Today was a day of announcements for Electronic Arts, the game publishing giant that is currently developing Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning at the EA Mythic studios. First, it was announced that the company would be going through re-structuring that would put some jobs and studios at risk. Later, during their earnings call, it was announced that EA Mythic and Warhammer Online would be safe from such changes, and that the release date for the game would be pushed back from Q1 2008 to Q2 2008 to allow for more development and "polish" time.
November the 1st was a big day for EA, the colossal game publisher that currently impacts our little niche of the video game market in EA Mythic (Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer Online) and now with Bioware (their mysterious MMO). As you may or may not be aware, EA held their earnings call today at 5pm EST. Earnings calls are held by publicly traded companies to talk about the company’s earnings, the direction of the company and similar information. It was during this call that a push-back of Warhammer Online’s expected launch date from Q1 of 2008 to Q2 of 2008 was announced and discussed.
Earlier in the day, EA announced that they would be undertaking a re-structuring plan that would see what CEO John Riccitiello described as, “head-count reductions and facility closures”. Roughly translated, this means that EA will be closing some of their studios and laying off some of their employees.
“This was a difficult decision,” he continued in the call, “because it impacts the careers of some very talented people.”
While this may have piqued the interest and curiosity of many in the industry including the folks at EA Mythic, later on in the call, when he was addressing the subject of Warhammer Online, Riccitiello went out of his way to assuage any fears that Mythic may have had on the subject, and to shed some light on the situation:
;)
Read the whole article here.
