EA Cancels Black Panther Game, Closes Cliffhanger Games 36
Electronic Arts has canceled its in-development Black Panther game and shut down Cliffhanger Games, marking its third round of layoffs this year. IGN reports: In an email sent to staff from EA Entertainment president Laura Miele, Miele said that these changes, alongside other recent cancellations and layoffs, are being done to "sharpen our focus and put our creative energy behind the most significant growth opportunities." In addition to closing Cliffhanger and canceling Black Panther, EA is also laying off some individuals on both its mobile and central teams. [...] As with past rounds of layoffs, EA is endeavoring to place affected individuals in other roles across the company. [...]
To that end, Miele's email continues, the company is focusing on a small handful of franchises going forward: Battlefield, The Sims, Skate, and Apex Legends. Miele also reassures EA will continue to invest in its Iron Man game at Motive and the third Star Wars: Jedi game, as well as it maintain its mobile business despite today's cuts, while Bioware works on the next Mass Effect. Additionally, last year, CEO Andrew Wilson announced the company would be "moving away from development of future licensed IP that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry." The email doesn't mention EA Sports, but this is due to Miele running EA Entertainment, while EA Sports is a separate division. IGN understands that the sports division is unaffected by these changes for now.
Notably, Marvel and EA's agreement for Black Panther was part of a three-game deal that included Iron Man and a third, unannounced title. IGN understands this partnership will continue, with Motive Studios leading future Marvel titles. EA provided the following statement regarding the deal with Marvel to IGN, attributed to Miele: "Our partnership with Marvel remains strong and our multi-title, long-term collaboration continues."
To that end, Miele's email continues, the company is focusing on a small handful of franchises going forward: Battlefield, The Sims, Skate, and Apex Legends. Miele also reassures EA will continue to invest in its Iron Man game at Motive and the third Star Wars: Jedi game, as well as it maintain its mobile business despite today's cuts, while Bioware works on the next Mass Effect. Additionally, last year, CEO Andrew Wilson announced the company would be "moving away from development of future licensed IP that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry." The email doesn't mention EA Sports, but this is due to Miele running EA Entertainment, while EA Sports is a separate division. IGN understands that the sports division is unaffected by these changes for now.
Notably, Marvel and EA's agreement for Black Panther was part of a three-game deal that included Iron Man and a third, unannounced title. IGN understands this partnership will continue, with Motive Studios leading future Marvel titles. EA provided the following statement regarding the deal with Marvel to IGN, attributed to Miele: "Our partnership with Marvel remains strong and our multi-title, long-term collaboration continues."
Open source it (Score:3)
It's immoral to let all that work go to waste. Just put it in the public domain or at least make it licensable to others, someone else could probably use the 3D models, textures, and things like that. They don't have to open source all of it to the point where a competitor could finish the game and make a ton of money. They could make the key parts of it licensable.
Re: (Score:3)
Why would anyone selling products that compete for specific fixed pool of consumer entertainment budget provide any competitor with cheap access to results of their investments so that competitor could compete with them for that same limited pool of consumer entertainment budget?
This makes anti-sense.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Zero sum thinking will doom the world. Same mentality persists in extinctionists, communists, and people who think there are too many humans. The more great games get made, the more people will play and buy video games. There isn't a fixed sum of anything in the world. You don't have to make someone else sad to be happy.
Re: (Score:2)
Very insightful. Very few things are truly a zero-sum game in life,
that attitude completely discounts any win-win situations stupidly, selfishly and needlessly.
Yet, the firings and beatings will continue until morale improves!
Re:Open source it (Score:4, Insightful)
Wishful thinking doesn't change the fact that entertainment budgets are limited and everyone who competes for a chunk of it takes it from other competitors.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
They're targeting children and stoners - both of whom have limited discretionary income.
Re: Open source it (Score:2)
No. Children suck.
Re: (Score:3)
From a purely practical standpoint, codebases like this (I have 20+ years in the console games industry as a programmer) contain source code, headers, and other proprietary stuff from other vendors (to say nothing about the console SDKs) we're not allowed to just release. Finding it all, ripping it out, and being confident it's been done properly from a legal perspective is expensive, cumbersome, and risky.
Watch the opening screen of a modern AA to AAAA videogame these days. It's littered with 3rd party sof
Re: Open source it (Score:2)
Correct but today I think EA owns about 99% of that '3rd party' code.
Re: (Score:2)
You'd be wrong.
Re: Open source it (Score:3)
There is no confirmed information about what engine this cancelled game used but it's a good bet that it was either Frostbite or Unreal Engine, neither of which EA can legally open source.
Re: (Score:2)
canceled doesn't mean destroyed. the ip, licenses and assets still have financial value for the owning company. if anything in their accounting books, but they may be relicensed, sold or even reused at some point in the future (less likely). until it has been left to rot for over a decade hardly any game company will just give that away, much less a toxic dumpster like ea (which is why i have not touched an ea game for around two decades; good riddance).
Re: (Score:2)
Blood Red Panther, then.
Woke has no meaning in capitalism (Score:3)
It's a change of vibe in society no ones going to buy a woke game anymore.
Games earn money. Woke has no meaning. If a game you consider "woke" earns money, it wasn't woke, was it?...it was popular. If you think it's woke and it doesn't?...well...even then, it's not because it's woke, but because it's not popular or interesting or fun. The market is too competitive and budgets are too high. If you make something out of line with your customer's wants, then the you'll get punished with sales.
So what's your problem?...a black superhero? The movie was a huge earner and very
Re: (Score:2)
So besides the licenses (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
This wasn't over money or microtransactions. They had to close the studio over legal liability.
The team lead manager couldn't keep her mouth shut and went on youtube/twitter to out right say she refuses to hire white people.
She said a lot of racist stuff but EA had a few lawsuits over this they had to settle.
Discrimination laws in America are very strange in that, unlike most all other laws, they don't look at your actions or even intent, they literally take your word for it.
If you exclude a skin color fro
Meh (Score:1, Flamebait)
Don't care. It was an uninspired, pandering title when the first comic was released and hasn't really improved since then.
/o\ | \o/ (Score:1)
Nightmares from the past:
"EA - it's (not) in the gayyyyyme"
Can't remember last time bought EA game... (Score:2)
Oh really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The closed studio was racist, violated labor laws. (Score:1)
There was a popular Internet streamer that did a video on this, but basically if you look for yourself you'll be able to find it easily... the lead for that team on that studio that was closed down was a black woman that refused to hire people based on their race, no matter their skills or experience, and she even made a public YouTube video describing why and admitting that, saying the quiet part out loud and actively admitting to the racism and illegal hiring practices.
That entire studio deserves to die