10 Video Game Studios Killed By Electronic Arts

The closing quarter of 2017 has gotten increasingly weird. Middle Earth: Shadow of War's loot boxes stirred up a lot of debate, and NBA's micro-transactions are downright criminal. Star Wars: Battlefront II's pay-to-win system and Activision's freaky dystopian patents are chief offenders, too.

And as if anyone needed any further proof that we truly live in the darkest timeline, the entire plot of Half Life 3 was leaked earlier this year - essentially confirming that the title will never see the light of day. It's in times like these we look to the skies for a hero, a beacon of hope to guide us in these dark times and give us the strength to trudge onward into 2018 with our heads held high...

Said beacon of hope did most certainly not come in the form of Electronic Arts, who - surprise surprise! - shut down another studio this year, throwing Visceral Games' bloodied and beaten carcass onto their already impressively tall mountain of victims.

Yet Peter Moore thinks it's "ridiculous" EA have been voted the Worst Company in America several times over the past decade. Well maybe if you stopped murdering poor, defenceless, well-loved studios, everyone wouldn't hate you as much, Peter.

Bullfrog Productions was founded by Peter Molyneux after he was given several Amiga systems by Commodore International (they mistook his company "Tauros" for a networking producer of a similar name). Seven years later, his new company, Bullfrog Productions, released their first original title, Fusion, and went on to develop Syndicate, the Theme Park series and the Dungeon Keeper series.

Bullfrog was bought by EA in 1995 and Molyneux was made a VP and head of their European studio. Everything seemed on the up and up, but beneath the surface everything was far from hunky-dory.

Following their purchase, several of Bullfrog's employees became dissatisfied with EA's form of management, with lead designer Mark Healey comparing it to working in a "chicken factory."

One of the aforementioned employees was Molyneux himself, who resigned from Bullfrog following a drunken email he sent to EA's higher-ups. Several other employees followed suit and went on to form their own studios, such as Little Big Planet developer, Media Molecule.

Eventually the studio was merged with EA UK after they published their last game, Theme Park Inc. in 2001 - just after the cancellation of Dungeon Keeper 3.

EA have since revisited both the Dungeon Keeper and Theme Park series by releasing rubbish pay-to-play freemium remakes. Because of course they have.