In what seems to be a recent trend, another pair of game developers to leave the huge publisher that is EA. This time it is Joe Wee and Chris Byatte who founded Chillingo back in 2005. EA bought Chillingo in 2010 for $20 million and had Joe Wee and Chris Byatte stay on as a director and manager. Now they have left both EA and Chillingo itself to pursue other endeavors.
As I mentioned above, Joe Wee and Chris Byatte are just the latest to leave EA, others have done so as well. This includes PopCap’s (Of Plants Vs. Zombies) chief ,Dave Roberts, and Criterion’s two founders, Alex Ward and Fiona Sperry. Even “weirder” is that this is the third loss of big studio heads in less than a weeks time. Public opinion of EA is rather glim already but them losing some rather influential studio founders may bode even worse for them in upcoming times. We’ll keep you updated on all things EA and with Joe Wee and Chris Byatte’s upcoming projects.
