Electronic Arts Confirms Danger Close Closure

[Andy Chalk]

Electronic Arts Confirms Danger Close Closure

EA Vice President Patrick Söderlund says the Medal of Honor studio "doesn't exist anymore."

The 2010 Medal of Honor reboot and its 2012 sequel, Medal of Honor: Warfighter, were both stinkers, Warfighter faring so poorly that it prompted Electronic Arts to take it out behind the shed and give it the opened [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121799-Electronic-Arts-Drops-Medal-of-Honor] a Los Angeles branch of Battlefield studio DICE in May.

EA has previously refused to comment on the studio's fate but in an interview with Eurogamer, Söderlund, the executive vice president of the EA Games Label, confirmed that Danger Close is done. "Danger Close as it was doesn't exist anymore," he said. "There are people who left LA, people who work with DICE LA, and there are some who work in other parts of EA, as always when something gets dismantled."

It's always sad to see a developer go under, but the risk to studios that are purpose-built for a particular franchise, especially one that's relatively untried, is high - and in this case, the outcome was all but inevitable.

Source: Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-06-13-star-wars-battlefront-is-dices-interpretation-of-what-battlefront-should-be]


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[bfgmetalhead]

Hey! EA's gonna get you too. Another one bites the dust.

Off to lie with Bullfrog, Westwood and Bioware ya go.

 

[GodzillaGuy92]

I initially read the title as something along the lines of "Electronic Arts Confirms They're Dangerously Close To Closure" - which, needless to say, momentarily made my heart leap. Alas, it's just another small step in that direction. Let's hope that hallowed day arrives before too many more such casualties happen.

 

[Fin Morrison]

we are talking about the studio that pooped out warfighter right? cause I'd be totally fine with that, although it sucks for the people who are losing their jobs, although they still did make warfighter so i don't really think they wanted to make games in the first place...

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

This is exactly how it went down.

EA: DC, maek CoD klon
DC: But boss, people already have more than enough modern military shooters. It won't sell. The market is over-saturated.
EA: Dooooo iiiiiit!
DC: Yes, boss. We'll need a few years though.
EA: Do iiiit nauuuu!
DC: We'll try boss.
EA: Aaa, whas dis? Peoples don likz iiit. Peoples don baj iiit.
DC: That's what we've been trying to tell you. People have had enough.
EA: I hzd enuf! Youz firddd!

 

[Diablo1099_v1legacy]

Somewhere, some EA board member is adding another notch to his belt...

 

[TWEWYFan]

While I may not have had much interest in their games, it's a shame to see another studio fall victim to Electronic "We will destroy all" Arts.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Well that wasn't predictable.

I feel sorry for them, being put together and given a couple of years to somehow match the Call of Duty juggernaut. No doubt with such an important task there was lots of oversight in the writing, development and marketing from EA execs.

Seriously, Call of Duty games are made by what, five or six developers working together now? You may as well have asked some pub team to take on Man U at Wembley (and told them they either won or lost their houses).

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Hey! EA's gonna get you too. Another one bites the dust.

Off to lie with Bullfrog, Westwood and Bioware ya go.

Seriously did anyone not expect this?

 

[BrotherRool]

This is them trying to mask the fact that DICE LA is basically formed out of Danger Close. (Or respond to that accusation). I bet you we're talking a very high percentage of staff crossing over here.

I tried to look for sources of Wikipedia, but Danger Close is still redirecting to DICE LA at the moment (as it's done for the past couple of months)

I mean we were basically informed Danger Close was closed in May, this isn't new news unless they're trying to respond to those specific allegations. People were reporting Danger Close as being 'renamed' and 'restructured' as DICE LA well before this announcement
http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2013/05/15/ea-renames-danger-close-as-dice-la-and-gives-it-some-star-wars/
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/05/16/dice-la-from-the-ashes-of-medal-of-honor

With Medal of Honor on indefinite hiatus, numerous senior members of developer Danger Close have migrated over to Electronic Arts? other Los Angeles studio, the newly announced DICE LA. ?Most others,? the publisher tells IGN, ?have moved on from EA.?

I mean it's not like EA didn't rename all their RPG studios 'Bioware' last year.

 

[Ympulse]

There were exceptionally few actual job losses from this "closure".

Danger Close simply moved down the street a bit, and the title on the placards there is DICE instead of Danger Close. Put the pitchforks away, mouthbreathers.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Well that wasn't predictable.

I feel sorry for them, being put together and given a couple of years to somehow match the Call of Duty juggernaut. No doubt with such an important task there was lots of oversight in the writing, development and marketing from EA execs.

Seriously, Call of Duty games are made by what, five or six developers working together now? You may as well have asked some pub team to take on Man U at Wembley (and told them they either won or lost their houses).

Other shooters with less resources have done better than Danger Close at making military shooters in a "COD dominated market". And sold miles better than MoH Warfighter. To go from selling 5 million on the hype Medal of Honor name alone to selling 300,000 shows how bad the game truly was.

EA also has Battlefield, which is a different enough game fundamentally to not fall under "the COD shooter clone" feeling. The thing with Danger Close is that they tried to make a COD clone in the most literal sense. Games like that tend to get slaughtered in sales because they feel second teir, even to COD.

I can't blame the EA execs' for this one. COD has just as horrible of a marketing plan thanks to Activision and just as dumb of writing. In the end it was the poorer quality product that was to blame.

 

[FalloutJack]

Somewhere, some EA board member is adding another notch to his belt...

By now, his belt would look like beef jerky the way it's torn up.

So, when these guys do go down, do we give them a viking funeral or a New Orleans funeral?

 

[Diablo1099_v1legacy]

By now, his belt would look like beef jerky the way it's torn up.

So, when these guys do go down, do we give them a viking funeral or a New Orleans funeral?

There is a reference there that I just don't get.
New Orleans funeral?

 

[FalloutJack]

By now, his belt would look like beef jerky the way it's torn up.

So, when these guys do go down, do we give them a viking funeral or a New Orleans funeral?

There is a reference there that I just don't get.
New Orleans funeral?

I actually want one of these when I die. That's AFTER I explode, of course.

 

[Diablo1099_v1legacy]

I actually want one of these when I die. That's AFTER I explode, of course.

Ahhh...Gotcha *Nods with understanding*

 

[MysticSlayer]

This doesn't surprise me at all. Danger Close, as it existed, was not that talented or dedicated of a development team. The last unarguably good Medal of Honor game was Allied Assault (back in 2002!), and that was developed by 2015, of which many members left to form Infinity Ward of Call of Duty fame. The franchise has been declining ever since, with practically no games even worth getting after Pacific Assault, and it's a miracle that the franchise and its studio have managed to stick around at all, especially since EA already has Battlefield, a franchise with much higher quality and more successful games, with development team infinitely more dedicated to giving us a polished product and supporting their product after launch. Basically, it is hard to view this as EA just killing off another studio, but more them not willing to provide any more life support to it.

On the other hand, many of these people still have a job. The opening of DICE EA will give them a job and a chance to work for the much more acclaimed studio, so it might be a blessing in disguise for some people. I also can't imagine that it's impossible for these people to find jobs in other places at EA, given how large the company is. Sucks for anyone who is without a job because of this, but I doubt the situation is anywhere near as bad as the EA haters are imagining it to be.

 

[thehorror2]

I forgot that EA published both Battlefield AND Medal of Honor. Why the hell did they bother with both? They only split their own market.

 

[Krantos]

There were exceptionally few actual job losses from this "closure".

Danger Close simply moved down the street a bit, and the title on the placards there is DICE instead of Danger Close. Put the pitchforks away, mouthbreathers.

1. Not any pitchforks being raised. Just "Another one bite the dust" jokes.
2. EA's statement says the team was split up "There are people who left LA, people who work with DICE LA, and there are some who work in other parts of EA, as always when something gets dismantled."

This wasn't a simple renaming. The studio closed, but an undisclosed number of employees were shifted a different internal dev studio rather than being let go. If it was a simple renaming, EA would have said that, like they did when they renamed it from EA LA.

The prevalent attitude in this thread is not anger, more of grim amusement at the high mortality rate of EA's studios.

 

[shrekfan246]

This is them trying to mask the fact that DICE LA is basically formed out of Danger Close. (Or respond to that accusation). I bet you we're talking a very high percentage of staff crossing over here.

I tried to look for sources of Wikipedia, but Danger Close is still redirecting to DICE LA at the moment (as it's done for the past couple of months)

I mean we were basically informed Danger Close was closed in May, this isn't new news unless they're trying to respond to those specific allegations. People were reporting Danger Close as being 'renamed' and 'restructured' as DICE LA well before this announcement
http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2013/05/15/ea-renames-danger-close-as-dice-la-and-gives-it-some-star-wars/
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/05/16/dice-la-from-the-ashes-of-medal-of-honor

With Medal of Honor on indefinite hiatus, numerous senior members of developer Danger Close have migrated over to Electronic Arts? other Los Angeles studio, the newly announced DICE LA. ?Most others,? the publisher tells IGN, ?have moved on from EA.?

I mean it's not like EA didn't rename all their RPG studios 'Bioware' last year.

That won't stop everyone from claiming that EA is the devil and out to ruin every developer in the industry.

And it's not like Danger Close was all that good, anyway. They fairly reliably pumped out absolute mediocrity in every game they made that wasn't an RTS.