EA axes Visceral Australia

Electronic Arts has closed its Visceral outfit in Melbourne, a local developer association has confirmed.

As many as 21 workers have been made redundant as part of the move, according to a tweet from the Melbourne Chapter of the International Game Developers’ Association.

EA has not officially commented on the matter.

Meanwhile, an alleged anonymous studio source has said the Melbourne group had been working on a multiplatform project for the past three years, which has now been cancelled.

“New management pulled the plug on the project,” Kotaku paraphrased the source as saying.

The Kotaku report added: “The source says that Patrick Soderland from Dice, who is now the vice president of EA’s Games Label, decided that the game would not be profitable and decided to can the project and the studio.”

It is believed that other EA studios in Australia, such as Firemint and Iron Monkey, have not been impacted by the closure.

The Visceral Melbourne studio has in the past helped produce key EA games such as Dead Space, Godfather 2, and Dante’s Inferno.

EA’s move comes in the wake of high-profile studio closures across Australia. Last month THQ closed two studios across the country, weeks before LA Noire developer Team Bondi went into administration.