EA Pacific
American video game company
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
EA Pacific (initially the internal American development divisions of Mastertronic and Virgin Games, then Burst Studios and Westwood Pacific) was a video game developer formally owned by Virgin Interactive's North American operations, and was based in Irvine, California.
Virgin Mastertronic International (1989–1991)
Virgin Games, Inc. (1991–1993)
Virgin Interactive Entertainment, Inc. (1993–1995)
Burst Studios (1995–1998)
Westwood Pacific (1998–2003)
| Formerly | Mastertronic International Inc. (1986–1989) Virgin Mastertronic International (1989–1991) Virgin Games, Inc. (1991–1993) Virgin Interactive Entertainment, Inc. (1993–1995) Burst Studios (1995–1998) Westwood Pacific (1998–2003) |
|---|---|
| Company type | Subsidiary |
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | 1995 |
| Defunct | 2003 |
| Fate | Dissolved, operation merged into EA Los Angeles |
| Successor | Danger Close Games |
| Headquarters | Irvine, California |
| Parent | Mastertronic (1986–1988) Virgin Mastertronic (1989–1991 Virgin Interactive North America (1991–1998) Westwood Studios (1998–2003) |
The company was initially founded in 1986 as a subsidiary of Mastertronic, and Randall Masteller was the first programmer hired at the studio.[1] Masteller was later hired by Graeme Devine, who was a close friend of Masteller.[2] Over time, the company hired more employers like Darren Bartlett, David Perry and John Botti, all of these Virgin development executives had left to form their own studios.[3][4] The development division then adopted the Burst name in 1995 as recommended by producer Neil Young.[5]
Burst Studios was beset by production problems during its early years; Virgin Interactive's president of worldwide publishing, Brett W. Sperry, commented in 1997, "The way the Burst studio was structured made a lot of sense on paper, but for a variety of reasons, it wasn't delivering product at the end of the day."[6] Burst Studios was acquired by Electronic Arts together with Westwood Studios and Virgin's North American publishing operations in August 1998.[7] The company was later renamed to Westwood Pacific, under that name, the company developed or co-developed games like Nox and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2.
It was later renamed to EA Pacific. Some actual Westwood Studios employees were still working with the studio. One of the senior modelers, who worked on Command & Conquer (1995), was part of the Command & Conquer: Generals (2003) team.[8]
EA Pacific was absorbed into EA Los Angeles in 2003. Some employees then went to Petroglyph Games.
Technology
EA started development on a new 3D engine in 2001, commonly known as the Strategy Action Game Engine (SAGE). It was based on Westwood Studios's W3D engine, which was in turn a major modification of the SurRender 3D engine developed by Hybrid Graphics Ltd.[9] Westwood first used W3D on their first-person shooter Command & Conquer: Renegade and their massively multiplayer online role-playing game Earth & Beyond.[10][11]
The first game utilizing this engine would be Command & Conquer: Generals, which would be developed under EA Pacific and finished by EA Los Angeles. The updated SAGE engine allowed for dynamic lighting that would cast realistic shadows and reflections on most objects, as well as higher quality visual effects and a stop-motion camera feature. The SAGE engine would continue to be used by EA Los Angeles on additional titles in the Command & Conquer series and on the real-time strategy series The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth.
With the release of later Command & Conquer (Command & Conquer 3 and onwards, the engine underwent a large overhaul of its major systems. Major upgrades included support for the PlayStation 3, an upgrade of the renderer to RNA, dynamic environmental music, and numerous minor internal improvements. A common misconception was that the new engine itself was called RNA when in fact RNA only referred to the renderer. The last title to use the SAGE engine was Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight.
Games
Cancelled
- Freak Boy