The firing of the development team shows. The launch has been a terrible failure. Go Army.

Ouch.. I got a lot of friends over there. Here's hoping for greener pastures for all of them. With UT3 engine game development experience, I think most of them can land better gigs. They've got lots of talent.

I was in their office for 7 hours one day, and I have to say that they seemed like a talented bunch but... The Army appointed managers were unable to deflect the mountain of problems that are created when the ultimate bosses have never made a game product.

I think all the game production people will find jobs easily... the others, should find non-game work easy enough.

I talk all about this in my blog!

http://aboutmakinggames.blogspot.com/

Mac

Development costs in California are much higher than Alabama (wages, building rent, utilities, corporate taxes, business licenses, the list goes on), and even the Army has to watch its budget.

There is also the social issue. Emeryville is right next to Berkeley, which has had a lot of protest activity and other impediments directed against military recruiting offices, ROTC programs, etc. These impediments are fully backed up by the Berkeley "city fathers". Speculation: the Army probably doesn't feel particularly welcome, and in a situation like that and given a cheaper alternative, it's probably a factor in making the decision.

The real victims here are, of course, the game's Emeryville developers. Here's hoping they land a gig where they are welcomed.

@Lance, I was there... I would be shocked to learn that being in Emeryville and close to Berkeley was a factor. The pay scale was below industry standards and people still stayed.

Mac


http://aboutmakinggames.blogspot.com/

The truth is that there's just not a lot of jobs right now, talented w/ experience or no. It's almost easier to find work if you're NOT so experienced (lower salary requirement!)

It always burns to think of people killing themselves to get a product out the door, and then to be "rewarded" with a pink slip - that's the risk you take in the games biz, especially these days. Hopefully 2010 will be better for everyone - good luck guys!

Well, I know for a fact that many of the artists were getting seriously low-balled in the pay. Lots of them were working for years with shitty pay. Some worked for months without any pay under an "internship". Yet they were working on some crucial "non-internship" game type work. Years ago, I turned down a rigging position with them when they told me the salary-rate.

I say, f*ck the Army. The guys in charge(not the dev team) didn't care about the development team anyways. There are plenty of better studios out there. It's all about "quality of life" over just getting any job, regardless of jobs being scarce.

Here's your update. The game is totally ganked. It is non-functional junk code sitting on your PC. It is sad how the Army has mismanaged this golden opportunity to game goodwill in the attractive gaming community pool of talented men and women. The AA3 is fubar.

I've kept up with this game, as I'm a long-time fan of the series. TBH, I doubt anyone will get any conclusive behind-the-scenes look at why this launch was so horrible. Speaking independently of that, the game launched is bum. The code communicates with the army's servers every time you make a mouse click, it seems, which overloaded them. The launch went about as smooth as a bull in a china shop thanks to lack of foresight on just how many people would be interested. They've lost a lot of ground, but if the army has anything, it's patience. AA2.0 wasn't exactly a thrilling, smooth launch either. But the game has become one of the best due to that diligence.
If a studio had made a game this horrible, I really can't say I'm surprised it was closed. The army isn't one to allow overruns on deadlines and the like, and it seems they just didn't have what it took to get the job done. Fortunately, patches are coming fast and furiously, and seem to be fixing the major issues for now. Remains to be seen how it performs in the future.