EA opening LA-based DICE studio for Star Wars

EA is opening a new Los Angeles-based DICE studio, hoping to poach talent from Activision for development of its newly-announced Star Wars project.

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Electronic Arts has announced a new studio for DICE, located in the United States instead of its native Stockholm. The Los Angeles-based location will complement its other studio, and will be used to recruit talent as it prepares for its new Star Wars game development.

"There is an extreme talent pool over [sic] that we want a part of. It's no secret that our main competitor is there," general manager Karl-Magnus Troedsson told The Wall-Street Journal. The report states that EA's ultimate goal is to have DICE poach some talent from Activision's Infinity Ward and Treyarch studios. He expects that the opportunity to work on Star Wars will help attract talent from rivals.

DICE's headquarters will remain in Sweden. The new LA studio plans to hit 60 staffers by the end of 2013. It has already brought in some outside talent as well as transferred employees from the Medal of Honor series, which is also located out of Los Angeles. It's being headed up by studio manager Fred Loving, and the company has posted job availabilities.

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  • reply
    May 15, 2013 7:15 AM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, EA opening LA-based DICE studio for Star Wars.

    EA is opening a new Los Angeles-based DICE studio, hoping to poach talent from Activision for development of its newly-announced Star Wars project.

    • reply
      May 15, 2013 7:41 AM

      First dilute Bioware brand, now DICE. GG EA!

      • reply
        May 15, 2013 8:04 AM

        That's a pretty big assumption there pal. Give them a chance.

      • reply
        May 16, 2013 2:56 AM

        I think DICE is perfectly capable of lowering their brand all on their own.

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      May 15, 2013 8:05 AM

      See, this is what I will never understand.

      It sounds great that a company will open a new studio for new hires, new talent, etc. but aren't they just going to fire everyone after making x titles?

      I wanted to get into game design in the 90s and stayed away because I started to notice these trends. I can't imagine being in this industry, always fretting for your job.

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        May 15, 2013 8:31 AM

        No kidding, these companies seem very fickle. I'm a software engineer who loves games, but I won't go near the industry.

        What's ironic is you'd think they'll be hiring a lot of the same talent that Lucasarts just laid off and the same people will be back working on Star Wars games. So in the end it's just one big shell game. What's the point? So inefficient.

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        May 15, 2013 5:24 PM

        In a way, this event is the cycle continuing, as Danger Close had probably scaled down drastically after Warfighter's flop, both from the Medal of Honor franchise getting taken out of FPS rotation ( http://www.shacknews.com/article/77633/medal-of-honor-franchise-no-longer-part-of-eas-rotation ), and layoffs announced in February 2013 ( http://www.shacknews.com/article/77938/ea-announces-layoffs-in-los-angeles-montreal ).

        So they're going to scale up this studio, since they have the new licensing deal with Disney to develop Star Wars games, and hopefully it pans out. If it doesn't... the cycle continues anew.

    • reply
      May 15, 2013 9:41 AM

      Kids just had lice. Originally saw this as opening a lice-based studio. I was like, "huh?"

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