PopCap Games to Close Dublin Studio

wnolan1992

Just heard on Today FM that Popcap are to close their Dublin office with the loss of 100 jobs.

Statement from EA is supposed to be on the way.

Can't find any articles to back this up atm.


EDIT:

Pop Cap Games is expected to close it's entire Dublin office - with the loss of up to 100 jobs.

An announcement is expected by it's parent company Electronic Arts on Wednesday.

Source

Lumbo

wnolan1992 wrote: »

Just heard on Today FM that Popcap are to close their Dublin office with the loss of 100 jobs.

Statement from EA is supposed to be on the way.

Can't find any articles to back this up atm.

Yep, closing the office.

balkieb2002

Breakingnews.ie wrote:

21/08/2012 - 20:49:59
Pop Cap Games is expected to close it's entire Dublin office - with the loss of up to 100 jobs.

An announcement is expected by it's parent company Electronic Arts on Wednesday.

The decision is a blow to Ireland's video games industry - which has been expanding in the last few years.

Pop Cap is best known for games including 'Plants Versus Zombies' and 'Bejeweled'.

Sad news. I wonder they are closing it down?

Lumbo

Sound bunch of people, I've enjoyed a few nights out with them.

johnny_ultimate

That's a real shame Saw their logo on quite a few job sites recently so thought they were still going strong!

Creamy Goodness

sad day, knew a couple of guys in there. but it's a great opportunity for them they are talented guys so maybe we'll get some great start ups out of this.

johnny_ultimate

Popcap's statement: http://blog.popcap.com/2012/08/21/popcap-update-from-john-vechey/

Seems like there's going to be a 'consultation period' in Dublin before any decisions are made.

wnolan1992

Before I posted the thread, I did a quick search of the forum just to make sure this hadn't actually been broken days ago without my knowledge.

The first result was a post in a thread around the time PopCap were taken over by EA.

Healium wrote: »

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.com

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/07/12/ea-to-acquire-popcap-games-for-750-million/

Really sad day.

CombatCow

Yup it was terrible news to receive today, 100 jobs on the line

Sierra Oscar

wnolan1992 wrote: »

The first result was a post in a thread around the time PopCap were taken over by EA.

Quite telling that John had to even bring up EA in the first instance in both his blog post and again on twitter. I think a lot of people will be saying to themselves "Yeah, pull the other one John".

Sad news.

gizmo

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

Quite telling that John had to even bring up EA in the first instance in both his blog post and again on twitter. I think a lot of people will be saying to themselves "Yeah, pull the other one John".

It's unsurprising though, the immediate reaction of most folk will be to blame EA for it rather than actually listen to what he said in his press release with regard to the profitably of the Japanese/Chinese market versus Europe.

**** news anyway, it was great to see more bigger dev houses opening up at home.

Ronan|Raven

That really sucks

K.O.Kiki

Was wondering why I never heard back on that interview...

ionapaul

Argh! Explains some things to me maybe...

aperture_nuig

Very disappointed to hear this

circadian

Bloody typical. EA are currently downsizing their main office in Canada. A few years ago they were at an estimated 2,500 staff in the Vancouver studio. Its now closer to 500 as the outsource work and in turn fold those studios too. Their share prices haven't recovered in over 4 years.

Other publishers like Rockstar and Activision are just as bad, not to mention the reported horrendous working conditions at Rockstar in particular.

Irish developers would do well to steer clear of the large publishers as they have no ties with Ireland other than tax breaks. They'll move elsewhere in a heartbeat. Just like Ubisoft downsizing in Montreal and shifting everyone to Toronto for tax incentives.

Indie developers are constantly bullied out of the market, large sums of money are offered to take over a developer which then has a lifespan of about 5 years at most post take over. Best not mention the cost of publishing a game on XBLA. Ireland has the opportunity to create a strong indigenous games industry, anyone I've met from Ireland in develoment has been incredibly competent and generally have great experience since they've always looked abroad for work in games. Personally i think tax breaks and grants should only be dished out to local entrepreneurs.

Here's hoping that indie developers in Ireland become wise to these companies and stand their ground. The games industry is in trouble and currently unsustainable.

Lets make sustainable games in Ireland.


Edit: I hope some of these folks go their own way with the experience gained. It'd be great to see a large group set something up and making a push into larger productions.

Dermighty

circadian wrote: »

Bloody typical. EA are currently downsizing their main office in Canada. A few years ago they were at an estimated 2,500 staff in the Vancouver studio. Its now closer to 500 as the outsource work and in turn fold those studios too. Their share prices haven't recovered in over 4 years.

Other publishers like Rockstar and Activision are just as bad, not to mention the reported horrendous working conditions at Rockstar in particular.

Irish developers would do well to steer clear of the large publishers as they have no ties with Ireland other than tax breaks. They'll move elsewhere in a heartbeat. Just like Ubisoft downsizing in Montreal and shifting everyone to Toronto for tax incentives.

Indie developers are constantly bullied out of the market, large sums of money are offered to take over a developer which then has a lifespan of about 5 years at most post take over. Best not mention the cost of publishing a game on XBLA. Ireland has the opportunity to create a strong indigenous games industry, anyone I've met from Ireland in develoment has been incredibly competent and generally have great experience since they've always looked abroad for work in games. Personally i think tax breaks and grants should only be dished out to local entrepreneurs.

Here's hoping that indie developers in Ireland become wise to these companies and stand their ground. The games industry is in trouble and currently unsustainable.

Lets make sustainable games in Ireland.


Edit: I hope some of these folks go their own way with the experience gained. It'd be great to see a large group set something up and making a push into larger productions.

That's business.

humanji

What was based in Dublin? Was it a development base, or an administrative base? Just wondering if it was development, would they be able to create a startup.

Genghiz Cohen

Dublin mostly took care of porting the games made in Seattle to other devices. There was some talk of original content being created there but I never heard any more about it.

aperture_nuig

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

Dublin mostly took care of porting the games made in Seattle to other devices. There was some talk of original content being created there but I never heard any more about it.

Yup, Dublin office took care of developing, designing and testing ports to mobile platforms, as well as other bits and pieces, such as PR.

hooradiation

Dermighty wrote: »

That's business.

Pretty much.

Happens everywhere and in every industry, sucks for everyone involved but that's about it.

gizmo

circadian wrote: »

Indie developers are constantly bullied out of the market, large sums of money are offered to take over a developer which then has a lifespan of about 5 years at most post take over. Best not mention the cost of publishing a game on XBLA. Ireland has the opportunity to create a strong indigenous games industry, anyone I've met from Ireland in develoment has been incredibly competent and generally have great experience since they've always looked abroad for work in games. Personally i think tax breaks and grants should only be dished out to local entrepreneurs.

Here's hoping that indie developers in Ireland become wise to these companies and stand their ground. The games industry is in trouble and currently unsustainable.

Lets make sustainable games in Ireland.

Edit: I hope some of these folks go their own way with the experience gained. It'd be great to see a large group set something up and making a push into larger productions.

Can you give an example of an indie developer who was bullied out of the market?

Only giving tax breaks and grants to local entrepreneurs would be catastrophic for the future of AAA development in Ireland as, to put it simply, no one is going to fund such a project internally.

Also, what are sustainable games?

hooradiation

gizmo wrote: »

Also, what are sustainable games?

Games that run on solar power?

johnny_ultimate

It's small to no consolation to the people who are potentially losing their jobs (emphasis on the potentially) but I do appreciate the sentiment of Vechey in releasing a statement that isn't the standard PR talk, and actually tries to explain the issues that have led to this closure. Makes a different to the usual corporate guff to actually hear a person rather than a generic company voice explain. Of course people will see it as further evidence of an EA conspiracy and their continued 'war' against independent gaming (remember their bundle? bastards) but there seems to be much simpler market dynamics and reasonings behind this closure. It sucks, and is awful news for the staff. But if the studio was proving consistently unprofitable (and remember Ireland is an expensive place to run a high-tech company), there's only so much that can be done pure and simple - and, if Vechey is telling the truth, they're seemingly making efforts to rectify it.

dubhthach

In my time Dublin also had a chunk of the web/online shop infrastructure. It was load balanced between Seattle and Dublin, all non Americas traffic been directed to Dublin datacenter. There was also some work done on localisation, biggest part of the office though was the mobile team (this is circa 4 years ago)

TheDoc

Sad to hear jobs are on the line.

But in fairness, for their business model and the games they get involved in, it was never going to last long and their only plan was to get absorbed by a larger company.

Who no doubt have seen the flaws in it

Mr E

Closed today, apparently.

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/09/24/popcap-dublin-shuts-down/

Good luck to the ex-employees there. Hope they find something quickly.

CombatCow

Mr E wrote: »

Closed today, apparently.

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/09/24/popcap-dublin-shuts-down/

Good luck to the ex-employees there. Hope they find something quickly.

Cheers, there seems to be a few options out there for most of us at the moment.

Yakuza

Best of luck to you - it looked a pretty cool place to work (I worked in the same building for a while) - I remember looking down enviously at your beanbags, pool table and Friday evening beers

aperture_nuig

Yakuza wrote: »

Best of luck to you - it looked a pretty cool place to work (I worked in the same building for a while) - I remember looking down enviously at your beanbags, pool table and Friday evening beers

It was