Gamasutra - News - EA Announces Increased Net Loss, Confirms 1,500 Layoffs
This could cause a lot of planned games to get cancelled. I hope it won't touch Dead Space 2 or Mass Effect 2. I doubt it will since those have been officially announced. It does appear though that 12 un-announced projects have been cancelled. It's too bad too since EA was finally coming around and putting out some very awesome games not to mention all the devs who won't have a very good Christmas or will spend it looking for work. I tip my hat to EA for trying something new and trying to appeal to a different audience. Games like Dead Space and Mass Effect to name a few only come along once in a great while.
Then they turn around and buy some other company for 300 million? Sorta odd. EA needs to get into agreements with Steam and Direct2Drive type sites b/c that is where the PC money is being made. Even I have started making small purchases of somewhat dated games on D2D. I haven't yet made a major purchase on D2D b/c I still like unwrapping a new game and opening it up for the first time. However I think those days might be coming to an end. Besides there are sequels to some well known games that never hit the shelves but are available for download.
I'm not a big fan of Steam but I do like Direct2Drive's format and business model and the fact that I alone own the game, the CD-key, and as long as D2D is in business I can quickly find the keys to all my games online - AND I can re-download them via their nifty download manager at any time. It's all so automatic and easy and it works.