"Pandemic Studios and its franchises will be relocated to the EALA facility in nearby Playa Vista," explained the company. "This move has resulted in a reduction in the work force at Pandemic...That said, the Pandemic brand and franchises will continue to live on. A core team of Pandemic developers will move to EALA and continue development on Pandemic games with a focus on quality, cost management and schedule integrity."

with a focus on quality, cost management and schedule integrity

R.I.P. Pandemic. Battlezone (the remake) was a huge inspiration for NS.

Mercenaries 2 is one of their big ones

They also made Dark Reign 2 which was a good game but failed to satisfy many Dark Reign 1 fans which was made by Auron, also an aussie dev who went down I think :(

I spent the best 5 years of my life with Pandemic and now they're gone, and all I got is a lousy t-shirt ( which I'm wearing ).

I get the allure of being an awesome game developer, but at the end of the day aren't you still just smashing out code? I can't imagine that working on the guts of a game is really that much more glamorous than business logic in a job management or CRM system.

So less money, more work, less job security, but you get to write more fun code.

I dunno, I find it fun

^ PC LOAD LETTER - What the HELL does that MEAN!?

THIS Was pretty interesting as well I thought.

ust two years ago at Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS), with only eight months on the job as Chief Executive Officer, John Riccitello announced a buyout of Pandemic and Bioware studios from his former firm Elevation Partners, of which he was one of the founders. The purchase price looked astronomical for a developer: 840 million. To put that in perspective, Take Two (TTWO) Interactive, Inc. purchased Bioshock developer Irrational Games for 11 million and Civilization publisher Firaxis for 27 million in 2006.

Today, we are learning that Pandemic Studios, one half of that 840 million dollar acquisition, is being closed down, suggesting that the studio is worthless to EA at this point – only two years following the deal.

According to SEC documents, Mr. Riccitello pocketed up to 4.9 million on that deal, and no doubt helped his fellow co-founders of Elevation Partners walk away making a nice profit on that deal. EA’s shareholders have been left with the bill - and a stock that has fallen 70% since that deal was completed.