EA Shuts Down SimCity Developer Maxis

Posted on March 4, 2015

Electronic Arts has shut down Maxis Emeryville, the central studio behind SimCity and The Sims.

News of this comes from Guillaume Pierre who announced the studio’s closure on his Twitter.

Official word from EA was issued to Kotaku, who posted the following statement:

Today we are consolidating Maxis IP development to our studios in Redwood Shores, Salt Lake City, Helsinki and Melbourne locations as we close our Emeryville location. Maxis continues to support and develop new experiences for current Sims and SimCity players, while expanding our franchises to new platforms and developing new cross-platform IP.

These changes do not impact our plans for The Sims. Players will continue to see rich new experiences in The Sims 4, with our first expansion pack coming soon along with a full slate of additional updates and content in the pipeline.

All employees impacted by the changes today will be given opportunities to explore other positions within the Maxis studios and throughout EA. For those that are leaving the company, we are working to ensure the best possible transition with separation packages and career assistance.

For more on Maxis, check out Gaming Trend’s review of 2013’s SimCity.