EA buys IronMonkey Studios

I reckon It's good for the local industry to have a strong EA presence, and IM will literally be the jewel in EA's currently most valued indsutry (mobile/digital distribution).

It will be interesting to see what happens between IM and Visceral in the coming months. But this has secured EA's pesence in the local industry for the medium to long term IMO.

Exciting times for those both within and outside of IM.

In pre-emptive memoriam.

IronMonkey make excellent mobile ports of EA's top titles and their games consistently review and sell well. They have nothing to worry about. EA are buying a quality studio, simple as that.

Maybe some of the posters here have spent a little too much time out of the industry and are out of touch. EA may have a chequered past but they are doing things differently these days.

Congratulations IronMonkey Studios

Congratulations Iron Monkey people!

Well done on The Sims. Will keep an eye out for your future games.

It's easy to put dirt on EA since Pandemic, the credit crunch and various other significant moves. There were also MANY other factors which contributed to the Pandemic closure, not just EA flipping a coin so comparing IM to Pandemic is like comparing apples and oranges.

As stated above, IM are in a different market within games and have had very recent major successes. EA is showing a move towards the casual gamer and diversifying it's portfolio. There are many Gamasutra articles discussing EA's current position as well as their intentions. If anything we're more informed about what they're up to now more than ever.

With every bust comes a boom, here's hoping this is the baby steps towards that. Best of luck to Iron Monkey, just keep keeping on :)

Since they're now owned by EA, when the inevitable happens at least they'll get looked after, unlike those who lost their jobs at other places in recent months.

Would anybody know if Iron Monkey uses Max or Maya for their 3d content?

... and they'll be gone. Why EA keep doing this is beyond me.

I can understand why people have concerns about the purchase of IM. They're fairly legitimate, considering EA's history of buyouts and closures. There certainly have been some notable studios that have been bought and closed over the years.

The thing is, EA is a corporation, and it's all about the bottom line. It doesn't matter if you were the developer that initially started the Need for Speed series and continued the series sequel after sequel for seven iterations. If the crunch is around and trimming the fat is needed, the only thing saving your neck from the chopping block is how well your last game sold.

EA does not hold loyalties to any internal studios, and in a business sense, it makes no sense to do so. Hey, even Activision recently closed down Guitar Hero's RedOctane. Ruthless business decisions like these are probably why publishers like EA and Activision are as big as they are in the first place.

I'm not alone with the thought that IM are one of the top mobile/handset game developers in the world right now, and EA now have themselves a prime and proven studio for that space. For IM, they get job security and I'd imagine a continuous flow of work. I thought IM had the potential to go at it alone and do some incredible stuff with some original IP, but considering the current climate and the risk of betting the bank on an original title or two, it's a hard decision to make. While the takeovers in the past, such as the case of Melbourne House and Blue Tongue, were met with a huge sigh of relief, as the cash flow really helped those fledgling (at the time) studios (well, initially for the former), I think this situation is notably different in comparison. IM didn't need saving.

But I'm surprised no one has considered whether this buyout is good or bad for the Australian games industry itself. Does the lion's share from the profit of the games produced here just head overseas, or was that the case anyway since IM were mainly doing work-for-hire anyway? Should IM be happy to settle for an overseas publisher and the security that that brings, or has a studio with even *greater* potential just been lost?