In spite of the abrupt severing of ties between EA and the Canadian Digital Illusions CE earlier this fall, there are no hard feelings. The former head of DICE Canada, Fredrik Liliegren, said that he understood why EA and to shut down operations and pointed to his former company not fitting into EA,s mold as reason. His comments were made to GameIndustry.
Liliegren said, "I understand the decision that was taken by EA. The principals behind it are in line with their strategic objectives of centralizing talent to maximize the creative output. In light of that, DICE Canada did not fit within the mold of what EA wants to do and how EA wants to do things."
The DICE Canada’s former leader bounced back from the situation and started a new game art company with several of his former employees. The new business is named Red Jade, and among their first clients will be none other than EA. Liliegren said, "I saw great opportunity to create a really great company, and at the same time being able to participate in a number of different games rather than one game at a time, so I built a business plan and executed it when EA took their decision [to close our studio]."
Liliegren saw the positioning of his company as the wave of the future for big game developers who need to outsource their projects because of limited talent in-house. "A company can only be so good at one thing, so I think we will see a lot more of a specialist development happening, where the creative aspect will happen in one spot then they will bring on the talent as needed. At this point I see art being the ‘easy, one to ‘hire, in, but I think we will start to see technology–middleware–being much more prominent as well."
