Ex-EA quartet fire back with new studio

Four developers hit by EA’s recent mass-layoff operation have formed a new microstudio.

And the group is not shy of throwing a couple of jabs at its former employer.

News site Kotaku has unearthed the new website for the studio, named Downsized Games, and the blurb for the studio’s debut iPhone game employs an imaginative use of artistic licence.

The game, known as BulleTrain, cites fictional railroad barons such as “the dastardly JR”, with the story describing “a hostile takeover by Elaborate Acquisitions” – or EA for short.

The game’s blurb ends with the motivational line: “It’s time to hand out the pinkslips, in blood.”

In November last year, EA elected to lay off 900 developers from its fleet of studios in a bid to plug its haemorrhaging cash flow.

As part of the measures, the publisher closed subsidiary studio Pandemic – of which the four Downsized Games founders came from.