EoTY: The Nine Biggest Surprises of 2009 - # 8 - Destroy All Jobs! EA Closes Pandemic Studios

In a growing industry such as the video gaming industry, many studios and developers provide tons of jobs to many people all over the world. Especially in America’s current recession, for a company like Electronic Arts to provide thousands of jobs is a godsend to not only the public, but a generous contribution to gaming.
Electronic Arts has had a fruitful history of over 25 years, forming such popular series as Battlefield, Burnout, Dead Space, Medal of Honor, Rock Band and The Sims. Not to mention their EA Sports branch handles a version of every sports game available on the market. The company is split into twelve divisions, mostly comprised of studios they have purchased. Before 2009, that list comprised of thirteen.

Formed in Santa Monica, California in the year 1998, Pandemic Studios was founded as an independent developer. Former employees of Activision started the studio with an equity investment by Activision. Pandemic’s first two forays into gaming were sequels to Activison games; Battlezone II and Dark Reign 2. Throughout the early 2000’s the studio developed the titles Army Men RTS and successful Destroy All Humans! series. In the first of a two-year series of blockbuster deals, 2005 brought forth the merger of Pandemic and powerhouse RPG studio BioWare. The merger was privately funded by Elevation Partners and both companies retained their separate brands and identities. The second part of the blockbuster mid-2000’s for Pandemic was the October 2007 acquisition of Pandemic/Bioware by videogame giant Electronic Arts.

Picking out the highlights of Pandemic’s career has to start with LucasArts published Star Wars: Battlefront. Praised as being one of the first great Star Wars licensed games, Battlefront portrayed the Lucas universe much like the hugely popular Battlefield series. The PC version of the game was applauded for it’s online play. Holding a 82% to this day on Metacritic, Battlefront spawned a sequel in 2005 called simply Star Wars: Battlefront 2. Next on the list of Pandemic’s achievements as a studio is the Destroy All Humans! series. The third person shooter/adventure title garnered praise for it’s impressive look and open world gameplay. The game also featured a story so unusual that Fox Broadcasting purchased the rights to produce an animated television showed based on the property, although the news has since gone cold. The alien property spawned three sequels: Destroy All Humans! 2 (2006), Destroy All Humans! Big Willy Unleashed (2008) and Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon (2009). When it comes down to it, the series Pandemic will truly be remembered for is the hugely popular Mercenaries series comprising of 2005’s Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction and 2008’s Mercenaries 2: World In Flames. The original Mercenaries titled was universally given positive feedback by all major review outlets and even received the honor of being featured in Gamer Informer’s year end issue. Mercenaries 2 featured an amazing marketing campaign including such wacky actions as Pandemic transforming a London gas station into a military bunker and giving away up to forty Euros worth of gas away to hundreds of visitors. The game was unfortunately criticized and shrouded in controversy. The game performed badly in the review pool and was criticized by the Venezuelan government for elements of it’s storyline (random!).

Although it released Lord of the Rings: Conquest in 2009, Pandemic Studios’ swan song was the release of December 2009’s The Saboteur. The action-adventure shooter, showcasing ever-so-popular stealth elements, was released post-humously for the studio. The Saboteur was hyped by internet outlets and magazines as one of the most anticipated games of 2009. The game sadly has performed poorly for EA, with critics citing an unpolished game, choppy voice work and too much climbing! The game however was praised for it’s unique visual style and large variety of gameplay options. The PS3 version won additional acclaim by pioneering a new technique the system had been having difficult with. Downloadable content was released featuring a minigame and a unique feature: removing the tops of all girls in the in-game brothels. Horny nerds rejoice!

It is always a sad time when any studio is liquidated because always some gamers will be disappointed that their favorite series’ creators are no more. Pandemic’s news is not all sad fortunately, as 35 Pandemic Studios employees were absorbed by Electronic Arts into the EA Los Angeles branch. This small team is responsible to support The Saboteur and develop a new title, Mercs Inc, a new sequel to the Mercenaries series. In 2009, EA cut a total of 1500 jobs from it’s respective studios with 228 coming from the closure of Pandemic. Hopefully we will see some sky-high sales in 2010 and reduce the job loss for the gaming industry. R.I.P. Pandemic Studios!