EA is shutting down Maxis Emeryville, the developers behind SimCity and Spore, and the main studio of the Maxis brand.
In a statement from the publisher, EA clarifies that The Sims 4 is still being worked on, and they will be moving work to the other subsidiaries under the Maxis brand.
Today we are consolidating Maxis IP development to our studios in Redwood Shores, Salt Lake City, Helsinki and Melbourne locations as we close our Emeryville location. These changes do not impact our plans for The Sims. Players will continue to see rich new experiences in The Sims 4, with our first expansion pack coming soon along with a full slate of additional updates and content in the pipeline.
Work on The Sims franchise was mostly done at the EA Redwood City campus, also known as “The Sims Studio.”
Still, everyone that worked at the Emeryville location will have to find other jobs. News first trickled out from Daniel Willis of BeyondSims, which is a site that covers everything Sims related. He posted tweets from former employees like Guillaume Pierre, which emphasized that he and everyone else were “out of a job.”
The disastrous release of the SimCity reboot contributed to the shutdown. The game was plagued with a buggy online experience from the beginning, and never gained traction with the gaming community.
There’s been no clarification on whether former employees will move to the other locations. It’s always rough news to hear about developers losing their jobs, and especially when it comes during an event like GDC.
