RIP EA Casual: EA merges Casual Studios, Hasbro partnership with Sims label

When it rains, it pours. EA has gone ahead and closed down their Casual Label, merging it and their Hasbro partnership with the Sims Label. EA Mobile, Pogo, Media Sales and Online Casual Initiatives will also be merged but there is still no word on where they’ll end up.

Still bloodied from the US$ 310 million dollar net loss they incurred back in Q2 of this year, EA has gone ahead and closed their Casual Label, merging it and their Hasbro partnership with their Sims Label.

They issued a statement to Kotaku on this matter, saying:

We’ve learned a lot about casual entertainment in the past two years, and found that casual gaming defies a single genre and demographic. With the departure of Kathy Vrabeck, EA is reorganizing to integrate casual games — development and marketing — into other divisions of our business. We are merging our Casual Studios, Hasbro partnership, and Casual marketing organization with The Sims Label to be a new Sims and Casual Label, where there is a deep compatibility in the product design, marketing and demographics.

The remaining elements of the, now defunct, EA Casual Label are EA Mobile, Pogo, Media Sales and Online Casual Initiatives. EA mentioned that they remain “growth priorities” and will be given strong support in whatever group they will eventually land in.

Fairly depressing news though at least this probably means Sims 3 will get little content and support. I look forward to playing Monopoly with my adulterous obsessive-compulsive Space Pirate Sim next year. Hang in there, guys.

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Via Kotaku