I was working at Pandemic Brisbane for about 3 months before we merged with BioWare and Elevation Partners invested 300 million into the company. Two years later Pandemic and BioWare were sold to Electronic Arts for about 800 million. About 18 months later the Brisbane studio was shut down. Today the LA studio has also been shut down. Read about it here.
It’s interesting to note that John Riccitello left EA in 2004 to form Elevation to buy Pando/BioWare to then go back to EA in 2007 and buy Pando/BioWare from Elevation. According to this article he made 4.9 million from the deal (the second time)

And the image up the top? Well the high point on the left is when Pandemic was bought at $60 a share. And it’s been an impressive ski slope ever since.

Pandemic Brisbane closed it’s doors yesterday.

I joined at the start of DAH2 and in the four years I was there I experienced the best working environment that I’ve ever known. If there are better teams and better people out there then I pray I find them one day.

At the end of DAH2 when THQ took the license back, The Bravo Team picked their name first so we became known as the Alpha Team. We moved upstairs, Bravo started up their game and we just kept working. That first 9 months of pitching and experimenting and trying to nail the game idea was amazing. It changed the way I work, the way I look at the job. The respect we had for one another was impressive. That doesn’t just happen. It’s built, day by day.

I equate it to a band that just kept playing, every month we got better. You’d know how every person would play. You’d know how everyone could shine. We got tight and the product was amazing. One day people will see it. And it’ll be seen for what it is. The best game we’ll all never finish.

Your faithful tech.

MattD

I was asleep. I’ve come into work this morning to hand in my leave form. It’s been a long year since I left Krome. I’ve been crunching since the E3 build back at the end of April. Doing between 60 to 80 hours a week. Working most weekends. As an artist on the team I made almost no art. Focusing instead on wrangling the vast quantity of data the rest of the art team generated. I’ve lost a few friends. I hardly see my family. I think I pushed my relationship a little too far. But I am proud of the work that I’ve done. I just have shell shock at the moment.

I only got a chance to play the game with some distance last week. I’ve never enjoyed one of my own games so much. Would have preferred to make it without the personal sacrifice but it is an amazingly funny piece of work.

It’ll be on shelves at the end of October. Hopefully before the PS3. This will be the last PS2 game that I ever make. I think we’ve left that console with a fitting goodbye.

In crazy, I didn’t expect it news. It looks like I’ll be giving a talk at the Tokyo Game Show while I’m there. I’ll be delivering a speech on the Queensland games Industry. They needed someone and I’ll be there, so I get to wear the hat. I have a new laptop so I feel very tech’d up for the task.

For everyone who enjoyed my live coverage of E3, you’ll be happy to now that I’ll be doing the same for my trip to japan. I can’t wait.

More later

Matt the monkey