EA Black Box Closing

EA Black Box Closing
The Need for Speed and Skate developer part of more workforce cuts.
by Chris Roper

December 19, 2008 – We’ve seen a lot of bad news regarding developers and publishers either making huge cuts to their staff or closing down entirely. The latest studio to be hit is EA’s Black Box, the folks that have been in charge of the Need for Speed and Skate franchises as of late. While the studio is being closed, its franchises and some of its team are being rolled into EA’s nearby Burnaby, British Columbia studio.

There have been employee cuts, however, totaling about 4% of EA’s workforce. These cuts take the publisher’s recent layoff total to roughly 10% of its total workforce.

The Black Box/Burnaby consolidation is said to be a rolling process, taking place over the next three months, which is good news for Skate 2 as it’s currently being completed over at Black Box.

We’ll have more information on this as it surfaces.

Link

Now this is a surprise. I did not see this coming. We all know that the economical dollar is horrible in the United States but to close one of Electronic Arts (EA) plants. Now that is harsh.