Rumored for about a month, EA’s purchase of Facebook social game company Playfish (for $300 million) has been confirmed today. Playfish are known for their popular games Restaurant City and Pet Society, which are both in the top 20 Facebook applications.
The gloomy side of this? EA have now reportedly laid off 40% of Mythic staff (I can confirm several in fact) and several other EA studios including Tiburon in Orlando, FL and Black Box in British Columbia. My condolences goes out to the folks affected, including the awesome Jess Folsom who was the Community Coordinator at Mythic. Snatch her up quick folks!
Edit: Gamasutra has a better scoop with more details. Looks like around 80 Mythic employees were affected.
Tami Baribeau is the Associate Producer for Metaplace, Inc, currently working on Island Life. She is also the Lead Editor of feminist gaming blog The Border House, and the National Facebook Games Examiner for Examiner.com. She can be reached on Twitter or by email.
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Well, at least the fellow I know over at Mythic seems to be fine, but I wish that could be said about the others. :-
The Mythic layoffs seem ominous, it doesn’t bode well for Warhammer. Which I’ve just started playing.
Here’s a new update.
http://www.stageselect.com/N4704-electronic-arts-ea-announces-studio-closures-1500-.aspx
Given that Warhammer went from a kind of crappy launch to massive server consolidations in slightly less than a year, I’m not surprised that they’re taking the knives to Mythic.