EA merges devs to form Australia’s largest studio

EA has announced today that it is bringing Melbourne’s two much-celebrated mobile developers, Iron Monkey and Firemint, together.

The newly created studio, bringing together over 40 employees from each studio, will be Firemonkeys which, according to EA, now constitutes Australia’s largest development studio.

The pair of developers have been cohabitating for some time already, and have enjoyed a healthy coopetitive relationship as they each pursue their particular talents.

Iron Monkey has handled the broadening of existing EA franchises over to smartphone and tablet devices, handling such franchises as The Sims, Mass Effect and Dead Space, while Firemint is renowned for creating top-tier original IPs, including Spy Mouse, Real Racing and Flight Control.

Rob Murray, Executive Producer at Firemint, said: "IronMonkey and Firemint have solid reputations for producing well-known games and we are excited to have the opportunity to share best practices, technology and resources."

Tony Lay, GM of Iron Monkey, added: "Both of these studios have produced award-winning games and we believe combining the incredible talent pool in Melbourne, as well as leveraging the EA brand, sets us up for further success in the mobile arena."

EA has teased of multiple upcoming projects from the newly merged developer, and boasts a player base of Firemonkeys as being over 50 million in 2012 alone.

Both parties are very happy with the combining of the studios, and the team at Firemonkeys have made it clear to MCV that the teams working there will remain very small and independent, just as they have been, and will be working on multiple projects at any given time.

This story was originally published on our sister-site, MCV Pacific.