Update: Layoffs Hit Need for Speed Studio, Ghost Games' UK Branch

[Alex Co]

Update: Layoffs Hit Need for Speed Studio, Ghost Games' UK Branch

Full-time staff members told either to take compensation and leave, or work to support Visceral's police-themed Battlefield title.

According to a report from Polygon [http://www.polygon.com/2014/2/1/5360976/layoffs-hit-ghost-games-uk-office-unannounced-nfs-title-mothballed], Need for Speed: Rivals developer, Ghost Games' UK branch, which is based in Surrey, has been hit with layoffs. It mentions that parent company EA has let go of contractors and told the remaining full-time staff that they can either take compensation and leave, or help Dead Space studio Visceral Games work on a "police-themed" Battlefield title -- allegedly codenamed "Havana" and is set for release later this year.

The report comes just weeks after EA confirmed that Criterion Games co-founders Alex Ward and Fiona Sperry had left their studio [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130998-Update-Criterion-Founders-Leave-Studio] because they "wanted to work for themselves." Criterion, notably known for developing the racing franchise, Burnout, was originally in charge of the Need for Speed series before it was handed to Ghost Games.

Due to the layoffs, development on an unnamed entry in the Need for Speed franchise has allegedly been put on hold, while an anonymous source states that current plans is for Ghost Games, formerly known as EA Gothenburg, to take full development duties for future games in the racing series.

If the report is true, it's unclear at this point how many people have been affected by the layoffs. We've reached out to EA to ask for a statement regarding both the layoffs and on the alleged police-themed Battlefield game Visceral is working on.

Source: Polygon [http://www.polygon.com/2014/2/1/5360976/layoffs-hit-ghost-games-uk-office-unannounced-nfs-title-mothballed]

Update: An EA spokesperson has told Polygon [http://www.polygon.com/2014/2/1/5360976/layoffs-hit-ghost-games-uk-office-unannounced-nfs-title-mothballed] that the publisher has "entered a consultation period for some positions in our Ghost Games U.K. studio."

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[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Another reminder that we live in the age of corporate douche-baggery.

I personally think that the Need for Speed series has become utter crap since its now just facebook with cars, but there is never a time when I would justify a lay off in these times.

 

[Alex Co]

So Criterion is cut from 87 staff to 17 as EA moves 70 to Ghost games UK who then get laid off 4 months later anyway.

Stay classy EA, but don't worry your a shoe-in for another worst company in America award now.

Yep, seems like it. Kinda odd, no? Or maybe it was part of their plan all along?

 

[magter3001]

Always sucks when people lose jobs, even if it is the now ruined NFS. Who knows, maybe there is hope some day for Underground 3. Hopefully it won't be like Most Wanted 2...

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

It has been 0 days since EA performed a douchebag corporate maneuver

Authough they were the morons who created this


So I don't exactly feel much sympathy for them.

 

[Falterfire]

So apparently I was shipped the one and only copy of NFS:Rivals that wasn't shit. I'm actually not sure what I purchased, since according to everybody else Rivals is a hideously unplayable mess that is only a Facebook simulator when it works, but I received an enjoyable arcade racer with a pretty cool multiplayer mode.

Don't know what happened there, but given that everybody else apparently got a game that literally murders children, I can understand why the studio needed to be downsized.

 

[Parasondox]

Hey EA, if the next Need for Speed game is on hold, would you be able to maybe share the rights of Porsche cars to other racing games please without demanding a shit load amount of money. You aren't using it so you might as well. Forza, Gran Turismo and racing fans in general would love to drive some Porsche cars again without having to buy your terri... I mean okay racing series.

 

[List]

seems to me that EA's business strategy is something like
1. buy studio with good IP
2. Milk the sh!t out of said IP's
3. Disolve studio
4. Repeat

 

[jackpipsam]

So I don't exactly feel much sympathy for them.

But that's implying everybody who got fired was involved with the PC port and how the frame-rate works.

Sorry that's just silly.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

So I don't exactly feel much sympathy for them.

But that's implying everybody who got fired was involved with the PC port and how the frame-rate works.

Sorry that's just silly.

The game was hard coded to run at 30fps, from AI to physics, every version was built that way. It's rather depressing as the Frostbite 3 engine which it uses had no such limitations.

 

[Strazdas]

It has been 0 days since EA performed a douchebag corporate maneuver

Authough they were the morons who created this

Spoiler: spoilered video for snipping

So I don't exactly feel much sympathy for them.

Wow. i was going to say its bad that people got layed off, but if this is what those people did im glad they got laid off. a rookies know better than to do mistakes like these, wow this is horrible, im so glad i didnt play that one, will remove it from the list of games to look at now.