Electronic Arts is opening a new DICE studio in Los Angeles, tasked with creating Star Wars games. The news, which comes via the Wall Street Journal, is a bit of a shocker considering EA has been in the headlines lately for its layoffs and studio closures. It certainly comes as a welcomed surprise to see the company actually expanding.
Given the already-huge nature of Star Wars, which will only grow as Disney continues to put out new movies, it's no surprise that EA is banking on Star Wars being a huge moneymaker for the publisher, which has certainly seen better days. So in order to take advantage of the publishing rights and the area's "extreme talent pool," EA is opening up shop in Los Angeles. When it's all said and done, DICE L.A. plans to employ 60 members by the end of 2013.
Just yesterday, the Battlefield studio tweeted job listings for the new L.A. studio. Interestingly, some of the job positions call for managing maintenance of EA's "Android and iOS catalogue of games." It's an odd inclusion of responsibilities given that EA only has rights to publish Star Wars games that aren't mobile or social. Perhaps the studio has a bit more on its plate than just Star Wars?
Other job offerings call for "strong Gen 3 console title experience," as well as "experience developing and supporting back end play systems in a client-server environment (e.g. MMO)."
Last week, the GameZone crew shared our thoughts on EA's recent licensing acquisition and whether or not we were excited for them to develop new Star Wars games. If it means more studios like DICE putting out quality work — I'm all for it.
