Rumor: Electronic Arts Closes Visceral Montreal

[Andy Chalk]

Rumor: Electronic Arts Closes Visceral Montreal

Electronic Arts has laid off employees in Los Angeles and Montreal, and reportedly shuttered the Visceral Montreal studio.

Electronic Arts has confirmed layoffs of employees at its operations in both Los Angeles and Montreal, describing the cuts in a statement as "adjustments to select development teams to align staff and skills against priority growth areas, including new technologies and mobile." The publisher refused to specify which studios were being closed down but the rumor, cited by multiple sources, is that the Montreal office of Dead Space studio Visceral Games has been closed entirely.

EA Labels President Frank Gibeau confirmed the cuts in a message rather amazingly entitled "Transition Is Our Friend [http://www.ea.com/news/transition-is-our-friend]." "This week we let some people go in Los Angeles, Montreal as well as in some smaller locations," he wrote. "These are good people and we have offered outplacement services and severance packages to ease their transition to a new job."

We'll update with further details as they become available.

Source: Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/5986029/ea-lays-off-staff-fate-of-visceral-montreal-in-question]


Permalink

 

[Nocturnus]

EA:

Hey look! Let's change a token horror franchise into an action game!

Hey look! We're getting bad publicity for changing a token horror franchise into an action game!

Hey look! That token horror franchise that we had them change into an action game isn't selling to the ridiculous sales speculations that we made!

This can't be because we changed a token horror franchise into an action game and set a ridiculously high standard for its sales!

IT MUST BE THAT GAME STUDIOS' FAULT!
SHUT IT DOWN!

 

[felbot]

an ea studio goes under? what a fucking surprise.

 

[ShirowShirow]

I'm guessing Dead Space 3 didn't break 5 million then.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Next stop - Bioware.

Fuck you EA. FUCK YOU!

 

[Antari]

EA has killed another one. I haven't got a clue how many that is now. All I know is its mass murder.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

I liked Visceral. I would have bought Dead Space 3 the day it came out if it wasn't for EA's logo on the box. It's depressing when a flawed but really talented studio is forced to make generic crap and gets killed before it can really shine. RIP Visceral, and I hope the market crash comes soon so EA can die slowly and painfully like all the studios it's shut down.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

I'm guessing Dead Space 3 didn't break 5 million then.

"This organisation does not tolerate failure Visceral"

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

I haven't even played Deadspace and yet I feel really bad for them.

Just another day for EA to kill another studio rather than admit it's ever wrong.

 

[Rad Party God]

Despite the serious amount of chages the series has been put through, it still was a great series and I really liked Dead Space 3. It was a tragedy for the studio since the very beginning, I guess they didn't managed to get those dreaded 5 million EA was asking for.

Fuck You EA.

 

[Teoes]

I'm not going to go for the low(est)-hanging fruit and stick fingers up at EA here, but..

"..we have offered outplacement services and severance packages to ease their transition to a new job."

Fucking HR-speak! Fuck you! You fired folk, but were benevolent enough to give them redundancy pay and a map to the Job Centre. Outplacement services. Pah. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻


captcha: have courage
Don't you start, captcha.

 

[Starke]

I'm not going to go for the low(est)-hanging fruit and stick fingers up at EA here, but..

"..we have offered outplacement services and severance packages to ease their transition to a new job."

Fucking HR-speak! Fuck you! You fired folk, but were benevolent enough to give them redundancy severance pay and a map to the Job Centre unemployment office. Outplacement services. Pah. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻


captcha: have courage
Don't you start, captcha.

Please, sir, they're American Canadian over this way.

 

[LordMonty]

Its not Visceral Games headquarters wiki it, they have like six substudios... which ignoring the cost effectiveness of that means they're not being fully shutdown, just trimed. But yea its due to EA just wanting more money which horror games don't make enough of.

 

[Teoes]

Please, sir, they're American Canadian over this way.

Don't placate me, bro! (ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ /(.□.)\
Just cuz I'm British..

 

[Chester Rabbit]

I knew they were making to much sense and being uncharacteristically moral
Something big was going to happen to put our opinions of EA back in their rightful place, and hey, this happened.

 

[Ukomba]

Of course, it doesn't take that many programmers to re-release Maden and FEFA with a new number on the front.

 

[recruit00]

Next stop - Bioware.

Fuck you EA. FUCK YOU!

One can only hope...

 

[Agente L]

Can't say I wasn't expecting this. EA has a long history of destroying studios inside out and then closing them. Another one to the pile.

We will remember you Visceral, for the game you once made, not for what you became. Now you are in the same hall as Bullfrog, Westwood, Origin and others. RIP.