[Alvarez]

Quote:

EA has laid off an unspecified number of staff at its Los Angeles and Montreal studios, EA Labels boss Frank Gibeau has confirmed.

In an official statement, Gibeau said, "Thousands of our existing employees have been retrained and redeployed to work on the new platforms and initiatives. But when it is not possible to redeploy a team, we soften the tough decisions with assistance.
He added, "This week we let some people go in Los Angeles, Montreal as well as in some smaller locations. These are good people and we have offered outplacement services and severance packages to ease their transition to a new job."

According to various unconfirmed reports, Montreal-based Visceral Games could be set to close altogether.

Visceral is the studio behind Dead Space, and is currently working on Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel.

Source:

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/392900/ea-layoffs-hit-la-montreal-and-smaller-locations/

Link about Visceral's closing:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=514816

Also a tweet:

https://twitter.com/missharvey/status/304678545387565056

Next stop: Bioware ? Or maybe it's early, they need to ruin couple of more games

Needless to say, it's sad to see more people are going to join to the army of unemployees, i hope they'll find their new places ASAP.

 

[PCSarge]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alvarez

Source:

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/392900/ea-layoffs-hit-la-montreal-and-smaller-locations/

Link about Visceral's closing:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=514816

Also a tweet:

https://twitter.com/missharvey/status/304678545387565056

Next stop: Bioware ? Or maybe it's early, they need to ruin couple of more games

Needless to say, it's sad to see more people are going to join to the army of unemployees, i hope they'll find their new places ASAP.

*EA shuts down visceral*

cool story EA, now shut down call of duty so we can live in peace.

 

[moocowman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PCSarge

*EA shuts down visceral*

cool story EA, now shut down call of duty so we can live in peace.

Huh? CoD is under Activision, not EA.

I really liked the DS series. It's a shame to see this happen. A big question that comes up, though, is what's going to happen to Army of Two: Devil's Cartel?

 

[Shrak]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PCSarge

*EA shuts down visceral*

cool story EA, now shut down call of duty so we can live in peace.

 

[GrizzleBoy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PCSarge

*EA shuts down visceral*

cool story EA, now shut down call of duty so we can live in peace.

Too soon.

 

[Foxrun]

What?! I thought DS sold well? First Stalker, then THQ, now Dead Space this sucks

 

[arkenex]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PCSarge

*EA shuts down visceral*

cool story EA, now shut down call of duty so we can live in peace.

I know how this forum feels, and I'm not trying to start anything, but just because you don't like Call of Duty, doesn't mean everyone doesn't. I love going over to a friends house and playing split-screen. It's a relaxing game, because it's so simple. I love it.

 

[-Apocalypse-]

There's got to be more to this story. You don't close a studio right before it launches a medium-franchise game.

Also, Bioware is fine... Only "failures" since their EA acquisition was DA2 and that ME iOS game.

EDIT: Kill the tweet link: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-02-21-ea-transition-leads-to-layoffs-in-montreal-and-los-angeles
Quote:

Though early reports pointed to the complete shutdown of Army of Two developers EA Montreal and Visceral Games Montreal, the company confirmed that the studios will continue to exist in some form.

It's just restructuring, happens when you get that large.

 

[moocowman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by -Apocalypse-

There's got to be more to this story. You don't close a studio right before it launches a medium-franchise game.

Also, Bioware is fine... Only "failures" since their EA acquisition was DA2 and that ME iOS game.

EDIT: Kill the tweet link: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-02-21-ea-transition-leads-to-layoffs-in-montreal-and-los-angeles
It's just restructuring, happens when you get that large.

Ah. That's good to hear then. I mean, still sucks that some are still getting laid off, but at least EA is doing something to make the transition easier for them.

 

[djriful]

The gaming industries is falling apart everywhere... what is going on?

 

[Raven.7]

Quote:

Originally Posted by djriful

The gaming industries is falling apart everywhere... what is going on?

EA

 

[Ibage]

Quote:

Originally Posted by djriful

The gaming industries is falling apart everywhere... what is going on?

No, just the studios EA takes in...

 

[BlackVenom]

Does anyone else feel that now is the same period for software that hardware (console) makers had back in the 80s where the market was saturated?

 

[Alvarez]

Restructure ?
Like Westwood ?

No, thanks.

We can pretty say RIP Visceral

 

[GrizzleBoy]

Valve reportedly lays off ~ 20 employees, including gardware engineer, director of business and lead designer for TF2.

Confirmed team working on HL game were scrapped.

*silence*

EA releases a "small number" of employees and retrains/re-assigns the rest ahead of a new console generation.

*sounds of people breaking things*

Sounds about right I'd say.

 

[triarii3]

i thought dead space was doing well? so this will mean no Dead space 4? what a shame... i really liked the whole DS series

 

[Vengeance47]

The games industry is incredibly volatile. Always has been, always will be. Its very rare to hold down a job for longer than 6-18 months with the same developer until you get into a senior role which takes several years to achieve. The first few years are spent jumping ship constantly, having work for a few months, then having several months without it, then finding a new contract, so on and so forth.

Sounds to me that Visceral is just re-structuring, or basically, trimming the fat. Which pretty much means the left over staff after DS3's launch are being either put onto other projects with other EA based developers, or let go altogether. Its standard procedure for the industry. I could be wrong, but sounds to me that this is exactly what is going on. Seeing as DS3 has just launched and seeing as the first Army of Two game was a flop, EA won't have as many resources on that project. Which means left over staff from DS3 need to be moved on somewhere else.

 

[Alvarez]

I dont think EA will ignore DS4. There will be DS4, but will we like it ? or it'll be created by who ? These are the questions i believe..

And we shouldn't forget that most of the companies are believing F2P is the future of gaming. (It's more like singularity of gaming, something which take over control and finish it's creator) So, i dont think we'll see 5+ AAA games in a year in future.

 

[Katana]

After having been laid off myself, I have to say that I feel less sympathetic towards people layed off. When you're older, it's a damn killer because your talents might be out of date. But for younger folks and especially game developers, it's basically HR's only option to hire just-laid-off people.

If they've been out of work a long time, there's obviously some problem with them!
If they're just out of college, they certainly don't have the experience we need!

So of all the states of joblessness, it seems like "just laid off" is one of the better ones. As long as you update your LinkedIn profile, and the layoffs are in the news, many of these developers can expect some E-mails.

 

[SpykeZ]

Quote:

Originally Posted by djriful

The gaming industries is falling apart everywhere... what is going on?

Business suits aiming for greed. All in all, nothing is happening to gaming, all you're hearing is news about crappy studios like EA, UBI, Gearbox etc. Ones that aren't gamers, just suits behind a computer trying to make a profit.