ARTICLES
CONSOLODATION: ONE YEAR ON

By: Cabal, April 2004

I thought I would post a message reminding people that today is the one year anniversary of the date that Westwood Studios closed its doors. The consolodation was announced earlier in 2003, however March 31 was the official end of Westwood Studios.

The consolodation brought sadness for many people both inside and outside the C&C Community, from all around the world. Westwood Studios brought us the C&C series, which became one of the most popular games series ever. It also brought us great titles such as Earth and Beyond, Lands of Lore, Kyrandia and Nox. It found a special place in the hearts and minds of millions.

It should have been obvious that something was wrong as early on as March 2002. In march 2002 Joe Kucan and a few other people quit Westwood Studios, followed shortly by a team from EA deciding that some more people needed to leave - so they fired them. Not long afterwards Brett Sperry "went onto sabbatical".

With regards to the games. Before 2003 the Westwood Studios logo was a prominent feature on the box of every game. By 2003 it was very small on the bottom corner. Earth and Beyond didn't even mention Westwood Studios on the box at all. Also in the game manual for Pirates : The legend of Black Kat Westwood Studios were not mentioned anywhere apart from "Special thanks to the following people at Westwood Studios" in the credits section.

It is clear that EA decided that Westwood were very successful and wanted to bring them together to save money and also bring the C&C series under the EA GAMES banner. This may have been good for logistical purposes, but how many people did you hear say "Wow... theres a new games coming out from EA". Nobody. Whenever Westwood were due to release a new game there was a lot of excitement. I even heard a few people in various games shops talking about "The latest westwood game" or "The next Westwood Game"

The consolodation also meant job loss for many people, including Frank Klepacki, Eric Gooch and Joe Bostic, among others. Even some of the key members of Westwood Studios were not offered a place at EALA, while others turned it down because they just didn't want to move. Even some members of Westwood Pacific (EA Pacific) were unhappy about things and resigned before the move to EALA.

Support went downhill quite quickly following the consolodation. I understand that EA are very busy, but Westwood Studios community support was 1st class. They always listened to the fans, always helped the community. Now they have Mike Murphy (EAComMike) in control of a few games communities. Westwood had 2 community managers just working on the C&C Community - whereas Mike has to do the work on his own. He has a lot to live up to - and seems to be managing ok at the moment. I hope he manages to help things as well as Chris Rubyor.

For a while Glenn Burtis (Col Burt) was working on the community. He has left EALA in the last few months. He did tell me for a long time before that he was worried about his job after Mike Murphy was brought into the picture and it seems that he was right to be worried.

There is nothing we can do to change the past. All we can do is remember the greatness that was. The era of Westwood Studios which was brought to an end too soon.

However the future may not be bad. There is bound to be a new C&C game in the works somewhere. Delphi (Chris Rubyor) is now in the Design Department at EALA, and he knows more than anybody what the fans want. The team that worked on Red Alert 2 and Generals are currently working on Lord of The Rings: Battle for Middle Earth. I have seen some footage from this game and it looks like it could be the game of the year!

Take some time to remember Westwood Studios - the company that started it all, but also take some time to look forward to the future. The future's bright. The future's EALA. Lol.

For some photos that are exclusive to CnCWorld about the End of Westwood Studios go here.
If you want to read some profiles of Westwood Staff members they can be found on this page.
Also - for our Westwood Visit Reports go to this section

http://www.westwood.com.
Westwood Studios R.I.P.