reality: If sales don't improve quickly, there will be layoffs, slashed budgets, canceled games, and more.
Electronic Arts, for example, announced this week that it is planning to lay off 1,500 people as part of a major restructuring--the company's latest--and as a way to stave off growing losses.
And while the industry may have hoped that console sales--especially with prices for next-generation hardware now at their lowest levels ever--would help it rebound, Frazier did not offer much hope.
"Year to date, the hardware category has experienced the sharpest decline in the industry, with unit sales down 10 percent compared to the same time period last year," Frazier wrote. "Recent price cuts helped spur a one- to two-month increase in unit sales, and this month's Wii sales reflect that boost, but the other platforms have not sustained the sales momentum [after] price reduction."
One of the coolest features for Spore gamers is the ability to create their own creatures. Now, anyone can assemble aliens through a new site set up by Electronic Arts.
Spore Creature Creator 2-D, released Wednesday, lets you conjure up and animate your own creatures using an assortment of eyes, arms, feet, horns, and various unidentifiable body parts.
Produced by EA's Maxis studio, the Flash-based game starts with a large egg cracking open to reveal a simple alien body that you mold online like a lump of clay. Thin, fat, long, or short--you devise your creature's basic shape. Then it's time to build your baby with the right parts.
Choosing from such categories as mouths, limbs, and graspers, just drag your favorite body parts onto your creature to evolve it from a formless blob into a fully-functioning whatever. The game helps you along, directing you to drop the parts in all the right places. You can bend and resize many of the parts, giving your creature big eyes and a small mouth or long legs and stubby feet. You can also add a splash of paint by choosing from a wide palette of colors.
As you develop your creation, it takes on life by showing off its animated parts, such as a mouth that opens and closes, eyes that blink, and graspers that try to grasp. If you're in a hostile mood, you can even add weapons, like the Problem-Solvent that sprays solvent, the Hockitlauncher that spits out water, or the Phlegmthrower that shoots, uh, well, you get the idea.
If you need a helping hand, you don't have to build your creature from scratch. Spore Creature Creator 2-D lets you tap into the Sporepedia, an online gallery of creatures designed by Maxis developers and other Spore gamers. Simply load one of the pre-existing creatures and then tweak it to assemble a totally new organism.
Once you're done, it's time to name and describe your creature. You can then take it for a workout in the Creature Trainer arena, where you move it around the screen to catch bouncing balls with its mouth, hands, or other parts.
If you're proud of your new creation, you can e-mail a postcard image of it to a friend or save it as a PNG file for your own picture gallery or Web site.
A variety of Spore masterpieces are viewable at the Sporepedia Web site. And for all you budding Spore artists, Maxis is offering a Creature Creator challenge. Recreate one of your favorite Spore creatures using Creature Creator 2-D for a chance to be featured on Spore.com.
Caryl Shaw, a senior producer at Maxis who helped bring Spore Creature Creator 2-D to life, told me the game came about because Maxis wanted to make Spore more accessible and let anyone with a Web browser experience the same creativity that Spore gamers enjoy. As one of the most popular features of Spore, the Creature Creator seemed a natural.
... Read moreNintendo gamers anxious to grow Spores will find relief in October.
Electronic Arts announced Monday that its Spore Hero for the Wii game console and Spore Hero Arena for the Nintendo DS handheld will reach store shelves in the U.S. on October 6 and international outlets on October 9.
In Spore Hero, players can transform into heroic alien creatures on a mission to save their home worlds from certain destruction. By battling evil forces, solving puzzles, and collecting clues, heroes evolve over time. And using the Spore Creature Creator, gamers can build their heroes with assorted alien body parts.
In Spore Hero Arena, gamers can trek throughout space in a battle to defend planets from the galactic bad guys. Players can create their own heroes, combat aliens, and unlock special abilities to give themselves a fighting chance to save entire worlds. The game also lets people play with up to three friends in person or over a Wi-Fi network.
"Players' heroes take center stage as both games, distinctly tailor-made for its Nintendo platform, infuse creativity, combat and adventure to create a unique gameplay experience on the Wii and Nintendo DS," said Lucy Bradshaw, vice president of Maxis, a subsidiary of EA
The popular Spore game was originally available only on the PC and Mac. Last September, EA unveiled Spore and another variation, Spore Creatures, for the Nintendo DS. In May, EA announced a fall release for the Nintendo versions of Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena but hadn't revealed a specific date.
For some of the folks at Havok, playing Left 4 Dead together is a great way of team-building and bonding, and all without alcohol. Increasingly, companies are encouraging their employees to play games together as a way of bonding.
(Credit: Valve)
To thank him for letting them spend the last two hours of their workweek playing video games on the company dime, Kevin Grinnell's employees often single him out and shoot him in the head.
To be fair, the employees at Grinnell Computers aren't firing real weapons at their boss but are instead releasing the stresses of their week in a multiplayer online game known as Combat Arms.
Most Fridays for the last couple of months, the six employees of the Beaumont, Texas-based company have been encouraged to spend from 3 p.m. until 5 p.m. blasting away at the online first-person shooter from Nexon as a team-building exercise.
It's about "bonding," Grinnell said, when asked what the benefit to his company is of paying his team to play games. "We laugh until we cry when we play these games. We can do the thing where we have company dinners, and company functions, but those really aren't stress relief. At times, they can be more stress than they're worth."
Added employee Lee Mims, "You don't get to shoot your boss very much. It's kind of nice when you get a head shot on your boss."
At Grinnell Computers in Beaumont, Texas, employees play Combat Arms, from Nexon, with their boss, and even with clients.
(Credit: Nexon)Fans of the hit NBC show "The Office" may well remember an episode from season three called "The coup." In that episode, one of the main characters, Jim Halpert, had recently joined a different office of the paper supplies company he works for, only to fall haplessly into the branch's regular team-building sessions of the war game Call of Duty.
The scene may have been cooked up for its comedic effect, but it's no fiction that companies are turning more and more to video games as a way of building bridges between employees, or even between employees and management. And while there may be hierarchies to follow during the workday, it seems like chains of command often go out the window once co-workers get their game on.
That's a sentiment very familiar to Ross O'Dwyer, who runs the professional services group at the games middleware company, Havok, where for the last seven months or so, employees and management alike are engaging in regular evening games of the cooperative first-person shooter game Left 4 Dead.
Riffing on the famous Las Vegas marketing term, O'Dwyer said that, "I'm managing the guys, but at the same time, all bets are off when playing Left 4 Dead...What's said and done when playing Left 4 Dead is left in the game."
O'Dwyer said that after an employee started espousing the virtues of Left 4 Dead, several people in his office began playing the game using a single account that was "floating around."
Soon, though, as many as 12 employees had their own fully licensed copies of the game and now, many evenings are spent in the office with the team deep into Left 4 Dead sessions. And despite his status as their boss, during those sessions, O'Dwyer has found none of the respect he gets during the work day. Nor does he expect it.
"There's absolutely no lines of authority there," he said. "If I'm crap, if I'm the worst player on the team, that's the way it is. I will bow down to the...IT guy, who may be the best Left 4 Dead player on the team. We'll all fall in line, and I think that's great."
To O'Dwyer, the benefits of gathering his team for evenings of video gaming are clear: it's a great way of building cohesion.
"The CEO was in and he thought it was great to see so many people playing games," O'Dwyer said, "and actually spending more time together, and letting the barriers down a little bit."
Of course, while the folks at Havok are getting their game on in the evenings, at Grinnell Computers, it's a Friday afternoon thing.
Company owner Grinnell said that he offers his employees a choice: spend the last two hours of each Friday--when things are slow at his network installation and repair firm and the phones aren't ringing--playing Combat Arms on the clock, or take those same two hours off, unpaid.
And while he said he doesn't twist anyone's arm to play, there's no doubt that employees are going to want to get paid for their time.
Eating their own dog food
As one might expect, examples of companies in the video game business encouraging employees to play games together are easy to find. But while it may be a relatively new dynamic for colleagues to play multiplayer games as team building, there's long been a tradition of game playing in the office, said Min Kim, the vice president of marketing at Combat Arms publisher Nexon.
"People have been playing games in the office for years, with (single-player) Flash games and fantasy football," Kim said. "Games like Combat Arms are very social in that people are playing together--(which) builds team morale."
And Kim added that he thinks of multiplayer video games like Combat Arms as akin to playing basketball or golf, or even going out for a drink, as a way for colleagues to learn more about each other. But Combat Arms, for one, costs nothing, he pointed out, so properly managed, it is nothing but a net positive for companies.
To Kim Pallister, the director of content planning at Intel's visual computing group, it's a matter of getting more employees to take part in the very genre that pays the group's bills.
"We do quarterly gaming nights where we'll...get over a hundred people participating," Pallister said. "We'll set up...high-end PC gaming rigs for multiplayer, and we'll have consoles set up for things like Wii Sports, Rock Band, Dance Dance Revolution, etc. It's not only good for team-building, it gives everyone a chance to 'eat our own dog food' and see how games play on our hardware."
At the giant video game publisher Electronic Arts, a similar scene played out as a way of getting an in-development game closer to completion.
According to Robin Hunicke, then a senior member of the team making EA's Boom Blox, "The Boom Blox and Boom Blox Bash Party teams did round-robin tournaments with their QA teams during development to encourage playing the game."
Hunicke said that one purpose was to look for bugs in the games specific to multiplayer sessions, but another was to "improve cross-team communication."
The lead designer won both tournaments, Hunicke said.
No alcohol needed
In a recent advice column in The New York Times, Eilene Zimmerman addressed the question of whether it's a good idea for co-workers to drink alcohol if everyone else, including their boss, is imbibing.
Zimmerman's conclusion: Be very wary of mixing work and alcohol, even after-hours.
To O'Dwyer, playing video games with colleagues after work is a much better--and quicker--way to go, particularly because of the bonding that comes with trying to go after a common enemy the way he and his employees do in Left 4 Dead.
"You don't have to spend hours, and you don't need alcohol," O'Dwyer said. "You don't need to be half-twisted (drunk) before people let their guards down."
And that's important in an environment where every time the phone rings, it means trouble is calling.
"It's great stress relief," said Grinnell of Grinnell Computers. "Our business is incredibly stressful. People don't call us unless something bad has happened."
But Grinnell added that his company's Friday afternoon Combat Arms games have grown to include both the firm's outside lawyer and even one of its clients. And while the company already had a strong relationship with the client, Grinnell said playing the game together has only enhanced the mutual understanding.
"Yeah, we've gotten to know them better," Grinnell joked, "especially when they talk smack and you get to give them a head shot."
In the legal dispute over heavy metal action game Brutal Legend, Activision and Double Fine Productions have reportedly buried the hatchet. Or more appropriately, the ax.
A scheduled Los Angeles Superior Court hearing in which Activision was to argue for a judge to block the release of Brutal Legend was canceled Thursday, the Associated Press is reporting. The publisher's attorneys said a settlement was reached, negating the need for the hearing, a representative of the court told the AP.
The settlement presumably clears the way for Eddie Riggs to go to hell. Wait, who won this again?
(Credit: Double Fine Productions)No notice of settlement has been filed in the case, and there are no details as to the terms of the settlement. Representatives with Double Fine, Activision, and Electronic Arts (which is currently set to release the game through its EA Partners program) did not immediately return GameSpot's requests for comment.
Brutal Legend stars Jack Black as rock 'n' roll roadie Eddie Riggs, who must battle demons in hell.
The legal tiff over the game began at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in June, when Activision filed a lawsuit to prevent the release of Brutal Legend. Activision claims that even though it declined to release Brutal Legend after merging with original publisher Vivendi Games, it never lost the rights to put the game out.
As a result, Double Fine wouldn't have been free to shop the game around and secure the help of EA Partners in preparing Brutal Legend for its currently scheduled October 13 launch.
Earlier this month, Double Fine countersued, accusing Activision of unlawful business practices and trying to prevent the game's release to thin out potential competition to the publisher's own Guitar Hero franchise. The countersuit mentioned an aborted attempt to make Brutal Legend an extension of the Guitar Hero franchise and said Double Fine's continued existence hinged on the game's successful release.
Brendan Sinclair reported for GameSpot.
There may be an economic recovery in the works, but video game giant Electronic Arts has a way to go before it joins the party.
That seemed to be the message Tuesday, when EA reported its first-quarter results, the highlights of which were mixed: On the one hand, it reported a quarterly net loss of $234 million, or 72 cents a share, compared with a loss of $95 million, or 30 cents a share, for the same quarter a year earlier. But on the other hand, its big summer release, The Sims 3, appears to have gotten off to a great start, moving an impressive 3.7 million copies since its June 2 launch.
For the quarter, EA said it brought in $644 million in net revenue, down 20 percent, compared with $804 million a year earlier.
The quick start for The Sims 3 isn't surprising since it is part of one of the best-selling video game franchises in history, and because the game in June set a company record for first-week sales of a PC game.
EA also touted the performance of games like EA Sports Active and Fight Night Round 4, which it said also drove sales for the quarter.
Still, despite strong results for games like The Sims 3 and EA Sports Active, EA has to deal with the reality that its business is struggling in the face of the economy. Of course, it's hardly alone. During June, industry sales across the board were down 31 percent from the same period a year earlier.
Sims players will soon be able to journey to countries such as China and Egypt, search for hidden treasures, and meet fellow Sims along the way.
Electronic Arts announced Monday that it's developing the first expansion pack for its popular Sims 3 game. The new pack, Sims 3 World Adventures, will take players on a journey to real-world locales, says EA, from ancient tombs in Egypt to romantic getaways in France. While trekking across the globe, players can take on new challenges, develop different skills, and interact with other Sims.
"We're thrilled with the global success of The Sims 3 over these last few months and are looking forward to expanding on the gameplay experience with one of the most robust expansion packs to The Sims yet," said Scott Evans, General Manager of The Sims at EA.
Designed for the PC and Mac, the Sims 3 Expansion Pack will hit store shelves the week of November 16, says EA. A portable version for Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch will be out early next year.
Since its release in early June, Sims 3 has been a hot product. The game sold 1.9 million copies in its first week alone, making it EA's best PC game launch ever.
They say that the only way to really advance in a corporate organization is to leave it, and then return later.
Who knows what was really behind the recent career moves of John Schappert. But the current corporate vice president of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment business, who oversees Microsoft Game Studios and Xbox Live, is returning to Electronic Arts as chief operating officer. He originally left the company in 2007.
John Schappert, Microsoft corporate vice president of the Interactive entertainment business, is returning to Electronic Arts after a two-year hiatus.
(Credit: Microsoft)In his earlier EA tenure, he was a software engineer and eventually held leadership positions on some of the publisher's biggest titles, including Madden NFL, NCAA Football, and EA's Tiger Woods golf games. He founded Tiburon Entertainment studio, which developed those games, in 1994. EA bought Tiburon in 1998.
At Microsoft, he took over responsibility for the Xbox Live software division, and there, also oversaw Microsoft Game Studios. That job included oversight for massive franchises like Halo, Gears of War, and Forza Motorsport.
Schappert is replacing departing COO John Pleasants, who will become chief executive of social game developer Playdom.
According to TechFlash, Microsoft has decided not to replace Schappert.
"Instead of replacing John, Marc Whitten and Phil Spencer will lead their respective businesses, Live Services and Microsoft Game Studios, reporting directly to Don Mattrick," Microsoft told TechFlash in a statement. Mattrick is Microsoft senior vice president of the Interactive Entertainment Business, Entertainment and Devices Division. "Microsoft has complete confidence in the leadership of Marc and Phil and that their teams will remain focused and on track as we ramp up for this holiday."
The Sims 3 sold more than 1.4 million copies in its first week, making it the fastest-selling PC game launch in Electronic Arts history.
(Credit: Electronic Arts)Electronic Arts may get criticized in the press for its reliance on long-running franchises, but if the record first-week sales of The Sims 3 are any indication, gamers aren't concerned with such matters.
The game giant reported Tuesday that The Sims 3, the latest full iteration of the storied Sims franchise, sold 1.4 million copies in the first week following its June 2 release. That made it, according to EA, the best launch of a PC game in the company's history.
In the newest version, as in the previous iterations, players can create sims--lifelike simulated people with unique personalities--and control their lives while trying to keep them happy and alive. The new game also allows players to create and edit videos they make in the game.
For any new Sims title to set such records is particularly noteworthy, given that the original version of The Sims, released in 2000, quickly became the best-selling PC game of all time. Further, the games and the many expansions released over the years have sold more than 100 million copies.
In addition, the iPhone version of The Sims 3, which costs $10 on Apple's App Store, rose to the top spot among paid applications.
All of this goes to show that just when you think a franchise may have reached its limits, gamers make it clear that they have their own ideas about things. And for that, EA is smiling all the way to the bank.
