EA proposes Harry Potter dev closure

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 14 October, 2011

Consultation process begins at Bright Light.

EA intends to close down Harry Potter developer Bright Light.

A consultation process with staff has begun at the Guildford-based studio, Eurogamer sister site GamesIndustry.biz reports.

"After a review of all current and future projects, Electronic Arts has started a formal consultation process with its Bright Light employees over the proposed closure of the studio," said EA.

"The proposed changes will help centralize development on future projects, reduce development costs and will allow for better knowledge and talent sharing within the organization."

EA will try to relocate staff, it said.

"Employees that are impacted will be considered for positions at other EA Studios including those in the UK.

"The UK is a vital centre of game development for EA and we intend to maintain a strong presence here."

It appears Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 will be Bright Light's final game.

Eurogamer's Deathly Hallows part 2 review conjured up a 4/10.

"Devotees may still play along, through fandom obligation if nothing else," wrote reviewer Dan Whitehead, "but there's no spell that can change the fact that Harry Potter's videogame saga ends with a whimper rather than a bang."

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (27) Latest comment 4 months ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • homerramone #1 4 months ago

    EA you are truly a pack of bastards

  • Steve2911 #2 4 months ago

    "Their biggest selling series has ended and they are of no further use to us. BYE!"

  • Shadders #3 4 months ago

    Dammit! :(

    Feel sorry for all those who are at risk. The last two Potter games did suck nuts though, should have stuck to the format of Order of the Phoenix and Half Blood Prince.

  • SheffAl #4 4 months ago

    Isn't this normal for EA and the like? Buy a developer then axe them a few years down the line.
    Edited by 1 at 14/10/11 @ 14:17

  • mashk #5 4 months ago

    How can you close and fail
    How can the light that burned so brightly
    Suddenly burn so pale?
    Bright Light

  • syra #6 4 months ago

    This is pretty common tbh at the end of a development cycle once their contracts are up, for underperforming stuidos.

    It's for the best after the trash they put out, maybe they will find new studios where they can learn to make a decent game, or start their own more innovative homes as alot of good devs are wont to do.

  • darleysam #7 4 months ago

    It doesn't help their cause that they've made some pretty terrible games, lately. Obviously we don't know why this is the case, bad studio or badly run by EA, either is viable. It's a shame to see it closed down with the unemployment that comes with it, but hopefully they can reduce as much of that damage as necessary, and hopefully we'll get some cool new indie studios spring up out of this too.

  • emhaslam92 #8 4 months ago

    I wish the Government would hurry up and sort out some tax-breaks for the gaming industry in the UK.

  • Cobalt_Jackal #9 4 months ago

    I guess their light wasn't so bright.

  • chris_ace #10 4 months ago

    Post deleted at 11:55:13 13-12-2011

  • Stagga #11 4 months ago

    Very sad news for the area and UK games dev once again. Good luck to all those affected by this.

  • haowan #12 4 months ago

    This is actually the studio that Bullfrog became. So, end of the line for one of the finest game devs in all history.

  • glottis0 #13 4 months ago

    @haowan - that's not really true. A few of the guys stayed on through...but probably about 3% of the workforce.

  • cnlfailure #14 4 months ago

    I also feel sorry for the guys who worked on the films who now have to go find something else to do after the series finished.

  • zegerman1942 #15 4 months ago

    Shame about the people that work there, but this is what happens when you make games that are not up to scratch. It's a tough on the studio and people involved, but it's a business decission. Codemasters did the same last month with their guildford studio after Bodycount. Any other publisher would (and has) done the same. It's not like only EA closes shops. (i.e. what about Team Bondi/Rockstar)

  • HL706 #16 4 months ago

    A period of consultation, in my experience, usually means a long drawn out process of beauracracy that gives false hope to staff - before ultimately ending in redundancy's for all!

    Hope the devs affected land on their feet :)

  • abot #17 4 months ago

    "The UK is a vital centre of game development for EA..."


    You have a funny way of showing that EA.

  • Donaldthescotishtwin #18 4 months ago

    The only good games were Harry potter 1 and 2 on the PS1

  • Mister-Wario #19 4 months ago

    I always wished that we had a really good Harry Potter game. The first one on PC was actually pretty good, but the problem was it merely cherry-picked a few random scenes from the book and it just felt really undernourished.

    I'd like a game where you could get the real Harry Potter experience. Start off from near the very beginning on Dudley's birthday where you learn the gameplay ropes, and then go to Diagon Alley, and then off to Hogwarts. From there, you go to classes regularly, learn and improve your spells. Then at night you sneak around the school, uncovering secrets and avoiding teachers. Then have the epic showdown with Voldemort.

    I mean, to cover all the books you'd probably need about 7 or 8 discs, but still.

  • ToAks #20 4 months ago

    as much as i hate seeing studios close...

    Bright light haven't done a single good games in years, the last 2 harry games and that shite they hyped to be a LBP killer named CREATE, Spare parts could have been a nice game but it had no magic feel to it sadly :(

    Before 2008 , thats a diffrent story.
    they've created many of my all time favorite games but that was under the names of Bullfrog and Criterion.

    No idea what went wrong with the them, and IMO they should have done something after that last harry potter game as that was a huge let down and yet they managed to put out another one which ended up beeing even crappier :(

    So many UK studios beeing closed atm, it's really sad :/




  • shadowdogg #21 4 months ago

    Expecto closeium!

  • LetsGo #22 4 months ago

    zGerman, isn't that a little harsh? Do you know what game to movie tie ins are like? Often extremely poor. Surely the success of the studio are down to time, budget and management most of the time?

    If they were only given a short amount of time to work on it as they probably wanted it out for the film release, its a little harsh stating 'bad game, sack the developers'?

  • rudedudejude #23 4 months ago

    I'm sure they delivered as best a game they could given the timeframe. remember the last great movie tie in game you played? Ummmmm....

  • zegerman1942 #24 4 months ago

    LetsGo: i am not blaming the developer at all. I am just saying from a business point of view it's not a surprising decission. In this particular case i would guess that the developer was under more pressure with regards to the game being a movie tie in. But, as someone else said, after the title before the last Harry Potter, the pressure was on them to deliver something better, and they did not.

    I don't think that anyone expects a movie tie in to be an 10/10 game, but an average 4/10 review is just not good enough. If you were EA, what would you give them to do next? What would you trust them with?

  • RodimusPrime13 #25 4 months ago

    I personally think a lot of the failures of the last two potter games has to due with ea over the developers. Why shadows is the damned. Both games had unstackable achievements which force you to play the game 3 times. Both games don't have a level select so you can replay a level. Another problem was on the 360 kinect was just shoehorned in as a bonus feature for the challenge levels. For a game to really work with kinect it has to fully use kinect. And the last potter games where nicknamed spellers. That tells me the games are moving the wrong way. The last two had to be different then the others since the story demanded it so a full kinect/move implication would of been ideal.

  • Lord_BeeJee #26 4 months ago

    Can't see no harm in closing a dev that only makes shite games.

  • Stifler #27 4 months ago

    @Lord_BeeJee you're an idiot.

    Perhaps the games were not as good as they could have been but as is always the case with EA i'm sure there were a lot of external influences that made it such, having worked with EA before I know this first hand.

    Regardless, surely the title itself must have sold well? It's Potter for petes sake!