Ex-Pandemics in EA jibe

A group of former Pandemic developers have laid into ex-employers EA via the description of their first ever solo title.

Downsized Games, which officially opened its doors on March 10th, was founded by Manny Vega, Andrew Mournian, Zach Hefner and Ariel Tal, all of whom lost their jobs when EA closed down Pandemic.

The studio’s first title, an iPhone game entitled BULLETrain, is outlined as follows:

It’s the year 2124 and giant mega corporations rule the universe. Even though space travel has been achieved, the corporations still use superfast Bullet trains to deliver goods planet side (it must be cheaper, like outsourcing). This makes the Bullet-railroad barons, lead by the dastardly JR, the richest and most powerful people in the galaxy. You used to run a small shipping company on your home planet of Glendon-19 but a hostile takeover by Elaborate Acquisitions, your local B-rail corporation, has left you out on the streets. With the help of your best driver, Atal, you scrape together your last credits and outfit your transport ship/bedroom with enough weaponry to take down the corporations B-rails. It’s time to hand out the pinkslips, in blood. BulletTrain!!!!!!!!!!!

The news quickly did the rounds when it was spotted by Kotaku, prompting the devs to issue this follow-up via their blog:

It’s really sad that in this world of social networking and sexting that people still believe everything they read, unless it ends in a winky-face” So just in case there are some FBI agents reading this blog who do not have functioning Sarcasmeters, I never had any intention of becoming a hired assassin (I can’t vouch for Andrew).

"Yes we were all laid off by EA. Yes it sucked. Yes it got us together and got the creative juices flowing. Yes we are having a lot of fun poking fun and making a FREAKIN’ VIDEO GAME! Lighten up already, things are too serious in the world to not enjoy dissing your boss…”