Another EA Studio Down

Another EA studio bites the dust.

EA Chicago has gone down for the count. I can exclusively report that EA is closing the studio effective immediately. Word is that EA is working hard to place many of the 150+ employees at its other studios around the world. What does this mean for the future of the Def Jam fighting franchise and the forthcoming Marvel fighting game? I'm still looking into that, but it sure seems like those games won't be coming anytime soon.

This doesn't mean very much for the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning fans, but it is another sign that change is occurring within EA. How all of the recent changes fit together is unknown officially, but it is definitely leaning towards the idea that EA has maybe grown a little too big for it's own good. Which, may be the best sign of all, as EA begins to specialize a bit more and produce a higher quality product. EA has franchises that have kept the company going, and where they don't have great game franchises, they are buying studios that do.

Hopefully they are buying and shutting down studios for the right reasons, and not just to perform a major manpower shuffle while snagging all the new intellectual properties that come with companies like BioWare and Mythic.