A sad update to a story from the other day: contrary to early rumors that owner EA was simply going to slash staff at Pandemic Studios, news comes in now that the ten year old studio will be shut down entirely and all 200 staff laid off. This is the first of what’s sure to be many casualties, as EA has committed to reducing its workforce by 1,100 people in order to offset a nearly half-billion dollar loss over the last two quarters.
Pandemic started out strong, with titles like Full Spectrum Warrior, Mercenaries, and Destroy all Humans; in recent years a series of critical downers such as Mercenaries 2, Lord of the Rings: Conquest, and the canceled Dark Knight hurt their bottom line and reputation. Most recently, Pandemic was at work on The Saboteur, a visually intriguing open world WWII adventure set in Nazi-occupied Paris. EA has indicated that this property, along with Pandemic’s more lucrative franchises, will be handed off to another studio – possibly EA Tiburon.
The studio merged with Canadian RPG giant Bioware a few years ago, and shortly thereafter the duo were picked up by EA for a cool $800 million. Bioware’s safe from the publisher’s axe, riding high with Dragon Age and Mass Effect, but Pandemic wasn’t made of such teflon.
More layoff and closure announcements are expected from EA in the coming weeks.
UPDATE: Shacknews tells us that EA is not, in fact, shuttering the studio entirely, though it is laying off nearly the entire staff. A “core team” (that usually means about four people) will be relocated to EA Los Angeles and retain the Pandemic name… though it wouldn’t surprise me if this is only for as long as it takes to finish and ship The Saboteur, currently slated for 12/8.
Dammit, their games didn’t start sucking until EA got their hooks into them.
So they merge with BioWare, which seems to be a good idea, EA buys them both for their intellectual properties and talents, forces Pandemic into a death march and then executes them?
Fine, I’m probably oversimplifying, but it seems like they haven’t been allowed to make good games and then got penalized for it.
Now, you put it exactly as it looks to me as well. Pandemic were showing A LOT of promise before they were acquired by EA. Then their games started… not being good. Everyone thought merging with BW was strange but what the hell, that should have made them somewhat more survival-friendly… Obviously not… Pity. I assume they will be starting a new company soon, but still, this is terrible news for those guys.
It’s especially sad to see a comparatively long-lived studio with so many employees go under so quickly, with just the stroke of a pen. Ten-person studios close all the time, but 200 employees and a decade of games? That always shocks a little bit.
I never fully understood why Bioware and Pandemic merged back in the day, but I never had a problem with the merger. As Meho says, regardless of the fact that the two developers seem so different, a merger is a way to share resources and help shore each other up when in trouble. Plus they both obviously kept their own identities.
Pandemic’s problems started when EA was evil the first time around, under Larry Probst, the Franchise & Sequel King. I think with time and Ricitiello’s support, Pandemic could have pulled out of the slump. Saboteur at least looked like it would have been a good sales unit.
Thoughts and support to all the people at Pandemic. I’m sorry it happened; you didn’t deserve it.