Yesterday, job listings revealed that Activision is building an all-new games studio in the San Francisco Bay Area. Late today came a report that the megapublisher, one half of Activision Blizzard, has successfully wooed two senior developers away from its archrival, Bay Area-headquartered Electronic Arts.
According to sources close to Electronic Arts, this afternoon the staff of Visceral Games were informed that the internal studio, formerly known as EA Redwood Shores, was losing two of its senior members--general manager Glen Schofield and COO Michael Condrey. The pair then reportedly let it be known they were going to work at Activision's new studio, which remains unnamed.
Schofield is best-known for being the driving force behind Dead Space, which was pitched internally to EA executives by a group of dedicated developers. Most recently, he has been promoting Visceral's upcoming project, Dante's Inferno.
As of press time, neither EA nor Activision corporate communications reps had responded to requests for comment. However, a source which wished to remain anonymous told GameSpot that today's news capped several weeks of rumors of the pair's departure. These were fueled by intense recruiting by Activision of many staffers at Visceral, which had just been rebranded as EA's core gamer label earlier this year. "It's not a very happy day here," said the source.
I---- If Already posted, lock the thread. Just noticed that on Gamespot.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6213771.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;1
