Rumor: Pandemic Studios to close soon

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Home Pandemic

7:30 AM on 11.17.2009, Brad Nicholson

64 comments | 3885 views

Rumor: Pandemic Studios to close soon photo

#layoffs #Pandemic #rumors

If sources have it right, then EA is to make Pandemic Studios no more after this afternoon.

According to a Kotaku report, several unnamed sources have said that the studio responsible for Mercenaries and the still-upcoming The Saboteur is to close its doors in the near future. Furthermore, much of the studio's 200 or so staff members will be laid off this morning via an in-house announcement expected at 11 AM PT. The remaining staff are supposedly to be reassigned to other EA-owned “development teams.”

Pandemic’s videogame IPs will reportedly transfer to EA Montreal.

We’ve checked in with a few people that may or may not have knowledge of this situation. We’ve yet to receive a response, but will update this when/if we receive a comment.

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next 50 comments

64 comments | showing # 1 to 50

yatzze

First?

yatzze

FIRST!

Draxxlith

New like this is never fun... Hopefully they'll keep as many as possible.

StingingVelvet

I feel bad for these people, but Mercs 2 was a pretty bad game on the development end. It was a game with good ideas and a good core, but shoddy development ruined it.

I assume Saboteur is similar and EA knows it.

Y0j1mb0

You mean EA absorbed a game development team and is now kicking them to the curb??

shocking.

Lost i t W

Nobody ever mentions Pandemic's crowning achievement: SW Battlefront II. I still play that game to this day.

Still, when you have yet to top something you cranked out in 2005.....

Monodi

I guess some things never change... i hope they don't fuck this up.

Xzyliac

NOOOOO!!!!!

Pandemic was like the AC/DC of gaming. Sure it all kinda played the same and sure it wasn't neccesarily the most complex stuff on the block but dammit it was fun!

Chronic Logic

LIQUIDATE ALL PANDEMIC STUDIOUS ASSETS!

Mercenaries 2 was indeed a bad game. Seriously the only good thing about that the game was the catchy song. I really wanted another Full Spectrum Warriors game, that game had potential.

Mr Wrighty 987

whormongr

it would suck if you were one of those employees and read it here instead of getting the news @ 11 today

Mushman

Oh damn, if this is true then it's a damn shame, the studio created two great games in the form of star wars batteltfront 1 and 2(which I downloaded off of steam recently), and though mercs 2 was, frankly, fun but deeply flawed, the first one was great. what I don't get is even though mercs 2 was a 'bad' game, it sold over 1.7 million copies total, so it's not a case of the studio isn't making a profit.

Bad news, hopefully the star wars team gets top keep thier jobs.

lewness

I don't care whether they're a great company or otherwise, this kind of news is never good.

Carlton Banks

It's not a rumor.

JustLikeBuck

It's a shame. They were A pretty decent developer with fresh ideas. I rated them higher than the likes of Volition, anyway.

And Mercs 2 was quite good, despite half the comments we'll get here saying it was "ruined". It certainly kept me more entertained that the snooze fest Assassin's Creed and PROTOTYPE that everybody here seems to gush about!

StingingVelvet

@ JustLikeBuck

The only experience I have with Voilition is that they do horrible PC ports compared to almost everyone else, but... yes, I agree, Pandemic had more going for it than they do.

As for Mercs 2 I played it for 20 hours or so, had some fun, explosions were nice... the game was still crappy though, compared to similar releases. Personally I thought Just Cause was a better game in a very similar style.

Fiat Mediocrity

Did I seriously just see someone insult AC/DC like that?

Turbofail

wtf, Pandemic have made some awesome games over the years, only to be bought out by EA in 2007 and run into the fucking ground. Good job assholes.

Steel Brotha

@ Fiat Mediocrity
Yeah I know, that hurt me too. And I listen to underground hip-hop. Pandemics was more like the KISS of gaming. All show, no difference in technique.

UglyDuck

EA buys developer, acquires original IPs, announces sequels, rushes development of said sequels, turns out shit, makes some money, closes the studio.

So, what's new.

Onlineatron

@UglyDuck

You're not giving EA enough credit.

They have been pushing new IPs above anything else this (and last) year and it hasn't worked.

Activision on the other hand pump out sequel after sequel and make profit after profit.

EA have tried something different... and it failed to bear fruits. Now they have to go back to before.. which is a crying shame.

PS. The header image looks god awful... I'd rather keep the Nazi occupation in Paris an maintain the beautiful grey scale effect.

Chronic Logic

Damn you Activision! Becuase you kept on trying to fuck over video gamers, you almost made me believe for a second that EA was nice video game publisher!

Holyetheline

StingingVelvet

Why the hate for EA? Pandemic were the ones who took 3+ years to make Mercenaries 2 and had it come out looking half developed. I feel bad for them losing their jobs, but they didn't exactly show themselves to be worth programmers.

Im OK

yatzze == fail

Now for some actual content, if rehashed content.

So, yeah. Remember when this whole thing went down, where EA bought Pandemic (and, incidentally, Bioware at the same time) and a lot of people were going on about how EA was different now? That they had changed and surely wouldn't be doing, you know, the exact same shit they have been doing for the past decade or more?

Yeah, I remember that.

Well, whatever. RIP Pandemic, Maxis, Westwood, Origin, Bullfrog, Bioware... oh wait, Bioware is still alive, right? For now. For now, it is, sure. When will the black hand of EA caress them and send the Bioware name into the faded shadows of memory like all the rest, I wonder?

BattyAdroit

BF2 is one of the finest games ever made. This is sad news indeed, I hope everyone lands on their feet.

digital52

Shame about Pandemic, I've been looking forward to Saboteur for awhile. I hope this isn't a sign of something being very wrong with the game.

If it's any consolation though the primary's from Pandemic will go off and form a new studio and make new games. They always do...

TheJesusNinja26

With how terrible LOTR Conquest was, and how lame The Saboteur looks. I'm not surprised.

deaddays

What does this mean for Saboteur??!! I'm looking forward to that!

StingingVelvet

It means it is completed.

matrixdude171

Why won't they do a Battlefront 3 yet?

teach4food

that sucks, Pandemic is pretty cool and they usually sent someone to my kids school for career day. Hate to hear bad news like this

Xzyliac

@Chronic Logic
Damn even when it's not at all about Activision it's Activision's fault.

InFamous91

=(...I'm not surprise. EA, you better not fuck things up.

Wintersocks

No...no more Battlefront?

NOOOOOOOOOO! I demand A silent minute for the once great game studio's death.

Nitex

Give Battlefront to DICE. They would definitely make it kick ass.

The RPGist

Honestly now, who here actually cares about Saboteur?

Ir's going to flop at Christmas.

Horus

serves them right for making mercenaries 2.

sheppy

@Horus,

200 people are about to lose their jobs for christmas. 200 people will be scramnbling for already dwindling jobs in this field. 200 people will likely be reduced back to QA just for the job opening despite working their way up over years of hard work. 200.

Doesn't matter if Mercenaries 2 was shipped out incomplete, often those decisions come from the publisher, not the developer. What matters is 200 people, hard working underappreciated folks, are about to lose their jobs. So on behalf of those 200 people, fuck a barbed wire dildo.

StingingVelvet

@ Sheppy

Of course their performance matters, are we living in some utopis where resources are endless? There was a recent article that showed EA lost 700 million last quarter, they can't just give paychecks away with nothing in return.

Wikipedia says Mercs 2 was in development almost 4 years and the game seemed half-finished. That is called bad design and programming choices, end of story. I assume The Saboteur has similar problems or EA would not be canning them.

jamBOT

A lot of people "care" about The Saboteur. It looks interesting. Yes we've seen this sort of thing before, but that can be said of a lot of things. Mission based, free the city, OK. But I hate Nazi. Nazi piss me off. I wanted to at lease check it out. But this is just bullsh*t. F*king E.A.

PoopShooter

shit.
just got word from my cousin.
rumors are true. theyre shutting down. He's out of a job.

AlLeBlanc

If it comes here in Montreal, it would be awesome!!

Los255

Damn, they must've really been pissed that "The Saboteur" wasn't like Mass Effect.

DanielCampbell

Sad news indeed. My heart goes out to all those who lost their jobs.

Doesnt it just piss you off that all the people who work so hard on the games lose their jobs while CEOs and corporate morons who know jack shit get to keep their jobs? A CEO for example is able to make millions of dollars of someone else's hard work, run the company into the ground and then still get another job as a CEO somewhere else. I always get the feeling that guys like Bobby K could give a rats ass if he is the CEO of a game company or a cheese factory. As long as he is making millions of dollars and squeezing every last penny out of consumers, he is happy. But its alright, we all know guys like him are going to burn in hell.

able_to_think

That's what they get for making buggy games. It's a dog eat dog world out there and if your not up to snuff your gonna end up closing down.

Zeta Crossfire

Considering how awful there latest titles have been im not surprised.

PoopShooter

If the pandemic people are reading this, yes your last titles did flop despite all the hard work and unpaid hours and effort you guys put into it.

but still what the fuck at the arm chair critics and gamers saying "you deserve to be fired!"

kitae

My heart goes out to the Pandemic crew, a very talented bunch.

Everyday Legend

And another one down.

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