The closure of Visceral games was an economic decision said EA’s Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen. Speaking at the Credit Suisse 21st Annual Technology conference in Arizona, Jorgensen also spoke about player’s appetites and making money on games.
Visceral has reduced in size in recent years according to Jorgensen and was below EA’s expectations for a AAA studio. The smaller size of Visceral was part of the reason EA Vancouver and Motive came on board. However, Jorgensen said that despite Visceral building something that was going to “push gameplay to the next level,” EA realised it wouldn’t be able to recoup costs on the game.
Jorgensen claimed that the game, Project Ragtag, was looking like a linear game and that “people don’t like as much today as they did five years ago or ten years ago.” Staff from Visceral are being redeployed where they can be said Jorgensen and he mentioned EA is “trying to keep as many as they can.”
He also admitted that development on Project Ragtag probably progressed further than it should have given its cancellation and closure of Visceral.
