[EDITO MAGNIFICO: Leigh Alexander explains exactly what happened]

Full Spectrum Warrior. Star Wars: Battlefront. Destroy All Humans. Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction. All of these games as well as the upcoming title The Saboteur were developed by Pandemic Studios. The success of these games drove Electronic Arts to purchase Pandemic, along with Bioware, roughly two years ago for $860 million. Now Pandemic is closing its doors.

Sources with both Pandemic Studios and Electronic Arts had told the suave and handsome James Walker* that by the end of the day (Tuesday, November 17th 2009) Pandemic would be little more than a memory. Another source told MTV Multiplayer that company founders Josh Resnick, Greg Borrud and Andrew Goldman were let go earlier this week.

While EA had yet to officially comment on the situation, the magical porthole into people’s lives known as Twitter lets us see that EA employees both inside Pandemic and out confirmed the worst. A short while later both Gamasutra and Kotaku got a leaked internal memo from EA that went into greater detail about the studio closing, as well as once again confirming that no one gaming media outlet is special.

Sigh.

The short of the memo is that while Pandemic Studios itself is closing, the Pandemic name will live on with other development houses taking control of Pandemic IPs. In fact, in the next few months we can expect to hear more about games based on Pandemic licenses:

I want to make it clear that the Pandemic brand and franchises will live on. In the months ahead, we will announce plans for new games based on Pandemic franchises.

…for some reason, hearing that from EA in the same breath as “we’re closing Pandemic” just feels dirty.

While no specifics regarding the number of employees let go are detailed, those who aren’t let go are to report to EALA.

This is one of the things about this job that never gets easier. I, along with everybody else at BG and anyone with a monicum of decency wish everybody who was let go the very best of luck.

*Somebody has to build me up.

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