Battlezone Forums

considering that BZ1 was not made by Pandemic and considering all the bugs in BZ1 that were fixed by Ken, i'm thinking that your judgement is biased by your attachment to BZE and that you are using every opportunity to promote your work and belittle his work - or him.

the management at pandemic was the cause of its downfall, not the people doing the work.

Hmmm, how on earth did that belittle Ken or BZ1.5? It was a simple question. Many or most of the people who worked on BZ1 also were involved with ..or evolved into... BZ2.

I think putting "judgement" in my question reflects much more on what you want to see, or possibly instigate, than what is there. I won't take the bait. But of course around here, many may conclude, you took mine.

I don't even know what BZE is. As far as I'm concerned, why did Pandemic have to be shut down? Why couldn't EA have let it go independent or just have sold it off?

Why? Because Pandemic put out 3 costly flops in a row - Mercenaries 2, Lord of the Rings:Conquest, and The Saboteur. I was on two of them (Mercs2, Sab), and both had $50+mil budgets -- and I'd be surprised if Sab cleared $5mil in sales. And, there was another EA studio 10 miles away (EA Los Angeles), with cheaper rent, etc. And, with EA doing some downsizing (as they were doing from 2008-2011), killing a whole studio sent a message to the other studios that they weren't protected.

EA knew what they were getting when they bought Pandemic. EA was the publisher on Mercs2 and LOTR:Conquest long before EA bought Pandemic; they saw builds, met the management, etc. EA really wanted Bioware and the Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO. But, in 2006, Pandemic (in one of its fits of brilliance) joined Bioware. EA had to get both in a package deal. Who would buy an independent Pandemic ? Someone who could afford 200+ salaries (probably at least $25-35mil per year burn rate), rent in an expensive part of Los Angeles, and no profitable games since 2006? Investors aren't angels, they're businessmen.

Pandemic was fun, while it lasted. It definitely had its faults. All companies do. I'd say the biggest problem was that the management style of the company didn't change much from 20 people with two independent teams to ~400 people on two continents working on 6 games with ~4.5 different engines (At its peak in early 2008). With big teams, management faults are magnified, not reduced.

Disclaimer: I voluntarily left Pandemic 2 days before EA dropped the hammer. I don't know if anything changed in those last two days.

-- GSH

Was Pandemic not managing their time or resources efficiently? It seems that LOTR and Mercs2 suffered from a lot of the same problems.