The UK developer Bright Light Studio has been shut down by EA. They were behind the recent harry potter games. If their name looks familiar, it’s due to an article we posted about today. About the Linked In profiles for 3 of their people mentioning the current work being a Maxis Sims Styled Game. Also, Game Informer reports that most of the employees will be relocated to Criterion and Playfish. Hopefully some were also moved to Maxis. According to Develop, the unannounced game is currently incomplete. Sad to say but, it’s most likely cancelled.
Develop reports the UK-based developer has been closed with some of the employees being relocated to other EA internal studios, including Criterion and Playfish. The number of people affected is unknown, but it’s believed the studio employed about 100 people total.
Under the command of John Riccitiello, who was appointed CEO in 2007, the publisher worked under the new credo of original IP, high quality titles and less reliance on entertainment licences.
Months after Riccitiello took responsibility to reinvent EA, the publisher closed its UK facility in Chertsey and, soon later, rebuilt much of that team in Guildford.
Throughout this time, EA had toyed with the idea of using Bright Light to reinvent classic IP from the now-defunct Bullfrog studio. That never materialised in the end. The studio closed with an unannounced “Maxis IP” sim project incomplete.
. . .this doesn’t surprise me. EA closes a studio working on something interesting in order to further develope things like the sims social and what-have-you…. blah. It’s to be expected, most companies are downsizing and trimming the fat so to speak, but they always seem to make cuts in the wrong places, but what do I know.
so is there a company in guildford still? let me know 😀
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