EA Lays Off Boom Blox Staff

March 3, 2010 10:30 AM

Electronic Arts has laid off members of the development team responsible for Steven Spielberg's block-knocker series Boom Blox, though it appears that the team's last project--a Project Natal title--may live on at Harry Potter developer EA Bright Light.

"The Boom Blox team was laid off today," now-former Electronic Arts Los Angeles senior software engineer Jeff Dixon wrote on LinkedIn, as noted by Blue's News. When reached for details, Dixon told the site that a total of fourteen employees had been cut.

Boom Blox and its follow-up Bash Party

The team had been working on an unannounced game--based off Dixon's LinkedIn, apparently "an original IP franchise"--centered around the Xbox 360's upcoming Project Natal add-on. That game may very well still be alive, as Electronic Arts told Kotaku "a small project has been moved from EA Los Angeles, to the EA Bright Light Studio."

The company described the transfer as a "routine event," explaining that "moving projects to leverage development strengths is common in global studio organizations" and vowing that "all eligible employees will receive severance and outplacement assistance."

Chris Faylor

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

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Xevo

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March 3, 2010 10:42 AM

I'll be happy when we get out of this recession and good game devs stop losing people left and right. It sucks that the biggest game companies are taking out their own profitability issues on many of the devs making the best games.
- rick
  
   reply
  March 3, 2010 10:50 AM
  
  It really does suck, but to think they would do anything else is just blind hope.
  - Xevo
    
     reply
    March 3, 2010 11:22 AM
    
    oh no, trust me, I know there isn't another option besides hurting the little guys. however, if the credit markets were more fluid, I think they would probably have less need to do so many layoffs (especially since game sales in general have been up).