Another short episode, because really, summer game news is typically slow. A lot of interesting stuff this week, however.
All this and Listener Feedback.
It’s the Smurfiest post-Fourth of July podcast ever, as Jonah Falcon and Jordan Lund look back at the ColecoVision classic Smurfs: Rescue from Gargamel’s Castle, probably the easiest videogame ever Smurfed.
If that weren’t Smurfy enough, Jonah and Jordan, working without Paul S. Nowak this week, also check out this week’s Smurfy news:
This week has a ton of Smurfy reader feedback, as well as reaction to Sony’s crackdown of Star Wars Galaxies shutdown petitioners. If that weren’t Smurfy enough, the Question of the Week is pretty Smurfy as well, as readers are asked, “What game that you can’t find anywhere anymore do you wish you could play again?”
As usual, hit us up on iTunes and leave some comments!
This week’s episode of Gaming Podcast has a special guest co-host, Andrew Yoon, formerly of Joystiq and currently in card game and video game development. The Gaming Flashback is the one that started them all: LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game.
The slow news week includes:
The Question of the Week: “What is your favorite, if any, LEGO videogames?”
Electronic Arts is planning to lay off 1,000 employees, approximately 10% of their employees. In this layoff their also consolidating EA Black Box back into EA Canada. EA Black Box was spun off as a studio outside of EA Canada to work on such titles as Need for Speed but, with the layoffs arriving, they’re going to be merging the remainder of EA Black Box into EA Canada by June 2009. The remaining EA Black Box employees will continue working on Skate 2.
The pink slips should be issued by March 31, 2009 and we’re hoping the folks that have lost their jobs will find new jobs as soon as possible. An Electronic Arts representative said:
“This does not mean that the Black Box studio is closing. The studio is moving to our Burnaby campus to share the facility with EAC and other EA teams that operate out of our state-of-the-art facility. We will operate two distinct studios, each with their own distinct culture and teams, out of our Burnaby facility.” (gamespot)
EA hasn’t mentioned any specific franchise cancellation but we’re going to assume something is going to slip, it’s hard to imagine a company can lose 1,000 employees without impacting business operations. If EA was able to layoff 1,000 people without impacting day-to-day business, then they’re definitely hurting in the management department because that would be a ton of waste.
Big companies may cut costs during hard times but they said they’re, “implementing a plan to narrow its product portfolio to focus on hit games with higher margin opportunities. The company remains committed to taking creative risks, investing in new games, leading the industry in the growing mobile and online businesses, and delivering high-quality games to consumers.”
We’re curious just how much EA is willing to risk on “creative” endevours considering publishers are already hesitant to break new ground. The next few years should yield great opportunities for smaller developers to put on their creative hat and open new doors and opportunities for themselves.
