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EA Phenomic shut down - Report

Electronic Arts reportedly closes German real-time strategy studio behind BattleForge and Command & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances.

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Electronic Arts has shut down EA Phenomic, the German studio behind real-time strategy games BattleForge and Command & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances, according to a new report from Games Industry International.

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Multiple sources told the site that the studio had closed, though in a statement, EA would not confirm the developer's status, instead only speaking to the company's ongoing realignment.

"As part of EA's realignment in recent weeks, we have announced internally a small adjustment to some development staff to better focus our teams against priority growth areas," EA said.

EA will report first quarter earnings on July 23, where more information may be revealed.

"The decision to let people go is not something we take lightly and we are working to ensure that impacted employees are treated fairly and with respect for their contributions to EA, and with assistance to find other job opportunities," the statement goes on.

"These are hard but essential changes as we focus on delivering great games and showing players around the world why to spend their time with us."

EA Phenomic is headquartered in Ingelheim am Rhein, Germany. The studio was founded in 1997 as Phenomic Game Development by Volker Wertich, who helped create the Settlers series. EA acquired the studio in 2006, rebranding it EA Phenomic.

The studio was also behind 2010's Lord of Ultima

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Avatar image for deactivated-604557f4b78e0
deactivated-604557f4b78e0

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*Incoming shitty RTS game from EA*

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Thanatos2k

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Edited By Thanatos2k

EA needs to close all of its studios, then itself.

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Avatar image for MADPADDY
MADPADDY

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Eadoing what they do best, I just hope this wave of free indie devs see's the end of EA and their ilk .

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Talavaj

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Edited By Talavaj

Looks like EA is aiming for the worst company award again.

Real shame, BattleForge was great.

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HuSSaR83

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Battleforge was alright just needed better mission implementation and was too repetitive. Tiberium Alliances was really bad

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Avatar image for silvergol
silvergol

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@vackillers I disagree someone should kill EA Sports!.

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deactivated-5f4b46d20662e

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Everytime EA shuts down a studio a Bobby Kotex gets its wings.

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OldKye

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EA: "A dab of lay off's here, and a dab of lay off's there, mix in a little DRM and micro-transactions and we should have just enough money to buy and ruin another studio."

"God watching EA cook is like watching Martha Stewart buy stocks."

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tsunami2311

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Good maybe they wont release that CC game I tired of EA draging the CC name threw the mud. Dont care what anyone says there hasnt been good CC game since EA bought out then shut down westwood

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myungish

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Another notch on EA's belt. The only thing I'm surprised about is that some of you are surprised.

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acelogan1989

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regular day at EA

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quakke

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@acelogan1989

lol, it's true.

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AMG

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Another EA casualty.

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Unraed

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I used to think that a lot of the complaining about EA was just trolling. But time and again they live up to their terrible reputation.

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Avatar image for cirugo
cirugo

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Edited By cirugo

EA is not a game publisher. It is a venture capital company. Once people understand that then all of this will start to make sense.

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Thanatos2k

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Edited By Thanatos2k

@cirugo Venture capital companies invest, they don't go around forcibly buying people up and then closing them once they're ruined.

Venture capitalist companies have careful screening processes to determine whether the company is likely to be successful in the long term. EA just buys whoever made something good at some point.

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red666devil

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Edited By red666devil

Thank the lords I resigned at EA and joined Gameloft

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Shango4

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@red666devil How is it there?

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brxricano

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EA still with that garbage short term profit tactic. Pump out a cheap stinker fire your ass and make your resume look like shit in the profit. And then they want to be liked lol. what the ****, i dont even.....smh

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sortajan

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Edited By sortajan

This is what EA does; it's what they've always done. They take developers that create great games, they force those developers to make bad games, and then they shut them down for it. Nobody should be surprised.

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Thanatos2k

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Edited By Thanatos2k

@sortajan It's more like EA buys developers that create great games, force them to make stuff on unrealistic timelines, forces them to make sequels and yearly franchises when they don't want to, then all the important people at the company quit in disgust due to EA's meddling, then without the important people the games suck, and EA closes them.

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soulfulDAGGER

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C&C T.A was a lost cause. Terrible frame rates/connectivity problems. It just didn't work. The scope of the game would have been more suited for next-gen, etc. Anything other than a browser based game.

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soolar79

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Edited By soolar79

Actually im for DRM because of this, but im not for the DRM EA is after.

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DarkSaber2k

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And another one bites the dust, fucking EA.

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clqtte

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Edited By clqtte

DRM crews EA...

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chechak7

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save money

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soulless4now

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Edited By soulless4now

Forget the Madden curse. The EA curse is more deadly.

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Mozuckint

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SURPRISE

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cephas90

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So essentially, after milking the franchises (C&C), EA cuts em loose. Typical.

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blackothh

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and the EA trend continues.

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Hayasmez

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If only the execs had the balls and humility to take a pay cut.

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GermanBomber

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As a German...I officially don't care. Does that make me a bad citizen?

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Enforcer246

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@GermanBomber Yes, and you should feel bad.

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Lhomity

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I never played any of those games, but I wish those people luck in finding new work. There's bound to be a lot of opportunities with this new console generation coming up.

2 • 
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vicsrealms

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I'm still expecting the day will come when we see a news title like: "EA Bioware shut down - Report".

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cirugo

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@vicsrealms

it's coming

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N0tYrBeezin

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@cirugo @vicsrealms Inevitable! Just a matter of time!

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Shango4

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@vicsrealms Me to.

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berserker66666

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Good. Next stop EA HQ

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demondogx

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EA or not its always a shame when ppl loose their jobs, if you cant see this then you most likely never had one, and its not the workers who decide that their company should be bought out by EA, its the same kind of managment like the one EA has that is cutting jobs left and right to ensure there christmas bonus is still intact at the end of the year

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blackothh

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@demondogx of course, gotta make sure the execs that dont do anything productive are kept happy!

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demondogx

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@blackothh @demondogx Well its why AAA games cost so mutch, the salery of the CEO and other overpayed staff is added up in the cost of the games.

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blackothh

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@demondogx @blackothh and the insanely bloated marketing budgets some costing more then the game itself took to make.

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R4gn4r0k

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Edited By R4gn4r0k

Why couldn't they continue making games like Spellforce ? Why did EA force them to make bad games nobody wants to play ?

Spellforce games were successful, it's a shame good working people have to lose their job because the higher ups at EA have no clue as to what the market wants :(

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blackothh

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Edited By blackothh

@R4gn4r0k because EA takes good things and makes them go away so their already crappy games can be artificial made to look better over time. at least thats what their thinking is.

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blackothh

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@R4gn4r0k if you cant beat em, buy em.

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demondogx

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@R4gn4r0k I loved the original Spellforce series but sadly spellforce 2 and its expansions fell short.

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