When EA opened its new DICE studio in LA, the potato-clock specu-la-trons industry soothsayers have wired to their knees went haywire, pointing their toes in the direction of the publisher’s recently-acquired Star Wars license.
In reality, DICE LA are destined to play a supportive role, while core development of all of DICE’s upcoming games – Battlefield 4, Mirror’s Edge 2, Star Wars Battlefront – remains in Sweden.
DICE LA was set up in the ruins of EA’s Danger Close studio – “dismantled” along with the Medal of Honor series – by a crack leadership team sent from Stockholm.
“We will support a lot of what’s made in Stockholm from LA,” DICE CEO Patrick Söderlund told Eurogamer. “Imagine stuff like potential expansion packs and premium services being managed and handled out of LA. But the main game, Battlefront, is being built in Sweden. And so is Mirror’s Edge. And so is Battlefield 4.
Söderlund views the new LA outfit as a means to “expand the DICE universe” from the sidelines, at least for the time being: “They are helping. Who knows where this will take them long term? Right now they’re focused on helping.
“In Sweden we are floors eight, nine and ten,” he elaborated. “They are the eleventh floor, just in LA. Frankly, it’s about talent. Where can we find the right talent and people we think have critical skills we need? When you’re in Sweden, Stockholm is a gigantic gaming city with DICE and Mojang and all the other companies, but we realised we needed to extend our reach if we wanted to get to the breadth of talent we wanted.
“We also thought we could export some of the good things about DICE into here. Since the DICE LA announcement we had a lot of pressure on that studio from people who want to come work there. And after E3, as you can probably imagine, there will be more.”
How would you like to see the DICE universe expanded? Battlefield 3 has had five separate DLC expansions to date. More of them? Or something else?
Thanks, Spong.